I Don't Have to Live This Way...

So, I'm at the end of yet another failed relationship. Probably the most spectacularly failed relationship of my life. I mean, how many breakups actually require you to move to another state with twenty minutes of notice?

So, I am back at my parents' house in small town Louisiana after making a sudden, mad dash from Little Rock, Arkansas where I had been living with my (now ex-) boyfriend. I am fully aware of the white-trashiness of that last sentence. I know that ninety percent of those reading this are envisioning me with a bleach blond perm and bandanna print tube top, living in a circa- 1980 single wide trailer. But that's really not how it was. Little Rock is actually a really nice city. It has an enormous amount of beautiful early twentieth century arts and crafts architecture and nice, intelligent people.

I'm sitting in my childhood bedroom that has since been converted to the office, drinking Franzia at one o'clock in the afternoon and lamenting the loss of my year and a half relationship. But its a weird feeling of sadness, mixed with excitement for the next part of my life. I feel free--if I had stayed with him I'd never have left Little Rock (as nice a city as it is, there simply is no opportunity for me there). But despite this, I am sad. He and I have had some amazingly fun times and there for a while, I honestly thought I could settle for life in Arkansas and be happy. It wasn't exactly what I wanted from life. But I thought, well life's never what you expect it to be...so maybe this is it. But the longer I was there and the more our relationship deteriorated, I more I realized that I was settling for something that would never make me happy. I realized that if I stayed, ten years from now, I would only resent him because I never had the chance to do what I wanted to with my life.

So here I am, back at home, trying to decide what to do next. Its an odd feeling to have all of your plans destroyed in less than a half an hour. But I'll make it through. And I'm sure as this relationship fades into my past, I'll have some funny stories to tell. (Like the airbrushed tiger t-shirt I got for Christmas.) Just give me some time. It's still too soon to be able to think about it too much.

Jailbird

My ex (the one who couldn't order wine), who I think I will call Clueless Ex from now on, was never exactly the most thoughtful person. When we went on vacation, he didn't book our room until about three days ahead of time, by which point there were no decent places to stay and we ended up in a crappy motel with uncomfortable beds. And then there was the time that he bought me a really nice earrings (really, they were gorgeous) for my birthday, but forgot that my ears weren't pierced. (He took me to get my ears pierced the next day, claiming that it was the second half of my present.) But this time, he really screwed himself over.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from a friend who was stuck in Bumfuck, Tennessee with Clueless Ex--because Clueless Ex was in jail! Apparently, while he was living in California (for about a year), he managed to get seven speeding tickets, none of which he paid. So, they suspended his license. I don't know if Clueless Ex didn't know this, or just didn't care, but whatever the reason, he was driving around with a suspended license. Well, he and some friends had gone up to Tennessee for a friend's bachelor party. Apparently, Ex acted like a dick the whole time they were there, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. On the way back home, he got pulled over and was arrested for driving with a suspended license. The thought of him in handcuffs makes me giggle like a little girl. The only thing that could have made it better was if they had kept him overnight.

While the whole idea of Clueless Ex being in jail fills me with glee, I think the more interesting part is the fact that he managed to forget to pay seven speeding tickets. I mean, who does that? How is it possible to forget to pay that many tickets? Or maybe he didn't pay them on purpose...did he think there wouldn't be any consequences? And also who gets seven speeding tickets in a year? I think that's a record. You would think that after about three tickets you would get the message that you need to slow your ass down. Tickets aren't cheap and neither is the inevitable increase in insurance (alliteration?) prices.

God, Clueless Ex is a dumbass.

Waiting on the World to Change

The Officer/Gentleman refuses to shop at Target. We visited the local Target when he first returned from Iraq to get towels and bathroom decor and being a Saturday afternoon at Target it was very crowded so we left the cart in the main aisle while we went to look at towels. Officer/Gentleman is slightly prissy about some things, including but not limited to his linens, the stripes on his shirts, his silverwear, the blanket on his bed, hotels he stays in, restaurants he eats in, bars he drinks in...pretty much everything, actually. So while he was choosing between aquamarine and turqouise towels, a Target Team Member saw his cart, assumed it was abandoned and reshelved the items in it.

When Officer/Gentleman returned (with no towels) to find his cart missing, he went ballistic and marched right up to the front of the store and demanded the store manager explain why his selections had been reshelved. The manager politely explained that Target Team Members were told to reshelf stock in abandoned carts to avoid having them blocking aisles. This pissed off Officer/Gentlemen so he told the manager we would never shop in Target again (speak for yourself, sweetheart, I still visit Target at least weekly--it's the Minnesnowta in me) and that we were only shopping at Wal-Mart from now on.

I enjoy the trip to Wal-Mart as much as the next Republican but everyone knows it isn't even in the same league as Target. I mean, I will wear clothes from Target. I own a pair of sweatpants from the Wal-Mart in Bedford because there wasn't a Target for 20 miles and it was the middle of the night and I was freezing. The Target store manager looked at us with the same contempt as if we had asked if salad was included in a prix fixe menu.

Months passed and Officer/Gentleman only shopped at Wal-Mart until one day when he was looking for some plastic storage drawers and they were on sale at Target. Officer/Gentleman's frugality outweighs his principle so we jumped in the Mustang and headed to Target (I think we were also just coming out of a major fight at this point and he was trying to make a concession by taking me to one of my favorite stores). He got his drawers and was happy and we could go to Target again.

Then one day, we went to Target to get a vacuum cleaner (he fired his housekeeping service out of a principle that I didn't exactly understand but at least he was making an effort to keep his apartment non-gross). As we were paying for the vacuum cleaner, he asked the Target Team Member checking us out if he could have a roll of quarters. She told him he'd have to go to customer service so we got in the customer service line. After waiting in line for ten minutes, we get to the counter and the Team Member informs us that it is corporate policy not to give out rolls of quarters.

Knowing him very well, I could see he was pissed off by this policy but he did not go apeshit like I would have expected, instead he put the vacuum cleaner on the counter and said "then I'd like to return this and may I have $10 of my refund in quarters." The Team Member told him credit card purchases can only be refunded to credit cards and this sent him over the edge (I was waiting). We stormed out of Target (without the vacuum cleaner) while he was loudly questioning how a store with such shitty customer service policies can stay in business.

Um...because they are not a bank???

CMS and RGB lament waitresses in fine dining establishments looking at them with contempt, but ladies, you have not experienced humiliation until that look of contempt has come from trailer trash wearing red Target shirt.

To my knowledge, he has still not been back to Target. He probably doesn't own a vacuum cleaner either. That's sad.

A story from Shrek

He no shit told me this once:

Shrek always had beef with Nordstrom, which was a problem for me, because it is one of my favorite stores. His beef stemmed from the following incident.

He was at the Nordstrom in Denver (I know, big vacay for his family). Anyway, a sales person in so many words told him to leave because there was nothing there for him. This still shocks me, and makes me wonder what atrocity he must have been wearing. I have been to nice stores dressed crappily, but never so much so that I was asked to leave.

Anyway, he decided that this called for retaliation. I think he was going for that scene in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts returns to the store which refused her service, and shows the bags upon bags of Versace which she purchased down the street. Anyway, he didin’t have the funds to pull this off, so he tried to fake it. He told her that he was the nephew of *insert name of some used car dealership guy on those tacky commercials all over Denver* and that he was looking to buy three suits to go to work with his uncle, but he would take his business elsewhere.

To this day it still amazes me that when he tries to not sound like PWT, he just sounds even more like PWT. How sad is it that the least trashy profession he could come up with was used car salesman. What a tool.

I wonder if he went to Applebees after that to drown his sorrows in a plate of riblets.