Topic 36C (A): It Ain't Easy Being Green
The final installment of Hell Week has commenced... Here is my first of six entries to round things out... May the Idol gods be kind and generous.
As I look back over the landscape of my “dating career,” it seriously resembles a burned out, dystopian wasteland. The charred remains of vehicles litter the road, the burned out husks of buildings threaten to crumble everywhere and as far as you can see, nothing is alive. I’m pretty certain that Mad Max and his cronies would feel right at home there. (and if that reference dates me, shut up about it)
My dating history really is a series of mistakes, bad decisions and horrendous judgments. Too many times, a friend (or as is more likely the case, my sister) would give me that “oooh really?” face after introducing them to my new girlfriend. They’d tell me that they could smell the psycho on her a mile away. It got to the point where a committee was formed consisting of my sister and a few friends who would “evaluate” my newest suitress for compatibility, intelligence and most importantly, non-craziness. Yeah, it wasn’t often that I heeded the advice of the committee.
And it was all TOO often I had to return to them, tail between my legs, head down to say, “Yeah, you were right. Again.”
Bastards.
There is one who rises above the rest though… the Gold Medal Winner of Crazy, if you please. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call her… Psycho.
See, I met Psycho when I was busy managing the Gondolas. She came in looking for a job, seemed reasonably nice and at the time, sane. I hired her and put her in the regular office rotation. She worked hard, did a good job, was funny and cool to be around.
I had a girlfriend that I was living with at the time and Psycho and I got to be good friends. The live-in girlfriend didn’t like her one bit. And told me that… often. Said she just got a bad vibe from her. As with the committee, I would shrug it off as paranoia and go on about my business. Well one day, Psycho brought me a gift. It was a Raiders ballcap. Being a big fan of the Raiders and of ballcaps, I thought it was a really nice, thoughtful gesture! Apparently, it had some hidden super-secret meaning in Girlworld that I was totally unaware of.
See, apparently in Girlworld, at least according to the ex-live-in girlfriend, a ballcap of one’s favorite team can be translated to… “I want to have hot, wildebeest sex with you.”
Huh. Who knew? Clearly, I needed to brush up on my Girl-ese.
So yeah… ex-live-in-girlfriend was beyond furious and Psycho was all smiles. Ex-live-in-girlfriend and I were on the downward slope of our relationship… no, it had nothing to do with Psycho… and eventually we called it quits. Well, Psycho was there to console me and help me pick up the pieces.
Yeah, you see where this is going, don’t you?
We were never in a relationship. I told her a billion and one times that I wasn’t ready for one and she said she understood and would be patient and in the meantime, we could do this other thing. Well, who am I to turn down this other thing? So yeah, that happened for a while.
Eventually, she started to want a more serious commitment than I was willing to give at the time… If jealousy is a green-eyed monster, Psycho was friggin’ Godzilla.
Well after I’d left Gondos, I was waiting tables in a new restaurant… I don’t recall ever telling her where I was working but voila, she’d show up unannounced and wait, sometimes more than an hour, for a table in my section. She’d question me about this waitress I was talking to or that waitress I was smiling at. She’d pester me and pester me the entire time she was there and would then keep pestering me with messages.
One night… it was Halloween, in fact. She wanted to do something but I begged off for a prior (and more fun, truth be told) commitment. I was getting ready to head to a friend’s party when I looked out the window and saw something strange… at the time, I lived in a cul de sac and if you’re familiar with cul de sac’s, you know that you can pretty much kiss any attempt at stealth goodbye. Well, I happened to see her driving by my place, headlights off doing that slow, creepy, stalker drive-by. She circled around the cul de sac and came back… because, that’s what you have to do in a place that dead ends like that.
I did the only thing I could think to do… I ducked down below the window. I heard her car stop, heard her get out, heard her feet coming up the walk, heard her knocking on the door… and still, I didn’t move. I barely took a breath until I heard her leave… which was roughly twenty minutes after she’d showed up to begin with! Apparently, the lights on and the loud music tipped her off to the fact that maybe I was inside.
I started getting really paranoid… where was she going to show up next? It seemed like no matter where I turned, she was there! I half-feared that she was going to be in the back seat of my car when I got in to go somewhere, pop out of my closet when I went to get dressed, jump out of the washing machine when I went to do some laundry. I kid you not, I was getting a little nervous about the whole thing!
So I did the only thing I thought I could do under the circumstances…. Kept seeing her, kept her happy and pacified and when I had a line on a new job and a new place to live, I bolted. No forwarding address, no new phone number, no new job notification, no nothing. I was a ghost, man.
For a long time I held my breath, waiting for the call or the knock on the door. Thankfully, it never came. I was free and I was liberated!
Until she found me on Facebook a year ago or so. Seeing the friend’s request sent chills down my spine and made me look over my shoulder again. I deleted the notification and all is right in the world again. And don't worry, pixie117... I know what a hat is code for now!
This has been my entry for therealljidol Season 8, Topic 36C(A): It Ain't Easy Being Green. As always, thank you so much for your continued support. I have no clue what sort of madness to expect but it should be interesting. Thank you, guys. You keeping me in this game means the world to me!
As I look back over the landscape of my “dating career,” it seriously resembles a burned out, dystopian wasteland. The charred remains of vehicles litter the road, the burned out husks of buildings threaten to crumble everywhere and as far as you can see, nothing is alive. I’m pretty certain that Mad Max and his cronies would feel right at home there. (and if that reference dates me, shut up about it)
My dating history really is a series of mistakes, bad decisions and horrendous judgments. Too many times, a friend (or as is more likely the case, my sister) would give me that “oooh really?” face after introducing them to my new girlfriend. They’d tell me that they could smell the psycho on her a mile away. It got to the point where a committee was formed consisting of my sister and a few friends who would “evaluate” my newest suitress for compatibility, intelligence and most importantly, non-craziness. Yeah, it wasn’t often that I heeded the advice of the committee.
And it was all TOO often I had to return to them, tail between my legs, head down to say, “Yeah, you were right. Again.”
Bastards.
There is one who rises above the rest though… the Gold Medal Winner of Crazy, if you please. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call her… Psycho.
See, I met Psycho when I was busy managing the Gondolas. She came in looking for a job, seemed reasonably nice and at the time, sane. I hired her and put her in the regular office rotation. She worked hard, did a good job, was funny and cool to be around.
I had a girlfriend that I was living with at the time and Psycho and I got to be good friends. The live-in girlfriend didn’t like her one bit. And told me that… often. Said she just got a bad vibe from her. As with the committee, I would shrug it off as paranoia and go on about my business. Well one day, Psycho brought me a gift. It was a Raiders ballcap. Being a big fan of the Raiders and of ballcaps, I thought it was a really nice, thoughtful gesture! Apparently, it had some hidden super-secret meaning in Girlworld that I was totally unaware of.
See, apparently in Girlworld, at least according to the ex-live-in girlfriend, a ballcap of one’s favorite team can be translated to… “I want to have hot, wildebeest sex with you.”
Huh. Who knew? Clearly, I needed to brush up on my Girl-ese.
So yeah… ex-live-in-girlfriend was beyond furious and Psycho was all smiles. Ex-live-in-girlfriend and I were on the downward slope of our relationship… no, it had nothing to do with Psycho… and eventually we called it quits. Well, Psycho was there to console me and help me pick up the pieces.
Yeah, you see where this is going, don’t you?
We were never in a relationship. I told her a billion and one times that I wasn’t ready for one and she said she understood and would be patient and in the meantime, we could do this other thing. Well, who am I to turn down this other thing? So yeah, that happened for a while.
Eventually, she started to want a more serious commitment than I was willing to give at the time… If jealousy is a green-eyed monster, Psycho was friggin’ Godzilla.
Well after I’d left Gondos, I was waiting tables in a new restaurant… I don’t recall ever telling her where I was working but voila, she’d show up unannounced and wait, sometimes more than an hour, for a table in my section. She’d question me about this waitress I was talking to or that waitress I was smiling at. She’d pester me and pester me the entire time she was there and would then keep pestering me with messages.
One night… it was Halloween, in fact. She wanted to do something but I begged off for a prior (and more fun, truth be told) commitment. I was getting ready to head to a friend’s party when I looked out the window and saw something strange… at the time, I lived in a cul de sac and if you’re familiar with cul de sac’s, you know that you can pretty much kiss any attempt at stealth goodbye. Well, I happened to see her driving by my place, headlights off doing that slow, creepy, stalker drive-by. She circled around the cul de sac and came back… because, that’s what you have to do in a place that dead ends like that.
I did the only thing I could think to do… I ducked down below the window. I heard her car stop, heard her get out, heard her feet coming up the walk, heard her knocking on the door… and still, I didn’t move. I barely took a breath until I heard her leave… which was roughly twenty minutes after she’d showed up to begin with! Apparently, the lights on and the loud music tipped her off to the fact that maybe I was inside.
I started getting really paranoid… where was she going to show up next? It seemed like no matter where I turned, she was there! I half-feared that she was going to be in the back seat of my car when I got in to go somewhere, pop out of my closet when I went to get dressed, jump out of the washing machine when I went to do some laundry. I kid you not, I was getting a little nervous about the whole thing!
So I did the only thing I thought I could do under the circumstances…. Kept seeing her, kept her happy and pacified and when I had a line on a new job and a new place to live, I bolted. No forwarding address, no new phone number, no new job notification, no nothing. I was a ghost, man.
For a long time I held my breath, waiting for the call or the knock on the door. Thankfully, it never came. I was free and I was liberated!
Until she found me on Facebook a year ago or so. Seeing the friend’s request sent chills down my spine and made me look over my shoulder again. I deleted the notification and all is right in the world again. And don't worry, pixie117... I know what a hat is code for now!
This has been my entry for therealljidol Season 8, Topic 36C(A): It Ain't Easy Being Green. As always, thank you so much for your continued support. I have no clue what sort of madness to expect but it should be interesting. Thank you, guys. You keeping me in this game means the world to me!