tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6996170023224640622024-03-13T20:37:56.468-05:00Tales From the Gypped<center>True stories about my life. Sometimes funny. Sometimes embarrassing. Always funbarrassing. <br> Updates <strike>every Sunday</strike> whenever I feel like updating.
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If you enjoy reading, <b>please</b> support the blog by sending the link to your friends.</p></center>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-73411634710715100882012-08-16T00:32:00.002-05:002012-08-16T00:32:56.933-05:00My Coworkers: The Video Store (#1)<i>Almost immediately after I turned 18, I began working full-time at a video rental store chain that shall remain nameless (use your powers of inference), and worked for the same company at three different stores in Arizona and Michigan over the course of the next two years. During my stint, I worked with quite a few interesting people, all of whom I got to know fairly well during our shared shifts together. <br />Since I love observing peoples' behavior and mannerisms (see <a href="http://talesfromthegypped.blogspot.com/2011/04/arts-crafts-story.html">here</a>), and often do it without even intending to do it, I'm going to make each of these people their own little psychoanalysis profile-type thing where I describe my experiences with them in a semi-anecdotal manner. I promise that it's a lot more interesting than it sounds. </i><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">The Video Store (#1)</span></u></b></div>
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<b>Jason (store #1)</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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Mail-carrier by day, video rental store clerk by night, Jason was a thick-necked and thick-headed thirtysomething who made every action his meaty body performed look like it was the most exasperating task he'd ever performed. As I'm sure you can imagine, his abilities as anything beyond a warm body to have on-shift were incredibly limited. His other job prepared him for the mundane, movie-restocking half of it, but nothing in his life had prepared him for the other, more social half that involved actually speaking to customers in a coherent manner. He just didn't have the chops for it, to be frank.</div>
<br />
But that isn't to say he didn't mean well. Generally speaking, he would at least attempt to weasel his way out of direct questions and film recommendations by making what he considered a joke. Usually these would fall flat, but every once in a great while, his humor would hit its mark and he'd squeeze a laugh out of an unsuspecting middle-aged mom or older gentleman. These moments were clearly his proudest on the job.<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #1: </b>He had a habit of flirting with said middle-aged moms, despite being married. His motto was "just because I've ordered doesn't mean I can't look at the menu." In retrospect, he may have known more about life than I cared to admit at the time.<br />
<br />
About four months after being hired, his wife gave birth to a baby girl. After what I'm sure was plenty of deliberation, they decided to name her "Abby Rhode _____," an obvious play on the Beatles album of the same name. Proud of what he clearly considered to be a creative homage to the musical styling of the Fab Four, he would never fail to mention her current age and (full) name to any customer that seemed like they would listen. It was nice to see him happy, but kind of obnoxious at the same time. He'd jumped on the weird baby name bandwagon, and was proud of it (as most of them are).<br />
I know it's not that big of a deal, and it didn't make him any less of a person in my eyes. But he was still a pretty sub-par employee.<br /><br />
<br />
<br />
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<b>Tim (store #2) </b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">
Middle-aged and ridiculously, happily gay, Tim was a "lifer" at the second location I worked at, having been there for almost exactly the same amount of time I'd been alive at the time (19 years). He was extremely defensive of every decision the company ever made, claiming that they knew what they were doing (even when our store started selling books that had nothing to do with movies). Considering the fact that he was payed just under $20 an hour for doing a lowly customer service representative's work from his nearly two decades on board, this was unsurprising.</div>
</div>
<br />
According to other employees that had been there, his small apartment was filled wall-to-wall with hundreds of movies, with the alleged ratio being 90% VHS tapes and 10% DVDs.<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #2:</b> He had amassed such a large collection of VHS tapes during the 90's that even ten years after the conversion to the superior format, he was still re-buying most of his collection. Even worse, I met him right around the time blu-rays were becoming prominent, so his collection was slowly becoming even more out of date (a fact that frustrated him greatly).<br />
<br />
He (obviously) loved movies. His knowledge was vast, but his taste was not so generous. He was extremely picky when it came to his "yearly top ten," a list he posted around the store every December to alert patrons of what films he'd enjoyed over the last twelve months. He often avoided action films and those involving/catering to children (whom he despised for some reason), but would sometimes throw one of these genres into the mix, just for good measure.<br /><br /><b>Aside #3:</b> If this sounds really egotistical, and you're asking yourself "Who the fuck cares about Tim's Top Ten?", well...everyone did. He watched 90% of the movies that were on the shelves week-to-week, and the regulars that had been coming to the store for years respected the hell out of him (and his taste in film). I have a feeling that if he took a shit in a DVD case and told a random customer to watch it "because it's great work," nine out of ten of them would go home and stuff said turd into their players, oblivious.<br /><br />
Tim's best quality however, was not his dedication to film. It was his dedication to the store. I am absolutely positive that the place would have burned to the ground a long time ago had he not been there to put out every fire that was started (figuratively speaking). The store ran because he was there, whether we all wanted to admit it or not. The entire store was meticulously organized and categorized correctly, this was something he made sure of every single day before he left. If you messed with his methods, you had to face his wrath. Even our general manager came under fire (and later backed down) at least once that I knew of. He was the most powerful employee, but he didn't let it go to his head, despite the fact that he should have. Our location was ranked consistently in the top 2-5% of the company as far as sales and general customer satisfaction went, and if it weren't for him we wouldn't have even cracked the top 25%. He was that crucial of a member.<br />
One time, Tim came into work with a buzz cut, a drastic change from his usual style. Noticing this the day after as I was arriving and he was leaving, I said something about it. This is the conversation that followed:<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">ME</span>:</b> </div>
Tim, your hair cut looks nice. Short hair suits you.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">TIM</span>:</b></div>
I hope you're kidding, it looks absolutely awful. The bitch at the salon butchered my head, and we had to chop it all off in order to even it out.<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">ME</span>: </b></div>
...oh. Well, I'm sorry to hear that, then. I really don't think it looks that bad.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">TIM</span> (COLDLY): </b></div>
Flattery will get you nowhere. It looks bad, and I know it.<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">ME</span>:</b></div>
...okay then. See you tomorrow, Tim!<br />
<br />
Needless to say, he wasn't very happy with me for a few days after that.<br />When I left the store, Tim's goodbye to me was much more sentimental than I'd expected it to be. This was someone that had seen dozens, possibly hundreds of employees pass through that door over the years, but he pulled me aside on my last day and said that he'd actually miss me "sometimes." Considering his slightly caustic personality and prickly demeanor, this was about as high of a praise that I think I could have received.<br /><br />
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<b>Ed (store #3)</b></div>
<br />Ed was the most unique general manager I'd ever had before. Easily 6'5 and 250 pounds, he was built like a weightlifter and had the short temper of someone that regularly injects steroids. <br /><br /><b>Aside # 4: </b>I'm not making any assumptions or accusations here, just being speculative.<br /><br />Only a manager for a few months before my arrival, I could tell that he was intimidated by the fact that I came from a store that was doing so well, considering his was barely afloat at the time. He'd been trained improperly when it came to the overall "flow" of the store, an unfortunate and deadly side-effect of hiring outside of the company for leadership positions.<br />Despite this, he set aside his pride and would often ask me how the location I'd come from did things, and actually followed my instructions to the letter. Two weeks after my transfer, the store looked much better than it had when I was hired.<br /><br /><b>Aside #5:</b> This should not be a testament to my mad movie-slinging skills (ha!), but rather a testament to his ineptitude in that area.<br /><br />
My constant suggestions and improvisations on his terrible organization of the store and the general floor layout eventually started wearing him thin though, and I could tell he was beginning to feel like I was being <i>too</i> critical of the way he did things. I couldn't help it though, ten months at store #2 with Tim had ingrained a sense of consistency in me when it came to matters of the store.<br />
It almost made me uncomfortable seeing how little everyone except for Ed seemed to care about these matters, and I admittedly overstepped my bounds a bit and started politely suggesting that he start disciplining those that weren't actually doing their jobs. He did not take this well at all, and saw this as me trying to take his managerial position away from him; undermining him by trying to do his job.<br />
I clearly wasn't trying to do this. I was just slightly overzealous in my execution when it came to wanting to transform my new location into a "perfect store." I tried explaining this to him several times, but he wasn't having it. But his paranoia got the better of him, and his mind was made up about me. By the time my month anniversary rolled around, he had begun making my life a living hell.<br />
At first it started out subtly, with him making me do the so-called "bitch work." Rather than working the register like I was used to, I was bumped down to movie-shuttling duties. Then he began cutting my shifts, until I was only working fifteen hours a week. Soon after this, during an evening shift, another employee (a manager) showed me several texts Ed had sent her calling me quite a few different names that bore no creativity whatsoever.<br /><br /><b>Aside #6:</b> These included (but were not limited to): "little fuck," "little fucker," "little shit," "little asshole" and "pipsqueak." Over the course of four messages. Do <i>that</i> math.<br />
<br />
Offended and fuming, I asked her to send him a text saying that I was leaving before my shift ended, and never coming back. He immediately responded, calling me another classic Ed nickname and telling her he was going to head over to the store to confront me once he'd finished eating dinner. Not wanting to confront him, but also not wanting to leave my now-former coworker alone, I called three other employees before one agreed to come in and finish my shift immediately. Fifteen minutes later, he arrived and I said my goodbyes to the both of them, apologizing for the inconvenience. They said they understood, and I left.<br />
I walked to my apartment and saw Ed driving to the store when I was less than ten minutes away. He didn't see me in the darkness, though I'm sure he was to preoccupied with coming up with things to call me to notice anyways.T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-14062205083067907902012-06-04T20:42:00.000-05:002012-06-04T23:25:38.913-05:00Stems & Seeds #2<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The Hot Dog Story</b></div>
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In the second grade, I shared an assigned two-seat desk with a boy named Richard. Luckily, we were fast friends, and soon he had invited me over to his house to spend the night one Friday, as all kids do at that age.<br />
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<b>Aside #1:</b> The sleepover is like a childhood friendship rite of passage. You knew if you stayed up talking to each other long after the lights were turned off, you were going to be friends for a long time (relatively speaking).<br />
<br />
After playing some video games and watching a movie, were both tuckered out and decided to go to sleep. Before heading to his room though, he asked me if I'd like a snack. Of course I said yes, and Richard disappeared into a dark room that wasn't his kitchen, and returned with two sheets of printer paper. Motioning that I should follow him, we stepped into his room as I became more and more confused. Rummaging around in his side table drawer, he withdrew a basic packet of crayons before sitting on the floor next to his bed.<br />
<br />
Hesitantly, I sat down next to him as he took out the red and yellow crayons, which were noticeably more worn-down than the others in the box. Methodically, he took one of the sheets of paper and tore the corners off of it, so it was a near-perfect oval. He then took the pieces he'd ripped and crumpled them into an oblong wad of paper, before placing them in the center of the oval he'd torn. <br />
<br />
Then he took the red and yellow crayons, and colored in some of the oval around the wadded-up paper. Picking it up like a hot dog, he handed it to me and began making his own. Not wanting to offend him, I nibbled on the edge of the "bun" for a few seconds as he went through the motions again, adding much more of what he apparently considered to be "ketchup" and "mustard" to his "hot dog."<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #2:</b> Those quotation marks feel like finger quotes.<br />
<br />
Once finished, he picked his up, and took a full-sized bite out of it, looking like a wolf tearing into a piece of beef jerky. Putting mine down, I declared that I wasn't hungry. Shrugging, Richard finished his snack, and we both went to bed shortly after.<br />
<br />
We didn't talk that night, or very much afterwards. Luckily, our teacher changed the assigned seats shortly after this for some reason or another, and our interaction was no longer necessary.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<b>The Pot Smoke Story</b></div>
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I was laying in bed one morning after waking up with my now-ex-girlfriend Annie, who was still asleep. Discreetly, and without waking her, I loaded a bowl of weed and took a massive hit, my body shaking from holding in the cough.<br />
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Turning around to see if my movements had woken Annie, I continued to hold in the hit as her eyes fluttered open slowly. Smiling and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she began to speak.<br />
<br />
"Hey bab-"<br />
<br />
Her sentence was never completed, because I couldn't hold in the smoke any longer. Sputtering, I exhaled a massive, billowing plume of smoke right into her mouth, forcing her to choke. Unable to help myself, I began laughing, and did so for the next two minutes.<br />
<br />
Annie joined in, once she caught her breath, thankfully.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<b></b><br />
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<b><b>The Handshake Story</b></b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
During my tenth grade year, I worked up the nerve to ask an attractive redheaded girl named Lisa to go to the movies with me, shortly before realizing that I didn't (and still don't) drive. She didn't either at the time, so we worked out a deal with her parents and my parents where my mom would drop us off, if her dad would pick us up. Both parties obliged, and my mom took us to the movies.<br />
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<b>Aside #3:</b> Ah, to be young again.<br />
<br />
We reinforced the cliche further and saw a terrible horror movie (I think it was the ridiculously awful <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384286/">Cry_Wolf</a></i>), doing the high school thing and kissing throughout the entire thing. About halfway through the movie, Lisa decided to lay across two seats, with her head in my lap. There were a few other people in the theater, but despite this fact her hand took mine and guided it into her pants.<br />
<br />
At the risk of sounding crude, there was nothing even remotely dry about where my hand went. It was as if I'd stuck my hand into a warm brothy soup someone had thrown a few roast beef slices into.<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #4:</b> I am so, so sorry for that one.<br />
<br />
Naturally, my teenaged hand spent a ridiculous amount of time down there, and was covered in her...product by the time the movie had ended. Right before it had though, Lisa had received a voicemail from her dad, to let us know that he was there to pick us up. Immediately after the credits began scrolling across the screen, she took my clean hand and lead me out of the theater, into the parking lot where her father's pickup truck was idling.<br />
<br />
Climbing into the back of the cab, I positioned myself behind him after saying a hurried "hello" and introducing myself. Turning around in his seat and offering his right hand to me, he said "Well, it's nice to meet'cha. I'm Phil."<br />
<br />
Without even thinking, I shook his hand, my fingers and palm still slightly moist with his daughter's semi-pungent vaginal secretion. Furrowing his brow slightly and looking at our interlocking hands, a wave of understanding seemed to wash over him. I pulled my hand away from his quickly after the handshake had ended, but it was too late.<br />
<br />
I can't say for sure whether or not Lisa's father knew what my hand was covered in, but he didn't speak during the entire drive to my house and I never went out with her again.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Previously on TFTG: </b><a href="http://talesfromthegypped.blogspot.com/2012/01/stems-seeds-1.html">Stems & Seeds #1</a></div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-50413041478185996252012-05-18T03:47:00.001-05:002012-05-18T04:06:01.061-05:00My Little SlutSince my mid to late-teens, I've come to terms with the fact that as far as looks go, I am something of an acquired taste. There are no hordes of women knocking down my door because I am ridiculously handsome, but there have been a few women over the years that have hit on me while "out in the wild," something that I fear I may never get used to.<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #1: </b>Secretly, I actually hope I never get used to this.<br />
<br />
One time for instance, I was riding my bicycle somewhere to get lunch, when I heard someone wolf-whistle in my general direction. Assuming the catcall wasn't meant for me, I ignored it, and locked my bike up before going into a restaurant and eating. When I had come back out, there was a note left on my bike that read:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>You're really cute...text me...for a good time.</b><br />
<b>Signed, girl who whistled at you earlier</b><br />
<b>(phone number)</b></blockquote>
Now, normally I wouldn't have paid any mind to something like this, because to me, this note sounded incredibly promiscuous, verging on skanky. But I'd actually noticed the girl who had whistled, before she had done so. She was definitely attractive, and I was definitely single at the time. <br />
<br />
<b>Aside #2:</b> Plus, she'd actually used the correct form of "you're," and that alone is something to marry someone over nowadays. <br />
<br />
I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Smoothly, I waited about an hour before I sent her a text message introducing myself and asking her what <i>her</i> name was. "Valerie," she said in her response, before telling me that she'd like to get to know me better. A little too smugly, I sent her a text that read "That can be arranged."<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #3:</b> If you haven't noticed by now, my most commonly used method of flirting with members of the opposite sex involves being really awkward and direct, verging on serial killer-esque, intermingled with infrequent moments of smoothness and charm. That <i>really</i> works for some women, I guess.<br />
<br />
So two days later, after talking/texting nonstop about whatever it is you talk about with someone you've never officially met, we weirdly met up for lunch at a Taco Bell near my apartment. She was red-headed and quite a bit skinnier than I'd originally thought she was, verging on almost being <i>too</i> skinny, but still managed to have a sort of larger, more intimidating attitude about everything, something that I naturally find irresistible. Her voice was also slightly raspy, but in the pleasant way that isn't quite like like the way a throat cancer patient's is.<br />
<br />
Reciprocating my unspoken attraction, she invited me over to her house after we'd finished eating, telling me she wanted to "watch a funny movie" with me. Coyly thinking I was reading between the lines, I accepted her offer, and we departed.<br />
<br />
Not long later, we arrived at the house Valerie shared with her father, a small two-bedroom with the darkness of a bachelor pad but the stereotypical tidiness of somewhere a woman lives. Her father was out of town for the week, she explained as we looked over her movie collection, stillness of the house only interrupted by our movements.<br />
<br />
Looking over the movies she and her father had collected over the years, I was slightly disappointed. There were half-decent action movies mixed in with the usual comedy fodder; movies like <i>Bad Boys</i> and <i>Die Hard</i> were alongside such "comedy classics" as <i>Black Sheep</i> and <i>Anchorman</i>. Given that she wanted to watch something "funny," it was slim pickings for someone like me, who had seen every chuckle-worthy film they owned too many times to count (on cable, no less).<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #4: </b>Because of this story,<b> </b>I am now guilty of writing and consciously publishing a really whiny first-world problem. I don't feel great about myself.<br />
<br />
After a rough inner-struggle followed by seconds of tedious decision-making, I decided on Adam Sandler's classic fish-out-of-water story, <i>Billy Madison</i>. If we were to ever be married, we would tell tales at our wedding of the first time we ever laid eyes on a television screen simultaneously, watching the original manchild himself work his way through academia. We'd be <i>that</i> couple.<br />
<br />
Nothing unexpected happened over the course of the next two hours. We watched the movie, smoked a little bit of weed, and made out during the parts we'd both seen a million times (read: during most of the movie). There was something very high school about it all, and that was comforting to me.<br />
<br />
At least, comforting until things became slightly more adult when Valerie took her shirt off mid-kiss. Not really knowing how to react, I just continued kissing her, until she finally gave up on waiting for me to be progressive and straddled me before she began taking my shirt off.<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #5:</b> I am made of 100% pure certified playa. Don't even try to deny it.<br />
<br />
Uncomfortable because being shirtless in the middle of her living room made me feel exposed, I asked Valerie if she wanted to go to her bedroom. Nodding, she hopped off of my lap, gathered up her shirt and mine, and lead the way.<br />
<br />
The "hooking up," for lack of a better term, continued as soon as we crossed the threshold into her bedroom. We shockingly wound up on her massive, ridiculously fluffy and comfortable bed, with huge sheets that felt like they were stuffed with the finest softboiled cloud fetuses. It was ridiculous.<br />
<br />
Apparently, it was a little<i> too </i>ridiculous, as mid-makeout the both of us began to feel incredibly sleepy despite the fact that it was only around four in the afternoon. Realizing that we'd potentially have the rest of the week to do whatever we wanted to each other, we hopped off the Love Train at Sleepytime Station, and decided to take a quick nap before continuing our journey.<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #6:</b> That last one is definitely a contender for my favorite sentence I've ever written.<br />
<br />
Our "quick nap" however, turned into the both of us sleeping until nearly 9 'o clock that night, the both of us only being awoken when her phone vibrated with a call from her father. Picking it up, she motioned for me to be quiet while she spoke with him. After she'd hung up, she straddled me once more (still shirtless), implying that she wanted to pick up where we'd left off. And needless to say, that's exactly what happened.<br />
<br />
Now, I've never been one to go into explicit detail when it comes to the intricacies of my own sex life, but something curious happened during Valerie and I's...passionate lovemaking. At one point, when I was lying on my back with her on top of me, she leaned down and whispered something into my ear. At first, I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly, and asked her to repeat herself. Speaking louder, she confirmed that I had, in fact, heard her correctly.<br />
<br />
"Tell me I'm your little slut," she pleaded, hips grinding into mine. "Please, tell me I'm your little slut."<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #7:</b> That first sentence right there is probably a contender for my favorite as well, though for an entirely different reason.<br />
<br />
I had no idea how to react to this, as I'd never been asked to say something like this during sex before. My sexual history's Weirdest Member's Club only consisted of one girl who liked it really, really rough and that girl that insisted we watch <i>Saw IV</i> during the act, never someone that got off on dirty talk like this. So I did what any self-respecting male would do in the situation. I totally went with it.<br />
<br />
"You're my little slut," I said softly, the end of the sentence trailing off like a question. To my surprise, this seemed to work some kind of magic on Valerie, as she went at it more vigorously than before. Slightly more confident, I repeated myself. "You're my little slut!" I half-yelled, producing another burst of energy from her. <br />
<br />
"Yeah, I'm your little slut!" she yelled in my face, pulling my hair a little too hard and breathing heavily.<br />
<br />
I'd call her my little slut two more times before we finished, and each time I said it, it was as if I had said some sort of sexual hypnotism trigger phrase that was she was conditioned to be turned on by. It was one of the most bizarre things I'd ever experienced, and my internal wonder at this phenomena and the odd urge to test it against other derogatory phrases made it really difficult for me to concentrate when it came to my role in the wrapping-up of our sexy time.<br />
<br />
<b>Aside #8: </b>What I really mean to say is, the fact that this effected her so much almost killed my boner.<br />
<br />
But as I said, we finished, and then engaged in the usual post-coital cuddling that is required of every guy when they want to impress a female. Something was wrong though, and I could tell Valerie could feel it too.<br />
<br />
I don't know what happened between the two of us after we had sex, but I have a theory. We didn't talk directly about her preference in pet names, but I think the both of us felt awkward about it (and she insulted or embarrassed) because of my initial hesitation. For the rest of the evening, our conversation felt stilted and forced, and when I slept over we didn't sleep near one another like we had earlier when we'd taken that nap.<br />
<br />
The next morning we woke up relatively early, and she drove me home in near-silence. Naturally, we said we'd see each other again soon, but neither of us really meant it. We kept in touch a little bit afterwards, and less than two months later she was engaged. He seemed like a pretty good guy, from what little she told me about him. <br />
<br />
I just can't help but wonder if she's his little slut, too.T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-87133834705802123192012-05-14T22:31:00.000-05:002012-05-14T22:46:34.421-05:00This is how I troll<br />
<i><b>Note:</b> The following is not considered a "typical" TFTG post. I just really wanted to get this out there. Regularly scheduled programming will resume when I feel like it.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>Yesterday evening I was lurking Facebook, and I came across the profile of a high-schooler named <b><span style="color: blue;">Clay</span></b>. In one of his semi-recent statuses, he wrote "Top 10 cutest girls," followed by a numbered list of girls he apparently thought were cute, with links to each of their Facebook profiles.<br />
Now, I'm not one to put my admittedly large nose in other peoples' business, but since the status was public and I felt that these girls were being ridiculously disrespected, I decided to comment on the status and voice my opinion (read: "troll the shit out of him"). This is the shitstorm that followed (slightly abridged, for both length and continuity):<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> This is the scummiest thing I think I've ever seen in my life.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span><span style="color: #38761d;"> </span></b>cool story bro<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me:</b></span> HAHA GREAT RESPONSE BRO TOTALLY SHOWED ME. Quit being so goddamn desperate and hire a prostitute or something.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> Haha desperate? Ya no im not desperate bitch how old are you? Grow the fuck up i dont even fuckin know you gtfo<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me:</b></span> The fact that you would rate these girls based on "cuteness," linking to each and every one of their Facebook pages, hoping to garner some sort of sad attention from each and every one of them, no matter what the placement on your list, is absolutely the definition of desperation, my friend. That's not even the worst part, though. The worst part is that you chose to actually put these girls in order of descending "cuteness," which is basically like saying one girl is better than another based entirely upon her looks. It's shallow, scummy and I feel sorry for any girl that may have fallen for it.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Vikki:</span></b> Lmao. What a rhandom pussy talking shit over Facebook about something so harmless. Only a lonely little boy would get into someone else's shit like this and turn it into drama. What a joke.<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me: </span></b>I don't see your name on the above list, so apparently you're not cute enough to <b><span style="color: blue;">Clay</span></b> to comment on this status. Your opinion is invalid. Sorry, honey! Also, learn how to fucking spell. Since when does the word "random" have an 'h' in it?<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> Youre stupid there my friends dumbshit are you done?haha and i feel sorry for whoever falls for youre bullshit idgaf what you say okay? I didnt ask for youre opinion talk to someone that actually gives a fuck<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me: </span></b>It's like trying to convince a brick wall that it's made of bricks.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>Clay:</b></span> Hahahhaha lmfao talk about a creeper<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> You claim I'm the creeper, yet you're the one treating women like objects. Yeah, totally the creeper here.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon: </b></span>hmmm whats ,ore pathetic the fact that you started talking shit or that your still going on about it? Mature. These girls liked his shit so the wanted to be rated and its not your fucking business what either one of the girls or clay says or does. What you mad cause girls dont like your shit or that he actually has cute girls to like his shit gtfo off bro you aint got shit on <b><span style="color: blue;">clay</span></b>!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Yeah, you're right. I should aspire to be more like him, whining about how I'm single on Facebook and getting pity likes for it. Of course girls are going to love it when you compliment them, it's in their nature. But you don't have to be so fucking disgusting about it.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay: </span></b>Yeah you think you're such a genius when you're makin a big fuckin deal out of a status that doesn't even concern you so yeah you're the creeper and no I dont treat women like objects you can ask every single one of them on here ,ohh wait you're way too old too talk to them , you would rate underage girls creep ha<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me: </b></span>What the fuck are you even rambling on about? Try to form a coherent sentence, *then* attempt to insult me.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> What the fuck does it matter to you!? and youre the one to talk you just straight up disrespected <b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Vikki</span></b>? And if your tired of seeing him post that shit then dont fucking look or block him simple and you just made your self apart of this by commenting and i didnt see clay asking for you opinion now did he? yea i thought so.<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> I'm just hoping that every single girl mentioned in this status sees what I have said. I hope they realize how fucking pitiful and disrespectful this is, and act accordingly. And that girl <b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Vikki</span></b>, well, she seems like she's sort of a cunt.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> Bitch Im not insulting you ,I don't know you nor do I give a fuck who you are if you got such a big problem with me and the shit I post then fuckin post up idgaf how old you are you don't phase me I've fought bigger pieces of shit than you so either post up or shut the fuck up<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me:</b></span> You keep claiming to not "gaf," yet keep responding to my comments. Clearly, you have plenty of fucks to give, otherwise I wouldn't still be here. And what the fuck does "post up" mean? If you're going to use a term to threaten someone, it should be one that is pretty widely known, you lepton.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2 on list, dating </span><span style="color: blue;">Clay</span><span style="color: #741b47;">, also </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon's</span><span style="color: #741b47;"> sister):</span></b> Actually um who evee the fuck you are I don't see this as disrespectful er pitiful. So I don't even know why you brought your shit on here just hoping for some attetion..er something.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> Woah talking about clay being disrespectful you just called a female a cunt yo if her bf doesnt beat the hell out of you i will thats beyond disrespectful but oh im sorry clay you a feminest! fuck this piece of shit! dawg he doesnt have shit on you!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> I call it 'em as I see 'em. I'm sure she's a perfectly lovely individual to some, but to me, she's a cunt. Plain and simple. And <b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon</span></b>, please take my advice and learn how to spell. I'm tired of having to slog through you and <b><span style="color: blue;">Clay's</span></b> idiot-speak.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>Clay:</b></span> Post up ,fight me, do it you wanna be mr. Genius thinking these girls will listen to a creepy fagg like you ha yeah come get youre ass kicked im 16 idc how old you are fuckin do it or shut the fuck up<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> <b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Brandon</span></b> he called your girl a cunt!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> OH NO, DON'T CALL HER BOYFRIEND HERE, WHATEVER WILL I DO<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> Blow me fuck face! you keep digging your self in a bigger hole<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Yeah, I'm totally scared now. Man, I am just pissing my pants from fear. I'd better stop, huh?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Brandon (</span><span style="color: #f1c232;">Vikki's</span><span style="color: #b45f06;"> boyfriend):</span></b> Hell nah dog where u stay at u don't disrespect my fucking girl<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5 on list):</span></b> Wow this is fight is so stupid!!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Aw shit, <b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Brandon</span></b> is here! Uh-oh you guys! *shakes in boots*<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5):</span></b> No it's freaking retarded!! Like this isn't any of your business and you are making a big deal out of it!! God I hate people like you like serious DROP IT!!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span> </b>What a pussy nigga lol<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> I think we should all just sit down and enjoy a nice dictionary together, how does that sound?<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon: </b></span>I think every Guy on here should take atleast 5 minutes beating the fuck out of you. Huh how does that sound<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> HAHAHA SO FUNNY <b><span style="color: #38761d;">JORDON</span></b> I KNEW YOU WERE A FUNNY GUY BUT THAT WAS A ZINGER YOU REALLY GOT ME DUDE<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>Clay: </b></span>hes justg a fuckin idiot trying to call me an idiot cuz he doesnt agree with my status haha i really dont care what he thinks but he thinks every girl tagged in this gives a fuck what he thinks<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span></b> Damn<span style="color: blue;"><b> clay </b></span>be smashin that nigga xD<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> You dont know me bitch nor do you know clay or<span style="color: #b45f06;"><b> brandon</b></span> or <b><span style="color: #f1c232;">vikki</span><span style="color: #bf9000;"> </span></b>so grow the fuck up and take your Disrespecting ass somewhere else and do you whatever it is fags do and <span style="color: blue;"><b>clay </b></span>will continue to be better then you K bye<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> If any of the girls in this status had any amount of self-respect, they would be ridiculously offended at this. Ladies, respect yourselves more, and men will begin respecting you more.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span></b> Bet this nigga sucks dick ^<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2):</span></b> Okay how is this even disrespecting?dude your.A dumbasss!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> omg such a gentalmen! gtfo outa here! obviously we know wtf where doing if we have fucking fiances and girlfriends wtf you have a "dictonary"<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5):</span></b> Wow!!! Dude you sir are pathetic!! This status had absolutely not to do with you in anyway!! But you just had to get your opinion!! But um honestly like half the people here just don't really care for what you have to say!! This has been blown way out of proportion and everyone just needs to stop!!<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> No paige watch out you need to respect your self more cause if not you might not get the respect you need<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Just to make my point, I'm going to start referring to every girl mentioned on the list as the number that she was assigned, okay?<b><span style="color: #741b47;"> #2</span></b>, it's because of the concept behind the whole thing. Women are more than pretty faces. <b><span style="color: #351c75;">#5</span></b>, I agree that it has been blown out of proportion. But hey, I've got to defend myself, right?<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Charles:</b> </span>This nigga^<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay: </span></b>haha let him talk his shit thats all this bitch will do dont wory let him study his dictionary and let us carry on with our lives<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> Woah <b><span style="color: #741b47;">#2</span></b> is my fucking sister watch your fucking mouth! idgaf who you are nigguh say another thing about her bitch<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2):</span></b> Okay dude I'm more than a fucking number, so talk about disrespect.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Charles:</b></span> <b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon</span></b> jump that nigga<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me: </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon</span></b>, if my "imaginary sister" was on a list like this, I would stop at nothing to beat the shit out of the scum that had said this about her. Clearly your priorities when it comes to your kin are skewed. <span style="color: #741b47;"><b>#2</b></span>, you're more than a number? *looks at original status* Huh.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5):</span></b> You wouldn't have to "defend" yourself of you never even comment on this!! And you want to sit here and say <b><span style="color: blue;">Clay</span></b> was being disrespectful when now you are referring to us as number?! How is that not disrespectful?! Please tell me cause I would LOVE to know cause last time I checked I had a name!!<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me: </b></span>Calm down <b><span style="color: #351c75;">#5</span></b>, I'm just using the numerical system to drive my point home. Being a number doesn't feel too great, does it?<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> yeah youre stupid youre trying to make me look bad when really youre making yourself look like an idiot . haha<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> He wasnt defendin <b><span style="color: #741b47;">london</span></b> he tried making her look stupid! i dont see him with a girl! I got <span style="color: #93c47d;"><b>Keilah</b></span>! <b><span style="color: blue;">Clay</span></b> got <span style="color: #741b47;"><b>London</b></span>! who he got?! Ok bitch my imaginary sister! hahahahah fucking ha! and <b><span style="color: blue;">Clay</span></b> doesnt refer to them as numbers Bitch unlike people like you! he knows them! so take your shit and go! oh what your prolly beating off to the list of girls cause you've never seen a more cuter set have you. oh im sorry sucks for you!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2):</span></b> Dude fuck off you obvioulsy just want attention if you keep coming back on something that you just randomly steped in on. Yeah straight up I have a name so call me by itt stuip ass bitch!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> <b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon</span></b>, I can't understand a word of what you are writing.<b><span style="color: #741b47;"> #2</span></b>, no thanks. My first impression of you was a number, therefore a number is all you will ever be to me. Blame <span style="color: blue;"><b>Clay</b></span>.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Charles:</b></span> Nigga aint bout shit look at his pic you see them dick suckin lips<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5):</span></b> Yea no I'm not gonna calm down cause first off to are being very rude! No one asked for your opinion and secondly again I have a name and in real life that's what people call me not <span style="color: #741b47;"><b>#5</b></span> like that is disrespectful in so many ways I can't even begin to tell you how rude that is!! So maybe you should hop off and drop it cause this is stupid!!<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> you dude your a fucking piece of shit i hope you know that<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Don't get mad at me because your sister didn't get the top spot. Guess she wasn't "cute" enough.<br />
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b>London (#2): </b></span>Your the biggest DUMBASS I have ever seen!<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me: </b></span>It's "you're." Smooth.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon: </span></b>i dont need education you piece of shit cause i have more then you do dumb ass and thats fine :) cause the funny part is <b><span style="color: blue;">Clay</span></b> and my sister are dating so idgaf stupid "cunt"<br /><br /><b style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</b> <b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon</span></b> stick this nigga<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon: </b></span>trust me if he was in front of me i would<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me: </span></b>You literally just said the sentence: "i dont need education you piece of shit cause i have more then you do dumb ass and thats fine." I don't even know how to begin to comprehend the stupidity present in those few words.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> bitch who the fuck do you think you are to talk shit to these girls shut the fuck up already nobody gives a fuck about you and uhh i know <b><span style="color: #351c75;">paige</span></b> very well and shit i know<span style="color: #741b47;"><b> london</b></span> even more so just fuckin leave nobody cares what you have to say so be the man you think you are and just leave<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon: </span></b>i litterally dont care wtf you think of me im sorry i dont listen to pigs who disrespect females<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Quit listening to your future brother-in-law, then.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Charles:</b></span> Call this nigga out to fight if they for real about it that is<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> haha that <span style="color: red;"><b>ty</b></span> kid isnt about shit just words that he thinks people wanna hear<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Daniel:</span></b> I want to hear what he has to say, is that bad? The point here is that <b><span style="color: red;">Ty</span></b>, actually caring about the things said to a lady, was, and is, saying that this is a horrible excuse for a 'list of numbers that are girls'.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> ok for one clay didnt call a chick a cunt, <span style="color: blue;"><b>clay</b></span> is a better then him he just has words. THAT NO ONE FUCKING CARES ABOUT!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2):</span></b> Dude for real you got all that shit to talk over facebook, but thats probably all you can do.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Daniel:</span></b> I didn't know defending a lady was 'talking shit'.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> you wanna be the man you think you are do it bitch ,if not haha just cut youre balls off ,but id love for you to fucking do something about it<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5):</span></b> Oh my god!!! Just stop!! Dang you are trying to prove a point and you are failing at it!! God you are so stupid and big headed that you don't even know that you need to stop and move on!! No one cares about what have to say do hop off!!<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon: </b></span>NONE ONE WANTS TO HEAR WTF HE HAS TO SAY IF YOU WANNA HEAR HIS FAGGOT VOICE THEN HAVE A PLAY DATE! CAUSE WE DONT GIVE A FUUUUCK! OK! I DIDNT REALIZE <b><span style="color: blue;">CLAY</span></b> INVITED YOU TO THIS POST!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> You guys just keeeeeeep on posting. Keep it coming. I'll be laughing about this for days.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay: </span></b>bitch ill assign you a number #1 on my hit list so come on bitch stop typing your pussy shit talk and fucking do something<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> You aren't worth the time I'd spend in prison.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> females on our side not yours and id knock your fucking teeth down your throat for calling <span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>vikki</b></span> a cunt and talk shit bout my sister<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> I'm not the one that assigned a number to her. Why don't you ask your parents what they think about the situation? I dare you to go ask your parents what they think of "rating girls based on cuteness." I absolutely fucking dare you.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon: </b></span>ok my mom doesnt give a shit. nor does anyone else!! go ask your mom about calling a female a cunt i dare you.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5):</span></b> Maybe you should realize that no one cares about your opinion before jumping into something and trying to fight with people!! You have no right to call someone out like that in the first place!!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> wait <b><span style="color: #351c75;">paige</span></b> be careful he might call you a cunt too<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> <b><span style="color: #351c75;">#5</span></b>, calm the fuck down.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon: </b></span>^HER NAME IS FUCKING <span style="color: #351c75;"><b>PAIGE </b></span>LEARN IT! AN NO ONE ON HERE GIVES TWO FLYING FUCKS WHAT YOU THINK!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2): </span></b>I know your faggot ass just keeps posting & running your mouth like anyones even listening. Because if your gonna talk all this shit at least have shit to back it up, cuz clearly you have nothing behind you!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me: </span></b><span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon</b></span>, who are you talking about? <span style="color: #351c75;"><b>#5</b></span>? Oh, she's <b><span style="color: #351c75;">#5</span></b> to me. And <b><span style="color: #741b47;">#2</span></b>, clearly they're listening, they're responding.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Daniel: </span></b>Maybe you should all realize I AGREE WITH THE MAN. It's like talking to a bunch of morons. Oh wait.<br />
<b><span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Paige (#5):</span></b> Oh I could care less!! And why should I calm down when you are trying to sit here and call me by a number?! Faggot I have a name!! And you need to seriously hop off!! Cause sorry to burst your bubble but no one cares!!<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>Clay: </b></span>he wont do shit he just enjoys talkin shit calling girls numbers and trying to make me look like im despereate for a girl when in reality hes desperate for attention haa<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2): </span></b>Bitch my names <b><span style="color: #741b47;">london</span></b>, learn before you try responding to me again, k thanks :)<br />
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<b><span style="color: #93c47d;">Keilah (</span><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon's</span><span style="color: #93c47d;"> "fiance," who is pregnant):</span> </b>Lol ummm Mr. "<b><span style="color: red;">Ty Walters</span></b>" you look like Waldo. Lmao look I understand that u can portray that u have massive balls behind a computer screen but we allllll fucking kno in reality u stay home and masterbate in ur mommy's basement to dungeons and dragons. Just cuz ur "penis" has never penetrated a lady part doesn't mean u should rant about it you fucking virgin dick. These are my friends and my bf so lay off and go do what u do best which is rot inur basement but ITS OKAY cuz at least ur "friends" give a shit about ur pathetic worthless ass right? Lmao<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> ^ lern 2 type u moran<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> I know you didnt call<b><span style="color: #93c47d;"> Keilah</span></b> a moron!?<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me: </span></b>No, I called her a moran. Learn to read. This entire status is proof that the generation behind mine is completely doomed.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Charles:</b></span> Damn <b><span style="color: #38761d;">jordons</span></b> girl blast ur ass lmfao<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2):</span></b> So hes back to disrepescting girls again, first calling a girl a cunt, now a moron,<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> ok you signed your death wish?! Bro you don't even know! My girl has more fucking intelligent then you have in a fucking brain cell! iI will scrape the pavement with your ugly ass face<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> "My girl has more fucking intelligent then you have in a fucking brain cell!" That's all I really have to say about that.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> dude why dont you take youre albert einstein asss back to youre generation and talk shit to girls and guys youre age haha if youre not gonna do shit then leave youre fucking annoying<br />
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<span style="color: #93c47d;"><b>Keilah:</b></span> Lol no one is doomed here but u. Really goes to show that all u need in ur life is some conversation on some random persons profile to go and lurk on....ummmm tha fuck is ur problem dude? R u upset cuz u rate assholes that you've fucked instead of attractive girls?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Daniel:</span></b> I know plenty of attractive girls who do deserve to be with people that actually care- and not treat them like THIS SHIT they call a LIST OF CUTENESS.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon: </span></b>I have my girl and you dont see me being fucking pathetic like you two dumb fucks<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span><span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></b>Look everybody meet at dow park and we will sit this shit up i knw clay is down but what about u pussy<b><span style="color: #38761d;"> jordon</span></b> he talkin shit to ur gurl best get this nigga<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>Clay:</b></span> fuck that shit meet up at dblock if you about anything you say on this shit<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> that's my bro and your lurking on his shit and please please let me see you for talking shit about/too <b><span style="color: #93c47d;">keilah</span></b>! omg i just pray that you show up in Dena! please Nigguh i dont play games if you going to speak my name put em on your knuckles and lets knuckle up!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Daniel:</span></b> May I offer some English tutoring?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #93c47d;">Keilah:</span></b> <b><span style="color: red;">Ty Walters</span></b> is a pathetic piece of shit. All I really have to say about that. Call me all u want ha I'm just happy I don't look like u<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> I challenge each and every one of you to a fight. Come at me bros.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2):</span></b> Dude they will all fuck your shit up.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> When and where bro when and where?!<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me: </span></b>Dow park, tomorrow at 4 PM. I'll fucking be there.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles: </span></b>Go to dow ill knock yo ass out cold bet up on that nigga<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon: </b></span>Ha babe ill be busy tomorrow. <b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles</span></b> you down?! <b><span style="color: blue;">clay</span></b> wbu?!<br />
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<span style="color: #93c47d;"><b>Keilah:</b></span> <b><span style="color: red;">Ty</span></b> I challenge you to get laid b4 u die<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me: </b></span>I challenge you to not get knocked up. Oh wait.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #93c47d;">Keilah: </span></b>Awe are you upset cuz mommy doesn't show you enough attention? Oh wait....did I hit a soft spot lmao ur gonna have to try harder than that to "insult" me dear you don't phase me ;)<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> Ok bitch! your fucking done I told you i dare you and you kept going! you're done<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Man, the two of you are going to be parents? That makes me want to fucking kill myself. And we will see tomorrow, I'll bring plenty of friends.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Charles: </b></span>friends nigga u to pussy to fight one on one man fuck this i want that <b><span style="color: red;">ty</span></b> pussy<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Daniel:</span></b> Then why are 5+ of you going over there?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon:</span></b> nah <b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">charles</span></b> he became mine when he shit talked <span style="color: #93c47d;"><b>keilah</b></span> and <span style="color: #741b47;"><b>london</b></span> and <b><span style="color: #f1c232;">vikki</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span></b> <b><span style="color: red;">Ty</span></b> i wanna fight u be at dow at 5 ur pussy ass better show up<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Yeah, totally bro.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> oh your backing out now?!<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span></b> Damn if i go up there im fighting sum one<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Me:</span></b> Who said anything about backing down?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Daniel:</span></b> Look, apparently you're letting your fiancee, I hope he is that is, to go fight an unknown stranger, who could- for all we know- have a fucking gun.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Jordon: </span></b>wat a pussy. bringing a gun cause he got booty hurt. ha i laugh hahaha<br />
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<b><span style="color: #93c47d;">Keilah: </span></b>Lol no one would need a gun for you two....maybe a dildo then u two can play fetch ;)<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;">London (#2):</span></b> Why are either of you too still here. As you can see no one knows really listening to either of you too! Yall are just two little punks who like to go around fucking with everyone & getting into shit that isnt even yours. Yeah shows how MATURE yall are.<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>Me:</b></span> Ohhhh, man. I think I'm about done here. Thanks for the free entertainment everyone, this will make a wonderful example of how fucking pitiful this generation is. Good game, all. Good game.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Jordon:</b></span> are you done masterbating now? is that why you're leaving?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span></b><span style="color: #38761d;"><b> jordon</b></span> is my boy and if u fuck with him u got me <span style="color: red;"><b>Ty</b></span> dont back down now u already started this up now finsh it<br />
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<b><span style="color: #93c47d;">Keilah:</span></b> Awe so soon? I guess your lurking here is done BRO lol No WONDER why ur a virgin<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles:</span></b> He a pussy he aint bout shit<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Clay:</span></b> hes full of shit ahahha dont take his "insults" seriously ,his whole "point" was to try and make me look bad and say im despereate for a girl just because i posted a status that had nothing to do with him<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Charles:</b></span> U see his pics man ill fuck that kids world up with one hit man i swear let me get himT. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-86126194849006543402012-05-11T23:25:00.000-05:002012-05-12T19:43:01.563-05:00My Friend the Millionaire<div>
A few summers ago, I found myself stranded in downtown Los Angeles after a moving trip from Phoenix to Seattle went awry <i>(which, I promise, will be a story told in a future post)</i>. Opting to take a bus from LA to my hometown of Dallas to live there instead of finishing my trip as planned, I bought a ticket for a one-way ride and packed my belongings that I couldn't afford to ship into three differently-styled, overstuffed bags: one messenger bag, one tweed suitcase, and one ten-raquet tennis bag.<br />
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Unable to afford a cab from where I was staying to the bus station, a friend of a friend named Joshua that had shown me around the city a few days previously told me he'd show me how to get there on foot. Seeing this as my only option to get to the station on time, I accepted his offer and we departed from my hotel room three hours before my bus was to begin boarding, me carrying my messenger bag and tennis bag, Joshua carrying my tweed suitcase.</div>
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For those of you that have never actually been, there are a few small parts of Los Angeles that look like what you'd expect Los Angeles to look like: beaches to walk on, plenty of stores to shop in and attractive people to gawk at. But for the most part, Los Angeles looks like what I imagine downtown Baghdad looked like during wartime if Baghdad was populated primarily by hipsters and hookers. There are injured people lying in the street moaning for help, homeless people or mangy dogs on every corner, and everyone seems like they want to stab you for having an opinion different than theirs. I hate to generalize Baghdad like that (and to a lesser extent, Los Angeles), but it's the truth.<br />
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Despite this imbalance, we managed to make it to the bus depot on time and without being mugged, passing by many interesting things on the way.<br />
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<b>Aside #1: </b>We passed by the red carpet event for <i>The Expendables</i>, a filming of an episode of<i> iCarly</i>, the biggest <i>Inception</i> banner I've ever seen, and an original Banksy piece, amongst plenty of other things. I know people that live in LA see that sort of thing daily, but shut up. It was neat.<br />
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After thanking Joshua and saying our goodbyes, checking my bags in and waiting in the terminal for a few minutes, I stepped onto the large grey bus marked "DALLAS" and unknowingly sat down next to one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life.<br />
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His name was Bruce, and he looked like a short-haired, 50-something Iggy Pop impersonator. Staring at me with his wild eyes, offering up one leathery baseball-mitt of a hand, he introduced himself to me shortly after I occupied the space next to him. Over the next few hours, we would end up talking about everything from our personal lives to literature to current news, and Bruce would tell me the following five things about himself:<br />
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<b>1. </b>He is a construction company business owner and millionaire who is deathly afraid of flying, hence him riding the bus. When I asked him why he didn't just buy his own personal bus and hire a driver himself, he scoffed loudly. Apparently, he "really loves" the people he meets on the rides he takes a few times a year.<br />
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<b>2. </b>He was visiting his daughter in Waco, Texas, who is a mildly successful blonde-haired, big-breasted supermodel. He showed me many, many pictures of her, and even pulled his shirt down at one point to show me a portrait of her he'd had tattooed on his shoulder.<br />
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<b>Aside #2:</b> Before you wonder if it was terrible or not, it was. Sorry, Bruce.<br />
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<b>3.</b> In the 90's, he was addicted to cocaine. He told me that he'd been clean from coke for a few years, but still smokes pot regularly to deal with the arthritis he has in his legs from when he used to build houses. We really bonded over this in particular, because that's half the reason I smoke.<br />
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<b>4.</b> He's been married three times, and only has the single daughter from his first (from when he was "dumb and young"). He admitted that his last two wives had taken a lot of money from him, though he didn't disclose how much, exactly.<br />
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<b>5.</b> He's a born-again Christian. Go figure.<br />
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Right around as the sun was setting, Bruce asked me if I'd like to smoke with him the next time the bus stopped to refuel. I gladly obliged, and we did so, shortly after night had fallen behind a gas station in the middle of nowhere.<br />
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<b>Aside #3:</b> If you've never smoked marijuana regularly or been a part of the subculture, you probably don't understand how "normal" this is. Just know that his request wasn't weird or creepy at all, and that it was actually sort of a relief.<br />
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After putting my smoking supplies away, and making sure they were well-secured on my person before re-entering the bus, Bruce tapped me on the shoulder, staring at me with his big, wide eyes. Stuttering as he did so, he asked me if it would be possible for me to give him a small bit of weed, so he had some when he arrived in Waco. Being the ever-giving person I am (and having quite a bit on me at the time), I happily obliged, giving him a decent-sized nugget that should have more than satisfied him until he was able to find more. This is where things started to get a little weird.<br />
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<b>Aside #4: </b>Yeah, things only started getting weird after I gave an ex-coke addict millionaire a gram or so of weed for free.<br />
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Immediately after I dropped the pot into his hand, he looked me straight in the face and asked for a "little more." Not wanting to anger the person I'd be sitting next to for the next 15 hours or so, I gave him a little bit more, hoping that it would be enough. Apparently it was, because he immediately removed an Altoids tin from his pocket, turned around so I couldn't see its contents, and dropped both pieces into it. Thanking me, he promised that he would pay me back as soon as we arrived at his destination, telling me that he'd planned to give me a little money anyways for "entertaining" him on the trip. Feeling better about my decision to be a nice person, we both headed back towards the bus and got on.<br />
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Night had fallen at this point, so most of our co-passengers had fallen asleep in their seats. Bruce, however, decided to stay awake and keep me up with him. I didn't really mind, because I'm terrible at sleeping in moving vehicles, so all was well.<br />
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About midway through the night, during a lull in Bruce and I's enchanting conversation, he stood up and announced to me that he had to go to the bathroom (as if there was anywhere else to go). He stepped to the back of the bus, and remained there for about ten minutes. Right around the time I started to become worried for his safety, he emerged, eyes wider than before, grinning wildly.<br />
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"I just did some coke in the bathroom," he whispered to me quietly, an odd, child-like eagerness in his voice. "Do you want some, buddy?"<br />
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<b>Aside #5: </b>A detail that I forgot to mention in the list up there is that he always referred to me as "buddy," "pal," or any variation of the word "friend" (without actually calling me his friend). It was very odd.<br />
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"No thanks," I nervously smiled, synapses in my head popping. He'd explicitly told me earlier in the trip that he hadn't touched coke "in years," and it made me curious as to the validity of the rest of the claims he had laid earlier in our trip. Needless to say, from this point on, I began taking everything he did and said with a grain of salt.<br />
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Of course, this became harder and harder to do as his claims of riches and willingness to share them became more and more extravagant, and I began to wonder if he'd just lied to me about the state of his addiction because he didn't want to scare me off. After all, aside from that and the fact that he asked for more weed after I so graciously gave him some for free, he had been nothing but kind and ridiculously interesting the entire time. He was even offering to let me stay at his beach house in Florida, because he claimed to never use it. I was torn.<br />
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By the time we'd made it to Waco, a few stops before mine in Dallas, my mind hadn't been made up about Bruce. I wasn't sure if he was just a crazy, drug-addicted con man that had duped me into giving him free weed, or if he really was just an eccentric, lonely millionaire that needed someone to talk to on a trip to visit his daughter.<br />
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My question was answered shortly after we disembarked. Telling me he was going to get his bags from underneath the bus, Bruce quickly disappeared into the crowd at the station after we had stepped off of the bus, his average features and build camouflaging him from me. Assuming he'd meet me somewhere near the bus after he'd gathered his things, I went inside the station to use the restroom and buy food.<br />
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Fifteen minutes passed as I sat on a bench next to the bus we'd both stepped off of and ate my food, my belief in the man I'd sat next to waning with every passing moment. I had all but given up on trusting that he would come back, when a familiar, catcher's mitt-like hand tapped me on the shoulder. Bruce had come back. Smiling brightly, he reached for his wallet.<br />
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"Miss me?" he grinned, unfolding the old leather fishing a few bills out. Folding them in half, he handed them to me. "Don't spend it all on yourself, okay?" pleaded, sincerity in his voice.<br />
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"Okay, I won't," I said, smiling back at him. "Thanks, Bruce."<br />
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"No problem kiddo," he winked, and turned around, once again disappearing into the crowd.<br />
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I didn't check to see how much money he had given me until I was sure he wasn't looking at me, but when I did, I almost fell over. He'd handed me ten twenty-dollar bills, wrapped up with a small note written on a torn-off piece of paper. It read "Thanks for the conversation + weed." <br />
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And that's all it needed to say.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-8195174235457859802012-01-24T17:37:00.000-06:002012-01-24T17:38:34.692-06:00Stems & Seeds #1<i>Over the last few months that I have been on hiatus from this blog, I've written numerous posts that I have (clearly) not published, and some of these unpublished pieces are not exactly long enough to warrant their own post. So I've decided to combine them all into one sort of super-post, as a way to get them out there (and to ease myself back into posting regularly). Each one of these "S&S" posts will contain somewhere between three and six mini-stories, usually anecdotal and pointless, but entertaining nonetheless.<br /><b>Note: </b>The last two of these four have been published on Facebook previously, so if you've read them before, I apologize. </i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>My Observation (Part 1)</b></div><br />For as long as I can remember, I've been a very observant person. I tend to notice things in peoples' behavior and demeanor that others don't, and because of this, people-watching has become a favorite pastime of mine in recent years.<br />A few months ago, I was sitting on one of the benches in my local mall doing just this, and my eye caught an average-looking Indian man walking in my direction a few dozen yards away. Seconds after I began watching him, in lieu of nothing, he dropped to his left knee, put his left hand on his right foot like he was tying it, and reached out with his right hand to rub one of the (clearly fake) leaves the mall had "planted" in the mall's medians. I assume this awkward arm-and-foot-crossing was done to check and see if the plants had been real or not, but I'm not certain because the way the action itself flowed so fluidly made me think he'd done it a dozen times before, and I can't imagine someone needing to check that many mall median planters over the course of their lifetime.<br /><br /><b>Aside #1:</b> To fully understand just how awkward-looking this position was, I suggest you try it out for yourself using the description above as a guide. It really was insane.<br /><br />Immediately after doing this, he stood up and noticed that I had been watching him the entire time. He turned around on one heel and began to quickly walk in the opposite direction, looking back a few times nervously as if I'd caught him doing some heinous act.<br />It was only when I watched him fade away into the crowd that I realized that he'd been wearing slip-on sandals the entire time.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>My Observation (Part 2)</b></div><br />Another one of my favorite interesting observations came shortly after the "leaf-feeling"one, at that same mall inside of a small furniture store.<br />I saw a small family walking around the same portion of the store as me, with a mother, father, and two twin girls, aged around eight years old. Both girls had mild down syndrome, and their parents were very patient and understanding with them, a perfect portrait of a family dealing with disabled children.<br />But something was amiss. As is tradition with young twins, both girls were wearing matching clothing, save for one small detail. The first twin was wearing a red shirt adorned with a large, white circle, with the words "THING 1" on it. The second was wearing the same, but hers said "THING 2."<br />Now, obviously the girls were wearing these shirts because of the characters in the age-old Dr. Seuss tale "The Cat in the Hat," but did the parents of these two disabled children not realize the implications of these t-shirts before buying them? Their poor planning and execution when it came to their daughters' clothing made me feel like the worst person that had ever lived, as I had to run (not walk) to a different area of the store so I could have a laughing fit without hurting their feelings. I wasn't even laughing at the implication or the fact that the children were disabled, either. I was laughing at the parents' carelessness and blatant stupidity.<div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>The Sun-Visor Story </b></div><br /><div>When I was a kid (around the age of ten or eleven, I'd say), I was driving in the back seat of my mom's car on the driver's side, playing with her handleld vanity mirror that she always kept in her purse. We were in notorious Dallas traffic, barely inching forwards every few minutes. I was playing with the reflection of the mirror, holding it at different angles, watching how the light's reflection changed as I moved it.<br />I noticed a blond-haired woman with big teeth and sunglasses sitting in the car next to us, in the passenger seat. She had a very mom-ish look about her, and was talking to the man who was driving (presumably her husband). Suddenly, an idea struck me, and I aimed the reflection directly at her eyes. She immediately shielded them with her hand, and turned to try and look at me. I ducked down quickly, and the light was very bright, but I was sure she saw something.<br />Slowly, I poked my head back up over the edge of the door. She was looking right at me, shaking her head sadly and saying something to her husband. She didn't seem angry, or hurt, just disappointed. She pulled down the sun visor and turned it so no light could be shone in her eyes from my direction. I sat there, and stared straight ahead for the rest of the car ride home, feeling terrible.<br />Every single time someone around me uses a sun visor in a car, I think of that woman. I wish I could go back in time and apologize for being such a little douchebag. Not only because it was a terrible thing for me to do, but because I'm sick and fucking tired of having to see her horsey-ass face trying to guilt-trip my pre-teen self every single time someone uses an everyday fucking item in a vehicle. That shit sucks.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Fucking With People</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Since before I can remember, I've been inventing new ways to fuck with people.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> My definition of "fucking with people" is as follows:</div><div><b>fucking with people (slang term) - </b>A blanket phrase used to describe any practical joke-type situation that is harmless and usually leaves the target confused.<br /><br />When I was in school, I'd practice sleight-of-hand magic tricks on my classmates, often stealing small objects (erasers, candy, etc.) in the process, claiming they had "disappeared." I was and still am a master of slipping any object into my sleeve without notice, a talent I'd often practice in front of mirrors as a child and teen. Now, as an adult, I usually bum cigarettes from idiotic drunk hipsters at keggers whose minds are blown by such simple tricks, and gladly cough up a coffin nail for a short magic show.<br /></div><div>Anyways, cheap entertainment aside, I've invented a few ways to fuck with people that I hope others will exercise and spread, to bring a little more confusion and hilarity into the world.<br /><br /></div><div><b>#1: Journey</b></div><div><b>Description:</b> When listening to 80's rock music with other people in a car or otherwise, referring to every band as popular ballad-rockers Journey. See if anyone corrects you. More often than not, they won't. They'll just uncomfortably shift in their seat and look at the ground, or pretend to be distracted by a bit of fuzz on their slacks. It's delightful.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> If no 80's rock is available, use the French phrase "c'est la vie" ("such is life") in the wrong context and see if anyone notices. Even further, when offered something from a friend (such as food), claim to be allergic to something that has nothing to do with what they are offering you. My personal favorite is when someone offers me a cigarette. I respond with "No thanks, I'm allergic to peanut butter."<br /><br /></div><div><b>#2: Toilet paper</b></div><div><b>Description:</b> When in the bathroom at someone's house, fold the end of their toilet paper roll into a triangle shape like they do at hotels. Also applicable in public restrooms, though they could assume it was the janitorial staff that folded it.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4:</b> If you don't think this is funny, imagine someone that you didn't know previously (a friend of a friend) coming over to your house and doing this while in your bathroom. Wouldn't your next bowel movement be made a bit nicer (albeit confusing) by this small, polite gesture?<br /><br /></div><div><b>#3: Sneezing</b></div><div>Description: While walking and holding a drink that has some amount of liquid or ice in it, fake-sneeze loudly and throw the drink into the air as if you sneezed ridiculously hard. Swear loudly and pick up your cup. Or don't.<br /><br /></div><div><b>#4: Salt and Pepper Shakers</b></div><div><b>Description:</b> This one takes a bit of effort to pull off, but the outcome is well worth it. Go to a Goodwill or other such resale store and pick up a pair of generic salt and pepper shakers. After washing them, take them with you the next time you eat at a restaurant and exchange them with the ones they have at your table. Take the now-empty ones with you, to use the next time you go out to eat. I like to imagine the look on the busboy's face when he realizes what happened.</div><div><br />Before I end this, I'd like to encourage you all to come up with your own way of fucking with people. Remember that it cannot be harmful in any way, and must be executed with the utmost seriousness. Fucking with people is an art form that should be appreciated and admired, and passed down through the generations. It makes people's day a bit more interesting, and generates that minute bit of anarchy that all of our lives deserve.</div></div></div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-29575975124979877212011-05-08T19:31:00.005-05:002011-05-18T12:16:56.162-05:00My Step-GrandpaFrom the time when my mother married my stepfather when I was seven to when I was nine years old, the three of us lived in the company of my stepfather's dad. Not wanting to disrespect my "true" grandparents by implying that he was as influential in my life as they were, he and my parents told me to address him by his first name, Bob.<br /><br /><b>Aside #1:</b> I don't know if this was actually their reason for this, but it was what I believed while growing up and what I will continue to assume unless told otherwise.<br /><br /><div>As most seven year-olds would be when thrown into living with a senior citizen they hadn't grown up around, I was incredibly apprehensive about the situation at first. After all, he didn't only live with us, he actually <i>lived</i> with us. I'd never seen anything like it before. He watched TV. He took showers. He ate dinner with us. He even lived in the bedroom next to mine. It was as if they had adopted another child, except this one swore a lot and didn't have regular bowel movements.<br /><br /><b>Aside #2:</b> Because I can't find a way to coherently incorporate it into the above paragraph, I'll just mention it here: Bob lived with my stepfather before he married my mom. That is all.<br /><br />But after a few weeks, I became accustomed to having him around. Usually, I'd arrive home from school to find him sitting on the couch watching the news or reading his Bible. Once I'd become completely comfortable around him, we'd go on walks together, where he would explain how the colorful Southwestern Bell telephone line-marker flags I was pulling up and collecting were actually placed there by a kid around my age who had gone on a walk alone and left a trail so he didn't get lost, and that he wouldn't be able to find his way home if I continued to take them.<br /><br />Basically, he completely fabricated a story that was tailored to my adolescent mindset to give me an actual reason to stop taking the flags, rather than just telling me "don't do that" like a normal adult would have.<br /><br /><b>Aside #3:</b> One of my favorite things I ever asked him on one of these walks was how cigarette filters tasted if you continued to smoke past the tobacco. His answer? "Burning paper. Don't try it if you ever smoke."<br /><br />Because of his demonstrative way of passing down wisdom, Bob would teach me three of the most important things I've ever learned in my life over the course of the next two years; through things he did, not things he said.<br /><br /><b>Lesson #1 - The world around you is important, always keep up with current events.</b><br /><br />There was a woman that lived across the street from us with her husband and three kids that Bob would talk to regularly, named Jane. She was notorious for getting her news updates through Bob, because she didn't read the newspaper or own a television.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4: </b>It's sort of implied, but I'll say it anyways: This was in an age before the internet was most peoples' primary source for news.<br /><br />One evening, Bob realized how dependent she was on him for this, and decided to play a prank on Jane, telling her that there was supposed to be a massive solar eclipse the following morning around 7 AM (when Jane would be waking up, and in her windowed kitchen making coffee). After explaining that the eclipse would make it pitch black outside around this time, he told her not to open her blinds during the few minutes the eclipse would last because she might unintentionally look into the sun and be blinded. Taking his word as truth, she believed him implicitly.<br /><br />Late that night, long after Jane and the rest of her family had gone to sleep, Bob walked across the street with a handful of thick black trash bags and a roll of duct tape, affixing them over the few windows Jane would walk by on her way to the kitchen the next morning.<br /><br />It worked perfectly. The way she told it, she woke up in her dark room and walked down a dark hallway into her dark kitchen, where no sunlight was shining through any window. She became suspicious and went outside, she explained, after the "eclipse" hadn't ended by the time her pot of coffee was done brewing.<br /><br /><b>Lesson #2 - Work can be entertaining, if you make it.<br /></b><br />Sometime during the first six months of my mother and stepfather's marriage, they decided to paint the entire interior of our house peach. I don't know why, but it happened. Naturally, Bob and I were enlisted to help, with me taking on most non-painting duties (like watching!) as he worked on painting the living room.<br /><br />Watching him work was infinitely more entertaining than watching either of my parents work. He would paint shapes and simple little drawings to entertain me as I valiantly tried to stop myself from dipping my Hot Wheels in the paint. He joked that he would paint a mural while I was at school one day, even though he only had the single color.<br /><br />Lo and behold, he did. Sort of. You see, this story happens to take place the same week as Halloween, and Bob apparently realized that peach isn't so far from the fall season's head color, orange. So he painted a giant, smiling jack-'o-lantern on one of the walls in the hallway that lead to our kitchen. Upon my arrival home, I nearly shit myself with happiness when I saw that an adult had done something so cool. He had even left it out for me to see, meaning that it dried completely before he painted over it later that day.<br /><br />That also means that every time I would walk by that wall, and look at it from a certain angle in the right light, I could see the faintest outline of a grinning pumpkin, years after it was painted.<br /><br /><b>Lesson #3 - Learn to make fun of yourself, before others do.</b><br /><br />I don't know or remember what planted the seed of the idea that I was obsessed with the then-ridiculously popular Britney Spears into Bob's head, but after about a year of knowing me, he suddenly would <i>not </i>stop hassling me about it, teasing me every time she was on TV or in the newspaper.<br /><br /><b>Aside #5:</b> He even left a Britney Spears poster for me to find in my room one day, suspiciously signed "To Tyler, Love Britney S. XOXO" in Bob's all-caps handwriting. That's how bad it got.<br /><br />Being a hotheaded child that hated being made fun of even a little bit (like I still am), I chose not to ignore him and was subsequently driven mad by his constant success in pissing me off.<br /><br />Like one earthquake triggering another, my anger turned into nonchalance over time, and soon I was reacting to her appearances in media faster than he was, with mock excitement. I don't he was ever as proud of me as he was the few times I did that.<br /><br />But unfortunately, as I mentioned above, my time spent with Bob didn't last more than two years. He moved out to live with his brother and other family members in Rochester, New York, on an alpaca farm. From there, he would send us letters and photos every month or two, either of the crazy weather they were having or members of his family in the crazy weather they were having. They had a photo printer and <i>loved </i>to use it.<br /><br /><b>Aside #6:</b> Seriously, if you went through my photo collection, you would wonder why half of it is comprised of unidentifiable blurry people in snow gear waving at the camera from off in the middle-distance.<br /><br />One of my favorites was not of either of these things, though. It was of Bob and a young alpaca named Don Diego, standing outside of a veterinary office where the animal was to get some shots that day (as explained on the back of the photo). Along the bottom, a caption reads "This won't hurt?" which was for me at the time, the pinnacle of all things humorous. I put it up on my wall immediately.<br /><br />A few weeks after sending this last picture, in apropos of nothing, Bob had a stroke in his sleep and passed away. From the moment I found out until the moment I saw him lying in his casket after flying out to Rochester with my parents for the funeral, I didn't believe it was possible for him to be gone. But he was.<br /><br />It rained on the day of his funeral, which is always fitting. I was in shock for most of the evening afterwards, not really talking to anyone or getting to know these family members I'd never met before. Seeing this, Bob's brother and his wife offered to take me out to the stable to meet a few alpacas, an offer I gloomily accepted.<br /><br />After meeting the half-dozen they owned and posing for a few obligatory pictures with each one, we returned to the house to print said pictures out to take home with us.<br /><br />Immediately after plugging the camera in and turning the printer on, a sheet started running through it without having the order to do so. Curious, everyone in the room watched as the printer spit out a sheet of four identical pictures of Bob standing next to Don Diego, caption and all. No one said a word. Then Bob's brother started laughing, followed by everyone else.<br /><br /></div><div>It was then that I realized that he'd once again inadvertently taught me a life lesson, one that I value most of all: always keep 'em laughing.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-1306496079860775512011-04-17T22:47:00.003-05:002011-04-17T23:00:01.154-05:00My Near-Miss<div>I've mentioned this before in a few posts in the past, but let's go through it again:<br />The summer in-between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, my parents uprooted me from my birth state, Texas, and moved me to the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.<br /><br />Shortly after moving all of our possessions and selves to the Grand Canyon State, we were told that we would have to endure the plight of having to live in an apartment for a month while our house was being completed.<br /><br />Since we'd moved during summer vacation, this left me with no convenient outlet for trying to find friends, leaving me to desperately prowl around the complex looking for people my age.<br /><br />To make a long story short, the only person I ended up meeting during this adventure was a twentysomething pot dealer named Garth, who had an affinity for The Doors and a bong made out of a real human skull. Essentially, Garth was not exactly the type of friend I was looking to make at this point in time.<br /><br /><b>Aside #1: </b>Though he does sound a lot like a few people I know. My, how times change.</div><div><br />Not long after this failed friend-finding mission, I began hanging out across the street from a high school a block away from the apartment we were staying in (not my future high school, by the way) in hopes to maybe hang out with a small group of teenagers that I'd noticed leaving the school one day in the early afternoon; looking like they were part of some sort of school club.<br /><br />And part of some club they were. As I would later find out, this half-dozen strong collection of my peers turned out to be the school's Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game club, meeting up before the school year had began to plan out meetings and the like while sharing an enjoyable game of Yu-Gi-Oh between friends.<br /><br /><b>Aside #2: </b>This blog post is brought to you by Yu-Gi-Oh: "The Funnest Trading Card Game Out There!"<br /><br />But like I said, I was completely unaware of this fact as they walked up to me and started questioning me relentlessly. During this questioning, I couldn't help but stare at the sole female member of this microposse, named Jessi, who returned my advances by staring and smiling at me flirtatiously. So in order to get closer to her through her friends, I walked around the area with them over the next hour, pretending to get to know all of them, but only truly being interested in her the entire time.<br /><br />Luckily, my "hard work" paid off, and everyone else with a penis left Jessi and I alone, talking to one another like it wasn't a huge deal (which it totally was, for me). Eventually our conversation winded down, and we exchanged numbers and made plans to do something the following day.<br /><br />Thrilled, I returned home to tell my mother, who didn't share my excitement. Crushing my hopes of having Jessi over to our apartment the next day, she told me that she and my stepdad would be visiting our new house all day the next day, and that I was not to have any visitors while they were gone.<br /><br />Naturally, I completely ignored this, and invited her over anyways, reasoning to myself that they'd be gone all day, and that if I had her over right after they left and had her leave a short time later, all would be well.<br /><br /></div><div>Surprisingly, all <i>was</i> well. They awoke the next morning, got dressed, and left without suspecting a thing. As planned, Jessi came over shortly after they'd left, and we walked around the complex for a few minutes, talking, before heading to the apartment to "hang out."<br /><br /><b>Aside #3: </b>I used quotes to point out the euphemism I'm trying to convey here. I hope I've now drawn enough attention to it.<br /><br />Before I continue, I'd like to take a second to break down Jessi's appearance during this meeting, from head-to-toe. I've intentionally not said anything about it until now. You'll see why.<br /><br /><b>Head: </b><br />-Short brown hair with multicolored streaks in it.<br />-Big eyes, with tons of eyeliner. Wore a small jewel on her upper cheek.<br />-Small, diamond lip stud.<br /><br /><b>Torso:</b><br />-Huge breasts barely contained by a band shirt she'd taken scissors to.<br />-Tons and tons of bracelets. So. Many. Bracelets.<br /><br /><b>Legs:</b><br />-Short jean miniskirt.<br />-Leopard-print tights.<br /><br /><b>Feet:<br /></b>-Semi-tall socks. Yes, over her tights. Yes, in the summer.<br />-Converse she'd drawn all over, rebelliously.<br /><br />What I'm getting at, is that besides for her ridiculously proportioned boobs (which <i>totally</i> wasn't why I liked her), she was just like 80% of the girls that were at that age when I was. Except sluttier (which was <i>totally</i> why I liked her).<br /><br />Basically, she was <i>not</i> the type of girl you want your mom catching you with. But lo and behold, fifteen minutes after I'd taken her back to "my place," laid her out on my parents' bed (after closing and locking the door, of course), and taken her shirt off, my mother opened the front door and stepped into our living room.<b><br /></b><br />Hearing this and panicking, I handed Jessi her shirt and ushered her into the adjoining bathroom, telling her to step into the shower/bath and close the curtain, just in case. Closing the door to the bathroom and opening the one that lead from the bedroom to the living room, I stepped across the threshold and faced my mother.<br /><br />"Hey, what are you doing?" she asked suspiciously.<br /><br />"Nothing. I was just going to the bathroom in there," I said, completely innocently.<br /><br />"Oh really?" she asked, stepping past me and into the bedroom.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4:</b> Growing up, my parents always assumed I was up to no good, or lying to them. This lead to me usually being up to no good and lying to them about it.<br /><br />Scoping out the room, she lingered at the threshold for ten seconds before deciding not to go further; her mannerisms not unlike a velociraptor from <i>Jurassic Park</i>.<br /><br /><b>Aside #5: </b>I'd almost have rather her been one, come to think of it. In fact, I can safely say that I'd rather be put in a cage match with one of these prehistoric killing machines than my own mother. Freud would love me.<br /><br />"Well, we just went out to eat down the street before going to the house. I forgot my sunglasses, so we had to come back," she explained, after turning around and walking towards the front door.<br /><br />"...oh, alright," I offered, following her to the door while consciously trying to make my rapid heartbeat stop showing through the front of my shirt.<br /><br />With that, she left. After watching my parent's car pull out from the parking lot and waiting a few seconds to make sure she didn't come back for some illegitimate reason, I walked through the living room and bedroom, opening the door to the bathroom, finally pulling back the shower curtain to find Jessi standing there, still shirtless and shaking slightly.<br /><br />"Why didn't you put your shirt back on?" I asked.<br /><br />"I didn't want to make noise!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know if she would walk in or not!"<br /><br />Completely ignoring her ridiculous reasoning and grinning, I said, "I thought for sure she was going to find you."<br /><br />"Me too," she said, stepping out from the tub. "What happened?"<br /><br />As she put her shirt back on, I explained the events of the past few minutes.<br /><br />"Wow, I can't believe we came that close to getting caught. I should probably leave in case she comes back," she said, once I'd finished speaking.<br /><br />"But...no! She won't be back for a few hours," I pleaded. "Please don't leave."<br /><br /><b>Aside #6:</b> The first, but not the last time I'd say those last two sentences together.<br /><br />"I don't feel comfortable here anymore. I'm gonna go," she said, sadly.<br /><br />Less than five minutes after my mother had, Jessi departed from the apartment, promising to call me sometime in the next few days so we could meet up again. She never did.<br /><br />But looking back, I'm very glad she didn't. Any girl that thinks, even for a split-second while under loads of stress, that putting on a t-shirt is loud enough to be heard by someone in a different room, through a closed door, is no girl for me. I don't care how slutty she is, or how big her boobs are.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-24611369842946569552011-04-10T18:04:00.002-05:002011-04-10T18:08:03.478-05:00The Arts & Crafts Story<i>For the better part of three months now, I've been telling the dedicated three or four-dozen of you that read this blog stories from my childhood, teenage years, and adulthood. Thanks to feedback I receive on a weekly basis (keep it coming, by the way), I know what sort of stories will be successes before I even post them. I don't want to say this has made me want to go out and seek things that are post-worthy, but I've definitely had an ear to the ground as far as my more-recent shenanigans go. That being said, I'd like to mention before I weave this tale that this is something that has happened very recently (I'm going to be intentionally vague and say in the last two months), and is probably the closest post to near-live-blogging that I'll ever do. </i><br /><br />I am, by nature, an observer. I can't help it. I don't want to say I'm quick to judge, because that would be misleading, but unfortunately, that is a sort of residual side-effect of my personality type. Since I've obsessively been doing this for most of my life, I've become quite good at reading people, something that has (overall) likely hindered me more than helped.<br /><br /><div>But sometimes, my judgments are wrong. Such was the case a few weeks ago when my friend Lydia and I attended a sort of mini-arts & crafts party thrown by her artist fauxncle, Wayne.<br /><br /><b style="font-style: normal; ">Aside #1:</b> "Fauxncle" is a word I just made up to describe Lydia and Wayne's relationship. Though not related, Lydia referred to Wayne as her uncle. So he is her "faux uncle," or "fauxncle" (pronounced "funkle"). I know that isn't linguistically sound (HA!), but it sure is fun to say.<br /><br />Held in a seedy-looking building in an even seedier-looking area of downtown Dallas, it was hard to know exactly what I was getting myself into. Despite being derelict, and feeling the type of place you would go if you wanted to purchase some of the more serious drugs, there were at least five freshly-printed and posted signs in the vicinity of the front door warning visitors to not feed the wild cats that roamed the area, because the owners of the buildings did so already. This amount of effort and care put forth more than mixed my expectations of what we may find inside.<br /><br />But my opinion on the building and its inhabitants changed as soon as the door opened, and we were greeted by a welcoming, hairy-legged girl that looked like the physical manifestation of the term "modern hippie." Stepping inside, she directed Lydia and I to a large room filled with a dozen other people, surrounded by various crafts projects in different stages of completion.<br /><br />After walking around the building for a few minutes, admiring the decades-old architecture, Lydia and I each took a beer from a cooler at the end of a wall lined with communal snack food, and sat down at one of the tables in the crafts room.<br /><br />Since the entire following exchange felt like it belonged in a movie, I am going to present it to you, the reader, entirely in screenplay format (slightly abridged).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>CAST OF CHARACTERS:</b></div><br /><b>TY:</b> Our protagonist. Neurotic. Doesn't do well in social situations, usually seeming reserved and quiet in interactions with strangers. Is not working on an art project during exchange, because he is uncomfortable with doing so in front of other people.<br /><br /><b>LYDIA:</b> Friend of protagonist and guest to party. Faux-related to <b>WAYNE</b>. Smiles a lot. Can be seen pushing art supplies in <b>TY</b>'s general direction when not speaking to group. Is working on a colored pencil drawing during exchange. <b>Fun fact:</b> Shares exact birth date with protagonist.<br /><b><br />WAYNE:</b> Host of party. Fauxncle of <b>LYDIA</b>. Has known <b>LYDIA</b>'s mother for many years. Is a professional artist, but obviously humble. Can be seen bustling about in the background of scene, worrying about whether or not the inoffensive Indian music playing in the background is offending anyone.<br /><br /><b>LINDA:</b> Guest to party. Old friend of <b>LYDIA</b>'s mother and <b>WAYNE</b>. Larger woman with glasses and a ponytail. Talks in odd voices a lot. Very, very good-natured. Is working on a cut-and-paste construction paper scene during exchange.<br /><br /><b>OLIVIA:</b> Guest to party. Friend of <b>WAYNE</b>. Young woman with hippie qualities and a beaded bracelet that makes a lot of noise when she shakes her wrist "like this." Is also working on a colored pencil drawing during exchange.<br /><b><br />SAMANTHA:</b> Guest to party. Friend of <b>WAYNE</b>. Despite being in her mid to late-forties, has the lined face of a woman that has been through a lot in her life. Is also working on a cut-and-paste construction paper scene during exchange.<br /><b><br /></b></div><div><b>CLAIRE:</b> Guest to party. Young daughter of <b>SAMANTHA</b> (aged around 9). Seems intelligent for her age. Is working on coloring a page torn from a coloring book during exchange.<br /><br /><b>SCENE 2 - INT. SEEDY BUILDING, DOWNTOWN - DUSK</b><br /><br /><i>A table at an arts & crafts party. Everyone is sitting around, listening to music and working on various art projects (save for</i><b> TY</b><i>). We join a conversation already in progress.</i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LINDA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LYDIA</b>)</div>Yeah, I've known your mom for years, but I don't think I've ever met you besides when you were a little kid! How old are you now?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LYDIA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LINDA</b>, while taking a sip of beer)</div>I'm twenty. I'll be twenty-one in a few months.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LINDA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>TY</b>)</div>What about you?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TY</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LINDA</b>, motioning to <b>LYDIA</b>)</div>It's funny, she and I actually have the same birthday. Same year, everything.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LINDA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LYDIA</b> and <b>TY</b>, then to entire table)</div>Well isn't that neat! They have the same birthday!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>OLIVIA</b> and <b>SAMANTHA</b> </div><div style="text-align: center;">(in unison)</div>Ooooh!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>SAMANTHA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>TY</b>)</div>Can I say something sort of weird? (<b>TY</b> nods) You look just like a guy that was in my art class in high school.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TY</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>SAMANTHA</b>, awkwardly)</div>Oh...um. Thanks, I guess?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LYDIA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>TY</b>/table)</div>Damn, I can't find my phone.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LINDA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LYDIA</b>)</div>I never lose mine. I have my little squirrel pocket.<br /><br /><b>LINDA</b> reaches into her shirt through the neck and fishes out a small cell phone.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TY</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LINDA</b>)</div>I wish I had something like that. You should invent a bra that has a squirrel pocket built in, if there isn't such a thing already.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LINDA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>TY</b>, then to entire table)</div>That would be so neat! Guys, I should invent a bra that has a squirrel pocket built in!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>OLIVIA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LINDA</b>)</div>That would be so neat!<br /><br />Shot cuts over to <b>SAMANTHA</b>, who is telling <b>CLAIRE</b> that yes, she may go over to a different part of the room. <b>CLAIRE</b> runs off, enjoying herself.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LYDIA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>SAMANTHA</b>)</div>How old is she?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>SAMANTHA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LYDIA</b>, gazing at <b>CLAIRE</b> lovingly)</div><div>She's nine. She's the light of my life. (<i>voice becomes watery</i>) I love her so much.<br /><br /><b>Aside #2: </b>Based on her sentiments towards her daughter and the way she acted and looked, I formulated an entire fictional storyline in my head for this woman minutes after I met her. Either I am the least imaginative and most observant person in the world, or am the most imaginative and least observant person in the world.</div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TY</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>SAMANTHA</b>) </div>What was her name again? I'm terrible with names.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>SAMANTHA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>TY</b>, smiling) </div>Her name is Claire.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>LINDA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>TY</b>)</div>I never have trouble remembering names. I learned a trick a while back, where I would make up a song to remember names. Like mine when I met you was (<i>in singsong voice</i>) "Nice to meet you, Ty! Nice to meet you, Ty! Nice to meet you, Ty!"<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TY</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>LINDA</b>, laughing)</div>I'll have to try that sometime.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>WAYNE</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(walking up to table, to<b> TY</b> and <b>LYDIA</b>, then to<b> OLIVIA</b>)</div>Do you guys want to come upstairs to my studio with me for a bit? You can come too.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TY</b> and <b>LYDIA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">(to <b>WAYNE</b>, nodding)</div>Sure.<br /><br /><b>TY</b>, <b>LYDIA </b>and <b>OLIVIA</b> stand up from their seats, bidding the rest of the table goodbye (for the time being).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>END SCENE</b></div><br />After this session of banter, the four of us walked over to an old freight elevator located behind the room we'd been in, where Wayne asked the three of us if we'd like to take it, rather than the stairs, to the second floor. Never wanting to pass up a chance to ride a rickety elevator that is older than the oldest living member of my family, I gladly accepted, as did Lydia and Olivia, and we stepped onto it as Wayne ran upstairs to turn it on.<br /><br />After thirty seconds that were filled with me pontificating to the two women about how old I thought a dolley we'd found on the elevator was, we stepped off of the elevator and followed Wayne down a hallway to his studio.<br /><br /><b>Aside #3:</b> Yes, I talked about the markings and "tells" of old dolleys for a full thirty seconds, and I could have gone on for much longer. I watch a lot of antiques shows.<br /><br />There are cliches about artists being messy for a reason, as it turns out. Scraps of wood, finished and half-finished artwork and a rogue glow-in-the-dark dinosaur toy were just some of the things that littered the shelves, floor and every other available surface around the room. It was very endearing.<br /><br />Then Wayne did something that will make the little stoner in anybody squeal with joy: he pulled out an old aluminum lunchbox.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4:</b> Totally just implied that all pot smokers store their stash in aluminum lunchboxes. Funny thing is, I'm okay with it, because the world would probably be a slightly better place if that were the truth. Also, if there is ever a drinking/smoking game meant to be played while reading my work someday, all I ask is that right now be a time you take a shot/hit.<br /><br />While talking to we three guests about various things (cats, sandwiches, beer, etc.) Wayne began putting his pungently-odored weed into a small pipe, packing it down perfectly like a seasoned pro. Soon it was being passed around from person-to-person, as the four of us joked about how one in four people has herpes.<br /><br />Twenty minutes later, we returned (via freight elevator) downstairs, all occupying our previous seats and positions within the room, as if nothing had happened. As I sat there, stoned and observing the interactions between the motley crew of complete strangers that surrounded me, I had an epiphany and thought to myself:<br /><br /><i>"Arts & Crafts are pretty cool."</i></div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-25762779859518077612011-04-03T13:04:00.003-05:002012-05-14T22:49:21.184-05:00My Other Life<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Since I'm lazy and have only written half of this week's post, I'm going to republish something I wrote almost two years ago. I promise it's just as funny as the day I released it. Enjoy. New material will be posted this sometime later this week.</i></div>
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I lived a completely false online life for three days using Omegle.</div>
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Omegle is a chatroom that connects you with a random person around the world. These strangers can range from horny Turkish men to Chinese people using a IP address-masking site to chat with people. It's interesting, fun, and scary.<br />
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So I decided to do something interesting. I decided to create a person, and live that life via Omegle. Here is a little bit about "me":</div>
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<b>Name:</b> Nicole Myers</div>
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<b>Date of birth:</b> January 19, 1983 (age 26)</div>
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<b>Hair:</b> Brown</div>
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<b>Eyes:</b> Green</div>
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<b>Height:</b> 5'5</div>
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<b>Weight:</b> 115-125 (depending on "the time of the month").</div>
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<b>Location: </b>San Fransisco, California, USA by way of Tyler, Texas, USA.</div>
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<b>Occupation:</b> Receptionist at a law firm.</div>
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<b>Other parts of my persona:</b></div>
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-I own a male cat named Pablo.</div>
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-I went to law school for six years, and graduated seven months ago.</div>
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-My father has connections in the business, and got me a job in SF. He is rich, and paid for my college education. He is expecting me to work my way up the ladder.</div>
<div>
-I live in a two-bedroom house on a hill on a street with trolleys that pass by.</div>
<div>
-I am a workout fiend. I own a treadmill and enjoy swimming.</div>
<div>
-I like my men built, but not bulky.</div>
<div>
-I can't seem to find a good man in SF that isn't either gay or an asshole. Or both.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Under this persona, I managed to get a few bites. One was a single, 40 year old man living in Texas. One was a 28 year old Norweigian milk factory worker. But the most interesting by far was a 20 year old SoCal-based video editor named Troy.</div>
<div>
He and I had a two-hour conversation that was mostly about "me," and how cute he thought I sounded. Green eyes drive him crazy, he likes to surf, and is absolutely a cocky, shameless douchebag with an IQ in the double-digits.<br />
Anyways, Troy and I chatted it up outside of Omegle. I created an email address (nicolemyers83@gmail.com) and talked back and forth with him for about two days.<br />
<br />
This is a social experiment conducted on a complete stranger; unbiased and absolutely aloof. Ladies and gentlemen, I present:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">The Troy and Nicole Emails<br /></span></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>May 10th, 2009</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Nicole (2:41 PM):</b></span></div>
<div>
Hey there. Sorry this is so short, but I have to leave to fix something at my office. Damn computers shut down on them and I'm the only one that knows how to fix them.</div>
<div>
Email me back!</div>
<div>
:)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (2:47 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Hi!</div>
<div>
Eh, its ok. no biggie. dont they have a person whos supposed to be called to take care of those issues?</div>
<div>
hope ur cat isnt gonna get lonely. better feed him before you leave, he might get hungry. lol</div>
<div>
hope everything is ok</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (4:07 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Yeah, his name is Robert. He was out of town for the weekend for a funeral. I think his aunt passed away or something.</div>
<div>
And I did feed Pablo, of course.</div>
<div>
;)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (4:17 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
hey :)</div>
<div>
been waiting for your reply :)</div>
<div>
sooooo whats up? did you fix the problem?</div>
<div>
youre probably relaxing now with your cat :p</div>
<div>
curious, did you really find me charming even though we didnt talk much?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (11:36 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Yeah, I fixed it. I then went out to dinner with one of my girlfriends who is going through a tough time with her fiance. Sorry it took me so long to reply.</div>
<div>
I just watched The Jerk. Have you seen that movie? I grew up watching it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And yes, I found you very charming. :)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (11:59 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
cool youre on or awake lol</div>
<div>
i would think you would be asleep or something.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
awe :( where did you girls go out?</div>
<div>
awe its ok, i had work. i just got home less than an hour ago, sooo im tired but i got hw to do :(</div>
<div>
the jerk? never heard of it. whats it about?</div>
<div>
awe thats sweet :)</div>
<div>
i found you very, sweet. understanding. </div>
<div>
how r u?<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>May 11th, 2009:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (1:04 AM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I haven't slept for more than six hours since law school. </div>
<div>
:P</div>
<div>
We went to a little restaraunt about four blocks from my house, then to a cafe for coffee. She's doing better. :)</div>
<div>
The Jerk is about a guy that invents an item that holds up peoples' glasses and gets really rich. It has Steve Martin in it. You should check it out.</div>
<div>
Thank you, sweetheart!</div>
<div>
I'm doing well. I am now very tired. I'm probably going to read a bit, then go to bed. Goodnight!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (1:08 AM):</span></b></div>
<div>
really? why not?</div>
<div>
just sleeping habits i guess</div>
<div>
awe thats good. i help out my friends too whenever they need me or even if they dont need me lol</div>
<div>
acutually i looked it up. looks funny, maybe i will check it out one of these days.</div>
<div>
sweetheart? :p</div>
<div>
yea i am tired too but im always up late. i will probably be up for another hour or two.</div>
<div>
im just watching a movie.</div>
<div>
what do u read?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:25 AM):</span></b></div>
<div>
It's from back when I had to study all the time! I took pride in being a straight-A student.</div>
<div>
It's good to hear that you are loyal.</div>
<div>
;)</div>
<div>
You should. Let me know what you think!</div>
<div>
I read a lot of different books. My favorite is one called "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:35 AM):</span></b></div>
<div>
ooooooo. i guess old habits die hard.</div>
<div>
i wouldnt say loyal. just protective.</div>
<div>
you use alot of winking faces lol</div>
<div>
whats it about?</div>
<div>
curiuos do u have a picture of yourself?</div>
<div>
btw what kinda computer do you have</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (5:23 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Yeah, I don't mind not sleeping. I get more done.</div>
<div>
So are you saying you aren't loyal?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I wink to flirt, silly!</div>
<div>
I do, but the most recent ones I have are from when I saw my family over Christmas last year. I'll ask my friend if she can take an updated one for me, since she has a digital camera.</div>
<div>
I have a little 11-inch Dell laptop. Why?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (5:26 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
hey! been waiting for a reply!</div>
<div>
true true. still who doesnt mind, laying in bed :p</div>
<div>
lets put it this way. im loyal to those who are loyal to me. but hey, everyone screws up once and while.</div>
<div>
oh lol. arent you a flirty girl.</div>
<div>
what type of things do you do to flirt?</div>
<div>
oooooooo, ok. cant wait</div>
<div>
well i was gonna say, if you had a mac we could video chat or something.</div>
<div>
so how was ur day?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (5:33 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I know I sure don't.</div>
<div>
You sound like you are talking about a specific instance. Are you? </div>
<div>
You mean when I'm with guys that I like? I usually wait for them to show me that they are interested before I make any moves. Nothing is sexier than a guy who isn't afraid to make the first move.</div>
<div>
I now wish I had a Mac. :(</div>
<div>
My day was okay. There has actually been a lot of business for my bosses lately. Lots of new clients. Mostly for bankruptcy and divorce, but hey, money is money, am I right?</div>
<div>
How was yours?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (5:37 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
not really. i mean lifes full of screw ups. hard to just pick one or even two. you know?</div>
<div>
hmmmmmmm. i always liked if a girl gave a lil smile, wink lol or something. you know, just to let me know shes interested. i hate it when you come on to a girl and shes not feeling you.</div>
<div>
awe, its ok. </div>
<div>
yea money is money. cant argue with that.</div>
<div>
it was ok. schools almost over. thank god.</div>
<div>
curious, does it ever get lonely living by urself?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (5:53 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Yeah, I definitely do. </div>
<div>
I don't run into that problem very often, for some reason. Usually the guys that I flirt with are all for taking me out on a date or something. I'm not meaning to be egotistical, but it's true.</div>
<div>
One of my friends is working on finals all this week. I don't get to see her that much. :(</div>
<div>
It does sometimes, yeah. But I have Pablo! </div>
<div>
Sometimes my friends stay over too. It's fun, because I have the biggest house out of all of us.</div>
<div>
Do you have a picture?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (5:59 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
wow. you sound like a total hottie ;)</div>
<div>
funny thing, most of the girls that i have something serious with or i get really close with are usually really beautiful, have a great personality.</div>
<div>
usually i think im out of their league but obviously theres something about me girls like hmmmmmm so take that for what its worth.</div>
<div>
thats cool but then again, houses in SF arent really big lol</div>
<div>
what do you girls do for fun at each others houses?</div>
<div>
maybe ;)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (6:03 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I've been told I am...haha.</div>
<div>
Aw, you sound so cute!</div>
<div>
We usually watch movies or something. One of my friends is trying to start a mini book club where we all read the same book at once and talk about it. </div>
<div>
Send me one!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (6:09 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
lol, ok i know a hottie when i see one. and i know a cutie when i see one.</div>
<div>
which one do you think u r?</div>
<div>
*blush* lol</div>
<div>
i love movies!!!!!!!!!! duh lol</div>
<div>
whats ur favorite type of movie?</div>
<div>
how about this, when you get ur pic of u. i will send you mine. so we can do it at the same time ok?</div>
<div>
that ok?</div>
<div>
sooooo whatchya doin?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (6:15 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I get both compliments evenly.</div>
<div>
:)</div>
<div>
I love comedies. Will Ferrell is my favorite! Semi-Pro and Blades of Glory are the funniest!</div>
<div>
Sometimes I'll go for the dumb ones like Meet the Spartans, just because I like that sort of thing.</div>
<div>
Fine! You're gonna make me work for it! </div>
<div>
:P</div>
<div>
I'm thinking about making dinner. I have stuff to make pasta, so I might do that. You?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (6:18 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
:)</div>
<div>
hottie+cute+smart= . . . . . . is there even a word that describes a girl like that?</div>
<div>
:p</div>
<div>
i love comedies. my favorite comedy is tommy boy with chris farley and david spade. sucha classic for me.</div>
<div>
sounds like you got a great sense of humor.</div>
<div>
hmmmmmm, work it girl lol</div>
<div>
im just watching basketball. relaxing now.</div>
<div>
what kinda pasta?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (6:25 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I haven't heard it if there is!</div>
<div>
I love Tommy Boy! My favorite movie ever is Anchorman!</div>
<div>
Oooh. ;)</div>
<div>
I think it's spagetti. I can't remember what I bought.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Troy (6:30 PM):</b></span></div>
<div>
lol. i guess i gotta make one up.</div>
<div>
YES! a girl who actually heard of tommy boy. then again, you are older than most of the girls i know soooo lol</div>
<div>
but thats a good thing. i prefer mature women. makes things easier for me.</div>
<div>
mmmmm, you getting turned on :P</div>
<div>
yum, i can make that too.</div>
<div>
im about to ask the obvious guy question.</div>
<div>
what are you wearing :p</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (6:39 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
You should, and get back to me. ;)</div>
<div>
I'm not that old! 26 isn't old at all!</div>
<div>
Maybe a little bit. Shh.</div>
<div>
I'm wearing my skirt and blouse from work. I've been to lazy to take it off. Thinking of changing in a second.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (6:44 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
i will ;)</div>
<div>
oh no thats not what i meant. just saying ur older than the girls i know. come on im 20 almost 21 in a couple of months.</div>
<div>
sorry if that offended you :(</div>
<div>
hmmmmm sexxyy. maybe you should, get into something comfortable.</div>
<div>
i know, i do that alot :P</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (6:47 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I think I'm going to. ;)</div>
<div>
I'm going to go make my spagetti. I'll be back on later. Leave me a cute email or something, okay?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (6:51 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
are you trying to turn me on?</div>
<div>
hmmm bad girl ;)</div>
<div>
hmmm yummy. save me some :P</div>
<div>
cant wait to hear back from you.</div>
<div>
;)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (8:40 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
You are so damn cute.</div>
<div>
I found a picture to send you. It's from the Christmas bunch, so it's a little outdated. Send me one first, okay?</div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (8:43 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
lol. i guess </div>
<div>
hmmmmmmm. nope you first :P</div>
<div>
how was dinner?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (8:45 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Dinner was great. My fat cat ate my spagetti though. :)</div>
<div>
Fine, fine, fine. I sent it with this email. Let me know what you think!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>The picture I sent, labeled as "nicolechristmasphotos5" for authenticity:</i></div>
<div>
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571723526930148258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3U4oqx_WPOiBYXxPc7JfkUxM-WHDz_mUuw_mycsWFgqb0RxRmdMoyVgsTaCVkh6ScVxnUwPsP2UMCtXwwnGaWEAbdlwAEGlEyQXvJTFl5QpTH-hTczynC92H8ydJZhRNvLp1H2k2ugcZ/s320/nicolechristmasphotos5.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (8:50 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
lol. awe ur cat must have been hungry.</div>
<div>
cute. cant see your green eyes though :( </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (8:52 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Yeah, sorry about that. I might send you another if you send me one. ;)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (8:55PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
alright alright arlighty.</div>
<div>
lets seeee</div>
<div>
here you go. its from my sisters wedding, which explains the tux</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>The picture he sent me:</i></div>
<div>
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571723527693855458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Geydf2inAV7cH_8dEwbJsw2y8zLpZPtlnzPhzVIrwmzo7iyrj60bPABaaTcpaG-GR_vcYf5fvo2kawuG2XamimWp2gKfZUicaVwuVOjAujSWQD6LVrA5vAsdrXC8thZo63vKRTZqxnqF/s320/troy1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 240px;" /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:01 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
You are so cute! I love your tux!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Troy (9:03 PM):</b></span></div>
<div>
awe thx. yea, i kinda want that tux back but oh well. it was a rental.</div>
<div>
got anymore pics of u?</div>
<div>
got like a full body shot? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:11 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I don't have one on here, no. But since I promised you another one, here is me and Pedro in New York last year. This was during Christmas too.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>The second picture I sent him, this time labled "nicolechristmasphotos16" for realism:</i></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTjzEv4cpjbkhggRfHL8XIRw_wmw7tF_0WP27CdgRdo7mZx1tS4H64CbOAf2PporOavXlFa6sQBGvYCTMTN0-UGh7h-EZWztHiuTIx8KSX4ZSi-aBhPc7FptfTbev67lFQvpU0MAujiYq6/s1600/nicolechristmasphotos16.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571723535118583042" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTjzEv4cpjbkhggRfHL8XIRw_wmw7tF_0WP27CdgRdo7mZx1tS4H64CbOAf2PporOavXlFa6sQBGvYCTMTN0-UGh7h-EZWztHiuTIx8KSX4ZSi-aBhPc7FptfTbev67lFQvpU0MAujiYq6/s320/nicolechristmasphotos16.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:14 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
WOW! he is a big cat. lol</div>
<div>
why were you in ny?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:20 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I told you he was fat! ;)</div>
<div>
My mom and stepdad live there. I was visiting them for the holidays.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9.23: PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
well still, i didnt know he was that big.</div>
<div>
lol</div>
<div>
nice nice. do u have any family in cali or sf? </div>
<div>
for that matter,anywhere in the west coast?</div>
<div>
i was curiuos, what were you doing on omegle?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:27 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
My half-sister lives in LA. Other than that, everyone lives in Texas or New York.</div>
<div>
My friend told me about it and I got addicted to it. I love it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:31 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
awe that kinda sucks. traveling must suck during the holidays.</div>
<div>
ahhhhh ok. cool. have you meant anyone else on it lately?</div>
<div>
most guys on there are just looking for someone to just cyber with.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:35 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I don't mind it. I like New York. They live in the country part, so it's kinda nice to get away from the city.</div>
<div>
Yeah, I haven't met anyone as worthwhile as you though. There was a guy from Norway that was interesting, but that's it. </div>
<div>
And you're right, a lot of them do want to cyber.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:38 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
awe thats nice. sounds peaceful.is it like in the woods or something?</div>
<div>
awe thats sweet. </div>
<div>
curious, have you cybered before?</div>
<div>
so what u doing</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:41 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Yeah, out in the middle of nowhere.</div>
<div>
I can't say I have, no. Have you?</div>
<div>
I'm sitting here reading the news. You?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Troy (9:44 PM):</b></span></div>
<div>
places like that are relaxing but scary as hell. makes me feel like im lost or if i need help im screwed lol</div>
<div>
ummmmm, yea i have</div>
<div>
watching the bball game and texting</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:47 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
You have before?</div>
<div>
Interesting... :)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:49 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
yup. i have. </div>
<div>
are you getting ideas?</div>
<div>
any questions about it?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:49 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Hmm, I've always thought it was interesting...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:51 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
oh.</div>
<div>
how so? im guessing uve heard stories about it or something.</div>
<div>
it is fun though lol</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:52 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
My friend said that she's done it before.</div>
<div>
My motto is that you have to try everything once!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:54 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
really? what did she say about it?</div>
<div>
lol. do u wanna try it now?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:56 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
She liked it...</div>
<div>
Sure...I'll try it. But can you make the first paragraph sort of long? I need to get ready, if you know what I mean. ;)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (9:58 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
nice.</div>
<div>
before i start. do you want me to talk dirty in it? </div>
<div>
im not sure what turns you on or off you know</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (9:59 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I'm into anything you want to throw my way. ;)</div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (10:04 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
wow ok.</div>
<div>
hmmmmmm.</div>
<div>
ok</div>
<div>
im behind you, my hands around ur waist, feels ur warm soft skin. you can feel my breath on ur neck, as if i was about kiss.</div>
<div>
i kiss on ur your neck, as one of hands slids down and unbuttons your pants. they drop to the floor.</div>
<div>
i turn you around and i take off your shirt slowly but its covering your eyes so you cant see me. without you knowing, i kiss your lips and hold it for as long as i can. </div>
<div>
your gasping for air, then i use my free hand to take your bra.</div>
<div>
you take off ur shirt so you can see me slide down and start sucking on ur nipples.</div>
<div>
hows that? ur turn</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole (10:12 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Okay...</div>
<div>
As you suck on my nipples, I moan slightly, my eyes rolling back into my head. Turning you on more, you suck harder until my nipples poke out, hard as a rock. </div>
<div>
You kiss lower and lower until you are to my panties. You pull them down. A half-erect cock flops out, surprising you. Waiting for your angry, betrayed expression, I am also surprised as you put it in your mouth, sucking it until it too is as hard as a rock. The veins are pulsing on my dick as you shove my huge cock deeper and deeper down your throat. Right before I cum, I pull out and spray it all over you, coating your face in a thick layer of man-juice.</div>
<div>
How was that?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (10:16 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
what the fuck was that?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Nicole/Gabe (10:21 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
That, Troy, is the email that just ruined your day. My name is Gabe Carson and I'm teaching a class for the LAPD about internet safety. You were my guinea pig. I surfed Omegle for hours before coming across a guy like you. </div>
<div>
I am proof that no one on the internet can be trusted. Those pictures? Random ones from a social networking site. This email? Created in the last ten minutes of our Omegle conversation. As for the persona of "Nicole Myers," it was all just what came to me at that moment. </div>
<div>
Do you have anything to say?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (10:22 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
are you serious?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Gabe (10:24 PM):</b></span></div>
<div>
Absolutely. I apologize for the inconvenience, but know that you are now helping a new generation of police officers learn how to teach people to be safe in times like these.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (10:26 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
damn man. did you seriously have to be sooooooo well graphic in that other message. even some easier stuff would have gotten the point across. </div>
<div>
you arent gonna keep the pic or my email address are you?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Gabe (10:28 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
No, that would be all kinds of illegal. I'm just going to say that it was OVER email, and say that you sent me a picture of you in a tux.</div>
<div>
But really, do you have anything to say? Any lessons learned?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (10:33 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
alright. </div>
<div>
question though, when this stuff happens, what do you guys say to future police officers or whoever?</div>
<div>
yea of course. kinda the reason i dont go on omegle often. kinda a odd site but one you go on when you are bored or whatever.</div>
<div>
isnt it kinda illegal to just grab pics of an person and use them as a templet for a fake person?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Gabe (10:38 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
If I'm claiming to be another person, it isn't that big of a deal. But since I didn't use her real name or anything, it doesn't count.</div>
<div>
So do you think this has made the internet a safer place for you? Are you going to be more careful next time?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (10:43 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
um honestly. its kinda freaked me out more to tell you the truth. actually its probably gonna make me stay away from omegle more. </div>
<div>
yea i will be careful next time . . . if there is one.</div>
<div>
one tip. if ur gonna play a girl on that site. pick a location like brazil, that place is full of ppl from brazil.</div>
<div>
its kinda expected. </div>
<div>
how many ppl from that site have you done this too? </div>
<div>
since YOU SAY you are from the LAPD, i got a question only a police officer can answer.</div>
<div>
is there any way you can trace back a restricted phone call on a cell?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Gabe/Me (10:43 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
I didn't say I was a police officer, I said that I WORKED for them. Impersonating a police officer is a felony. </div>
<div>
Yeah, IMPERSONATING. I'm not with the LAPD. Hell, I don't even live in California.</div>
<div>
I am just a bored 18 year-old with way too much time on my hands. And yeah, I'm a dude. I thought that would have been incredibly obvious by the way I typed, but I guess it's sort of hard to determine the gender of someone over the internet, especially when they are so forward with you like I was.</div>
<div>
And before you freak the fuck out and tell anyone about this, think of how embarrassing it would be for that chat log to be released to the world. </div>
<div>
Nothing I said or did was in any way illegal, either, so get that idea out of your head. </div>
<div>
Just be more careful on the internet, you bumbling idiot.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Troy (10:59 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
alright alright. chill man. </div>
<div>
i learned my lesson.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me (11:03 PM):</span></b></div>
<div>
Good. Have a nice life.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-41323688271182073382011-03-27T20:08:00.003-05:002011-03-27T20:17:30.045-05:00My Bad Timing<div><div>If I were a believer in luck, I'd consider myself an unlucky individual. My timing, it seems, is never exactly right. One of the better examples I can think of to illustrate this took place during my sophomore year in high school.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I was that age, I was amongst the thousands of other post-pubescent teens that wanted to be a photographer for a living. Not because I particularly enjoyed taking pictures, or even had any skill with it, but because it's one of the things my grandfather had done for a living, and I thought it would be cool to follow in his footsteps.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> His biggest claim to fame is taking <a href="http://www.photographicimage.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=620&step=4">this picture</a>.<br /><br /></div><div>I'd enrolled in a Journalism course to hone my nonexistent abilities, while also hoping to blow through the class without actually doing anything. That, unfortunately, was not the case, as my teacher absolutely hated me and everything I stood for, and would often send me out of class for reasons unknown.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> It's ironic that this class is what made me realize I appreciate writing more than anything else, isn't it?</div><div><br /></div><div>There was a silver lining, however. On the first day of class, I'd noticed a girl sitting two rows behind me that I'd never seen at school before. Her name, I would later find out, was Stephanie, and I liked her the moment I saw her. Much to my disdain, she seemed to be completely out of my league, possibly even playing a different game altogether. I knew I wasn't going to get her attention by just sitting in front of her and doing nothing, so I flirted the only way I knew how to at the time: via a passed-back note.</div><div><br /></div><div>To my surprise, it worked. Within two weeks we were regularly passing each other longer and longer letters, meeting up after class, walking home together, liking each other more and more as time went by. She would draw me pictures, and I would bring her hand-picked tiny flowers from ouside the school to leave on her desk before she came in every morning. It was sort of disgusting, actually.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, out of nowhere, just as I was about to make my move and ask her to take a chance on me, she began dating someone else. His name was Brad, he had an eyebrow stud, and I hated him more than anything on the planet for unknowingly taking her from me. I thought my world had ended because of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Deeply apologetic, Stephanie tried talking to me the day after I'd found out. But being as stubborn as I possibly could be, I refused to talk to her, initially.</div><div><br /></div><div>But that didn't last long. Soon we were talking just like we had been when she was sans boyfriend, hiding our "friendship" from Brad. </div><div><br /></div><div>Romanticizing the situation, I told her one day soon after we'd started talking again that I'd be patient, and that I would wait around for their relationship to fail, after which I'd sweep her off her feet and treat her as she'd never been treated before. She didn't seem to mind hearing these sentiments, though she didn't exactly agree to the terms after I'd said them.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> I assume this was because doing so would throw her into what some people would consider a "morally grey" area. I wouldn't know, my morals are so out of whack that this sort of thing doesn't even faze me anymore.</div><div><br /></div><div>Despite the lack of a verbal contract, I decided to soldier on and wait for her to be freed from Brad's grip. Soon, a month had passed, and Stephanie's attitude towards me and her attitude towards she and Brad's relationship remained exactly the same. She was, as they say, caught between a rock and a hard place.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was only a matter of time before I exacerbated the situation further by doing something stupid and rash. Naturally, I did just that. One day after a particularly flirtacious walk home from school, I surprised her completely by kissing her, out of nowhere.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4:</b> My advice to anyone, ever: kiss everyone that gives you an opening. The worst that could happen is they turn you down, right? ...right?</div><div><br /></div><div>Shockingly, rather than act offended and push me away, she kissed me right back. Even more shockingly, she continued to kiss me for the next 45 seconds.<br /><br />Then the moment I'd been waiting for since I'd first met her ended, and we pulled apart and looked at one another. With an immeasurable amount of calm, Stephanie turned on her heel and walked up the concrete path to her front porch, not saying a single word. When she got to the door, she opened it, stepped in, then turned around to look at me. Smiling, she shut the door and I walked away, grinning like an idiot.<br /><br />Unfortunately, this encounter changed nothing. The next few weeks went by in the same fashion as the previous few had, with her leading me on while dating Brad. Becoming frustrated at not having a chance with her, I began to slowly cut her out of my life as I started to date a different girl.<br /><br />A month after we'd kissed, I had stopped talking to Stephanie completely, and was completely satisfied with the status of my relationship with my girlfriend. Things were pretty good.<br /><br />But just as I'm sure you can infer by my use of the term "things were pretty good," naturally everything soon took a turn for the worse.<br /><br />To make a long story short(er), Stephanie and Brad broke up, she began talking to me, convinced me to like her again, and I broke up with my girlfriend so that she and I could be together.<br /><br /><b>Aside #5:</b> Don't tell me I'm terrible, I was young and dumb and will probably do this exact same thing another half-dozen times in the future. Regardless of whether or not I'm referring to women, I will never, ever turn down a free upgrade.<br /><br />Over the next few days, we began hanging out often, holding hands and kissing in public like any normal couple would, and I assumed this meant we were together. I couldn't have been happier. All of the time and effort I'd put into our future relationship was finally paying off, and I felt that I was being rewarded for what I considered to be unwavering patience when it came to the situation.<br /><br /><b>Aside #6: </b>Nothing says "jaded" like thinking you're unflappable after you've given up on something twice.<br /><br />Soon, evidence that showed that Stephanie didn't feel the same way about our "relationship" began to surface. Mostly in the form of her cutting me off as I'd done her (with less justification in her case), and dating Brad again, leaving me heartbroken and regretting the day I'd began talking to her.<br /><br />That was nearly four years ago, and despite breaking up and getting back together a few times between then and now (like the overdramatic couple they clearly are), Stephanie is still with Brad. They'll probably end up married someday, have children, and end up divorced because that's the way life is. At least my foot isn't caught in that bear trap.<br /></div></div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-80694456602207010912011-03-20T08:20:00.001-05:002011-03-20T08:28:04.098-05:00The Airsoft Gun Story<div><div>When I was a teenager, I was convinced that someday I would become a professional artist, despite the fact that I only exhibited what could be called "talent" in one out of every ten pieces I worked on. I was convinced that this was a mere bump in the road to stardom. After all, I reasoned, Van Gogh's artwork was considered trash when he was alive, and it was only in death that he actually became famous. Maybe my artwork was the same.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1: </b>And people say I had an ego. Pshaw.<br /><br /></div><div>Regardless, when I moved to a new school at the beginning of my Sophomore year, I enrolled in a mid-level drawing class to hone my "abilities" even further. Taught by a gruff, mustachioed ex-coach that had no artistic ability or training whatsoever, I could tell from the first day that the rest of the year that I spent in that class would be completely wasted, and that it wasn't going to help me in what I then saw as my future career.<br /><br /></div><div>So I spent most of my time slacking off rather than working on whatever assignment we'd been given, talking to the other five guys that were sitting at the same large, square table as me. </div><div>Amongst these fellows was a goateed teen named James. With his long, black, greasy hair and affinity for wearing suggestive t-shirts with massively baggy pants, he was usually the singular scapegoat our teacher chose to scold if we were in trouble as a table (which we often were). He must have been used to this sort of misdirected anger, as it usually rolled off his back without affecting him at all. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> This is where I would normally imply that he was verbally abused at home on a regular basis, but to save time, I'm just going to say it: He was verbally abused at home on a regular basis.</div><div><br /></div><div>The rest of us at the table appreciated this, and would often pontificate about the injustices served to him and how much we appreciated him taking the fall, in order to make his plight seem worthwhile. This semi-symbiotic relationship between James and the rest of us worked, much to our collective surprise.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, one day about midway through the school year, James was telling anyone that would listen that he was planning on going over to a friend's house after school to have an "airsoft gun war" (as he called it), and that he'd brought his (unloaded) pistol to school so he didn't have to stop at home to pick it up on the way to said "war." Since our school didn't have lockers, and required students to carry around their backpacks all day, this was a particularly risky decision. But he'd made it to our shared fifth period without any harm befalling him, meaning he only two more to go. </div><div><br /></div><div>After James' admittance that he was packing pellet-firing heat on school grounds, the six of us discussed the finer points of guns, shooting things, and shooting things with guns. During this conversation, James had a weird gleam in his eye.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Do you know what would be cool?" he asked, not pausing for responses. "If someone took a picture of me holding this with the classroom behind me."</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> This is not EXACTLY what he said, but rather the general idea behind what he said.</div><div><br /></div><div>Realizing that no one had a camera, and never wanting to miss an opporotunity to impress my peers, I stupidly offered to take a picture with my then-slightly-uncommon camera phone, to be emailed to him afterwards.</div><div><br /></div><div>So we set up the photo, and I took it just as the teacher had his back turned. As promised, I sent it to him, and after that class ended, forgot about the situation entirely.</div><div><br /></div><div>That is, until the next week, when I was called into my school's principal's office. Upon entering the room, I was informed that I was to be suspended if he found out that I was lying about anything said in the following conversation. Sweating profusely, I agreed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4: </b>I wasn't afraid of being suspended, exactly, I was afraid of what my parents would do to me if I was suspended.</div><div><br /></div><div>Opening a folder, he showed me a full-page printout of the picture I'd taken of James holding his airsoft gun in our art class.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Did you take this picture?" he asked, handing it to me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not needing to look down, I shamefully replied. "Yes. About a week ago."</div><div><br /></div><div>"James said you did. He also said that the gun was Photoshopped into his hands, and that he really didn't bring anything like this to school. Now, I've looked closely at the pixels, and I can tell this isn't Photoshopped. Did he really bring a gun to school?" he asked, crossing his arms.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Aside #5: </b>I'm not even exaggerating with the whole "I looked at the pixels" thing. I swear.</div><div><br /></div><div>In my mind, protecting James wasn't worth getting suspended over, so I told him the truth like I'd promised.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yes, he did. But it was an airsoft gun, and it wasn't loaded!" I added.</div><div><br /></div><div>"That doesn't matter," he said. "He still brought a weapon to school, and will be expelled because of it. Thank you for your honesty. You may go back to class now."</div><div><br /></div><div>Feeling like shit for sending James up the river, I went back to class and waited to be shunned by my art-room classmates later that day for what I had done.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I wasn't. Apparently James had named all of the people at that table as accomplices to his "crime," and all five of us had been grilled by the principal. Not a single one denied that James had indeed brought the gun, meaning I wasn't the only one who valued my own educational safety over that of another student's. This made me feel better, because in my head, it was better to have split the blame rather than take it all.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div><br /></div><div>Two years passed, and James was finally allowed to come back to school. Forgiving me for what I had done, we became friends again and began to hang out regularly. We had a good relationship.</div><div><br /></div><div>Or so I thought. I would learn a year later, after we'd drifted apart again outside of high school, that during this time, he'd kissed the girl I'd been dating. On two seperate occasions. Once while I was in the same goddamn room.</div><div><br /></div><div>So if you learn one thing from this story, dear reader, let it be this: If you rat someone out, even as part of a group, and they claim that they've forgiven you, I promise they haven't. People hold grudges, and will take every chance they get to make a move on your girlfriend when your back is literally turned.</div></div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-91264626486552443842011-03-13T15:55:00.004-05:002011-03-13T16:16:17.803-05:00My First Offense<div>Someone close to me once said that I'm "always doing the right thing, the wrong way." A truer sentiment about my character has never been spoken, especially when you consider a project I tried to start last November.<br /><br /></div><div>This "project," if it can be called that, involved me going to large corporate stores during the busy holiday season, stealing toys, and donating them to charities that help children in need. I called it "Retail Robin Hood," and while I won't give the details of my previous escapades for fear of what could possibly happen if they fell into the wrong hands, I do feel safe talking about the time I was caught.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> I can't tell people to do what I did, but if you do try it, let me know how it goes.<br /><br /></div><div>It was late in November, and on a whim one morning, I'd decided to go to a Wal-Mart not far from the apartment I was living in to see what I could get away with getting away with. Like an idiot, I deviated from my usual fool-proof methods (avoiding cameras and people and quickly putting things in the messanger bag I'd brought in), and decided to try something new. Walking by the electronics department, I picked up a discarded shopping bag and put it in the cart I was pushing. After that, it was more of the usual, with me filling up the shopping bag with the items I'd planned to steal.<br /><br /></div><div>But apparently, around this time, I'd caught the attention of an plainclothes loss prevention employee. Just as I was walking out, he approached me, and asked me for proof that I'd bought the items in the bag.<br /><br /></div><div>Naturally, I had none, and started freaking out, telling him to "get away from me," and that he had "no right" to approach me like that, never stopping walking.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> Totally grasping at straws, here. I wish I could say that I was calm and collected, but I was nowhere near it. I panic easy.<br /><br /></div><div>I suppose me not having a car threw him for a loop, because he eventually stopped following me, and I started running. Hiding in an adjecent parking lot, I put the bag of goods in my messanger bag, filling it up completely. After this, I took my sweatshirt off (because I knew he'd submit a description of me to the police, whom he'd said he was going to call), and hung it from my bag since it wouldn't fit inside.<br /><br /></div><div>Bad idea. Almost immediately after I'd left the parking lot, two police cars pulled up next to me, telling me that my sweatshirt matched a descrption given by the man at Wal-Mart as someone that had stolen a bag-full of things.<br /><br /></div><div>At this point, I realized all hope of escape was lost, admitted my theft, and was immediately put in handcuffs and read my rights. I was then put into the back of a police SUV, which took me back to Wal-Mart to tally up how much the stuff I'd stolen was worth.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> You have not experienced embarrassment until you're caught stealing a bunch of little kid's toys from Wal-Mart. It was impossible to explain and not look like either a weirdo or an idiot.<br /><br /></div><div>After plenty of sitting and waiting, I was informed that everything I'd gotten away with was worth $155.60, after taxes, meaning that in the state of Texas, I'd committed a misdemeanor offense (which is over $50, less than $500).<br /><br /></div><div>So naturally, we went to the police station where I was fingerprinted, photographed, and essentially treated as if I was a murder suspect. I was put into a cell, where I would remain for the next few hours, sitting around with four other people whose offenses had been considerably more serious than mine and trying to sleep.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4:</b> I take back what I said in aside #3. It's far more embarrassing to admit that you stole $150 worth of toys to a hardened criminal that is in jail for shooting someone.<br /><br /></div><div>Then, around midnight, we were informed that we were all going to be moved to an actual jail rather than a holding cell. We were handcuffed, legcuffed, and all waddled into the back of a transport van in the freezing weather.<br /><br /></div><div>One particularly bumpy ride later, we arrived at the facility, where we were split up in relation to the offense we'd committed. One of the people that had been with me since the police station, a twentysomething guy named Manuel who was in for drug possession.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #5:</b> I find it necessary to note that he was wearing a Led Zepplin shirt and had violet-tinted (prescription) glasses. He also was not talkative. At all.<br /><br /></div><div>The two of us were ushered into a waiting room, where we met up with another pair of offenders that had apparently been waiting for a while. Sitting down next to them (far away from Manuel, who took it upon himself to sit as far away from us as possible), they started talking to me.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is what I learned about the both of them:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Criminal #1:</b> Brandon</div><div><b>Age:</b> 19</div><div><b>Appearance:</b> Black, handsome, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt.</div><div><b>Job:</b> Worked at a gym teaching kids gymnastics. </div><div><b>Hobbies:</b> Gymnastics, smoking weed.</div><div><b>Reason for being in jail:</b> Punched a guy in the sternum for getting "all up in his face." Nothing else happened past this, he assured me. The person called the police on him and they came to his house and arrested him.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Criminal #2:</b> Juan</div><div><b>Age:</b> 43</div><div><b>Appearance: </b>Hispanic with a lot of tattoos, most religious. Wearing khakis and a polo shirt.</div><div><b>Job:</b> Cleaning pools.</div><div><b>Hobbies: </b>Raising his three kids, smoking weed.</div><div><b>Reason for being in jail:</b> Breaking probation by smoking weed.</div><div><br /></div><div>The three of us sat there, whispering back and forth to one-another for a few hours while we were waiting to be processed. At one point, a kind-looking female woman in scrubs came out of an office, wrapped Manuel in a thick woolen blanket, and whisked him off to places unknown. We didn't know why.</div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually, the three of us that remained were ushered into a small bathroom with a half-dozen individual showers. After undressing, rinsing off, and redressing in our one-piece dark blue prison jumpsuits, we each underwent physicals before being lead into a glass-walled holding cell where we had "breakfast" waiting for us. </div><div><br /></div><div>After finishing our meal (which consisted of terrible oatmeal, a few chunks of syrup-soaked fruit, a roll and a small carton of milk with some burned coffee), Brandon became bored and decided that he wanted to practice doing backflips in our confined cell, much to Juan and I's amusement. He did three before a guard posted outside threatened to come in and "make him stop."</div><div><br /></div><div>Luckily, before Brandon could find another apparently rule-infringing way to entertain himself, we were removed from the holding cell and taken to a small room with a televison where we were locked in and forced to watch a 15-minute long, decades-old video four times in a row before someone outside the room realized it.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #6:</b> Making fun of that video with the two of them was one of the funniest things I've ever experienced. Brandon's silly, naive sense of humor meshed with Juan's dry, bitter sense of humor perfectly. They made a good comedic duo.</div><div><br /></div><div>We were then lead into a series of rooms to get our cots, pillows, toothbrushes and other such things before being taken to the block and having a cell assigned to us. Splitting up for the first time in hours, we entered our respective rooms to set up our living areas. </div><div><br /></div><div>Upon entering mine, I introduced myself to my cellmate (who was covered in gang tattoos and named "Eddie"), and we began talking about what had brought him there. He explained that he'd been cut a deal in a nonviolent robbery case, and was currently on his second day of a six-month stint he'd be serving. </div><div><br /></div><div>This admission opened a lot of doors for us, conversationally speaking. The two of us sat side-by-side on the bottom cot for an hour, talking about the road that had brought him here and the things he had done wrong in life. He said that he'd promised his girlfriend (by whom he'd had a daughter) that he wouldn't be breaking the law anymore, and that he promised to be a better man after he got out. She'd agreed to stay with him, as long as he kept that promise. It was touching, in its own weird way.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #7:</b> Sometime during this discussion, I brought up the fact that I'd seen Manuel wrapped in a blanket and taken somewhere else. Eddie informed me that this was standard procedure for people that were at risk of harming themselves. </div><div><br /></div><div>The two of us left the cell after our discussion, and mingled with our "neighbors." After sitting down at a table with Brandon, Juan, and a few people they'd made friends with for a little while, I noticed a small bookshelf tucked away in a corner, and decided I'd walk over and see what sorts of reading material they had in store.</div><div><br /></div><div>To my absolute shock, I found a copy of one of my favorite books, by my all-time favorite author: "The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" by Douglas Adams. Elated, I took it back to my cell and began reading it immediately. </div><div><br /></div><div>Two hours later, Eddie entered our cell, saying that that I'd "disappeared," and that he was "afraid someone had made [me] their bitch." Laughing, I told him that no, I'd just been excited because I'd found the book, that it was one of my favorites, and that I was sorry to have worried him like that. </div><div><br /></div><div>Suddenly, a voice came over our cell's intercom. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Walters, your bail's been posted by your father. Walk up to the front desk with your things," it said, before crackling into silence.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Well, I guess this is goodbye," I said to Eddie, taking the blankets off of my cot. "Good luck over the next six months. I think you'll be fine."</div><div><br /></div><div>"I hope so, man," he replied. "I really do."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Here," I said, offering the book I'd been reading to him. "Read this, it'll blow your mind into a million pieces. You can thank me later."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Oh, thanks! I was gonna check it out after you'd finished, but I guess I don't have to wait anymore," he grinned.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Promise you'll read it?" I asked.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah, I promise," he said, still smiling.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Alright, because if you don't, I'll come back here and kick your ass. You don't know the things I'm capable of," I joked, keeping my face as straight as possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>He stared back at me, completely serious, before erupting in laughter and reaching out to shake my hand.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Nice meeting you, man."</div><div><br /></div><div>"You too, Eddie. Again, good luck out there in the real world. Don't be an idiot anymore."</div><div><br /></div><div>And with that, I left the cell. After saying goodbye to Brandon and Juan, I left the building hoping I'd made an impact on at the people I'd met during my 24-hour stay. Because they definitely made an impact on me.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-8054417793453786772011-03-06T13:53:00.000-06:002011-03-06T13:53:34.277-06:00My First O.N.S.<div>When I was in high school, I wasn't really the type of person that partied all the time. Sure, I had some experimental phases with booze and drugs, but for the most part, I was a fairly straight-laced teenager. This is because I realized something about myself during said experimental phases: weird shit happens to me when I'm any form of inebriated, as I've illustrated before (see "<a href="http://talesfromthegypped.blogspot.com/2011/02/blackout-story.html">The Blackout Story</a>" and "<a href="http://talesfromthegypped.blogspot.com/2011/02/shower-door-story.html">The Shower Door Story</a>" for proof).</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the earliest examples I can think of this took place early in the summer between my sophomore and junior years. I'd recently become friends with a guy that lived down the street from me named Joseph, and was invited to a "small get-together" he was holding at his house while his parents were away for the weekend. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> Cliches exist for a reason, as it turns out.</div><div><br /></div><div>Naturally, I accepted his invitation and walked over to his house just as the sun was setting the night of the party. Upon arriving, I realized just how small this get-together was. The so-called party consisted of me, him, his girlfriend, his sister, his sister's boyfriend, and his girlfriend's best friend, Melissa. To his surprise, I told him that I was completely okay with hanging out with this small group as opposed to a larger one. I've never done well in crowds, and this wasn't even close to the capacity of some of the smaller parties I'd previously attended.</div><div><br /></div><div>Shortly after I arrived, we all began drinking mixed drinks at a relaxed pace while sitting around, listening to music and talking about nothing in particular. About an hour into this, Joseph's sister and her boyfriend became bored and disappeared into her room, presumably to have ridiculous amounts of sex. Seeing this as a chance to kick the festivities into high-gear without wasting too much of the alchohol we had on, we began taking shots of the high-end vodka Joseph had somehow had managed to get his hands on.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> Nothing says "inexperienced" like getting plastered at 8 PM.</div><div><br /></div><div>After we'd all had our share for the time being, we began to talk about past relationships we'd been in, and why they failed. When you're generally a depressed drunk like myself, this is one of the worst topics of conversation you can possibly be involved in. For me, it's mostly because I end up (sometimes rightfully) blaming myself for the generally premature demise of every good thing that has come my way.</div><div><br /></div><div>If the specificity of the above paragraph wasn't a strong enough indicator, that night was a shining example of just how self-deprecating I can be. If that weren't shameful enough, a certain song came on the "party shuffle" Joseph's computer had put together, smack in the middle of my tirade about how badly I'd treated the few girlfriends I'd had in the past.</div><div><br /></div><div>That song, dear reader, was a sorrowful track titled "Tiny Vessels" by former indie-cred band Death Cab For Cutie.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> If you've never heard the song here it is:</div><div><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ADa7n1fM12g?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /></div><div>Listen to at least 30 seconds of it so you know what I'm talking about for the next few paragraphs. Even better, listen to it <i>as</i> you read the next few paragraphs.</div><div><br /></div><div>The instant this song came on, my eyes inadvertently began to water and I couldn't figure out why. I didn't have an attachment to this song, nor did I find it to be particularly depressing. Yet there I sat, pontificating about my faults and blinking profusely to prevent tears from running down my cheeks as I did so.</div><div><br /></div><div>Noticing this before the two females in the room did, Joseph reached over to change it, using the excuse that it "didn't belong on party shuffle," trying to help me save face before I was in danger of being considered the third female in the room.</div><div><br /></div><div>But being a glutton for punishment, I stopped him from doing so. By this time, everyone in the room was fully aware that I was crying, and soon Melissa was by my side, holding my hand and telling me that everything would be okay.</div><div><br /></div><div>Less than five minutes later, she kissed me. Ten minutes after that, we found ourselves in Joseph's parents' bed (at his reccommendation), removing our clothes frantically. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, I'd known Melissa for around a year at this point, and had always harbored a sort of I'll-never-get-her-but-I-can-still-admire-her-from-afar-type crush on her. After all, she was blonde, had gorgeous blue eyes, and (at the risk of sounding like a complete douche) had fantastic boobs that any self-respecting guy at my school would have gladly paid any amount of money to see. I never would have guessed that a few uninhibited, drunken tears shed during a self-thrown pity party would have been the correct route to land her in the sack, but I guess it was. For some reason, I didn't find this odd at all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Despite the fact that she was out of my league, and despite the fact that this should have been one of the most memorable nights of my four years in high school, this is precisely where things start to get fuzzy as I think back. I can blame it on the fact that we did it in the dark, or I can blame it on the vodka, but when I think back to the actual sex itself, I don't remember much besides the fact that it took a little while to get started, was good while it lasted, and that we both enjoyed ourselves and passed out immediately afterwards.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4:</b> Oh, and I also remember Joseph coming in pre-penis-insertion and handing me a condom as we both laid in his parents' bed, naked. That was pretty cool of him.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next morning, we both woke up at the same time. Despite the fact that my breath smelled awful, my head was pounding, and I felt like I could throw up at any given moment, I did what every guy does after a one night stand and decided to try to attain the "morning after lay." But I didn't get a single taste of the coveted pre-breakfast poon. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #5: </b>If I ever become ridiculously famous, and future historians speak of my contributions to literature and additions to the general lexicon, I hope one of them mentions that I coined the phrase "pre-breakfast poon," assuming I just did so.</div><div><br /></div><div>Graciously and politely turning me down before getting out of bed and redressing herself, she left me laid out naked on a bed owned and slept in by people I'd never met, feeling cheated out of a prize I didn't know I had to win. After all, I had assumed that our experiences the previous night would inevitably lead to a relationship, or at least consideration of one, but her disinterest in me that morning lead me to believe otherwise. I felt like she had used me for something, and I didn't know why.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lo and behold, I was right. A week later, I was talking to Joseph about what had happened, when he told me something that would forever change my opinion of women.</div><div><br /></div><div>He explained that Melissa had been waiting for the right moment and guy to lose her virginity to for weeks, and I just so happened to fit the bill in both cases. He then told me that it was because she'd had her eye on a "sexually experienced" guy, and didn't want him knowing that she'd had no previous experience herself.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #6:</b> I've never, ever met a guy that would turn down a virgin who is all-too willing to have sex. This guy had some whack priorities.</div><div><br /></div><div>I didn't know exactly how to feel. One side of me considered the fact that she'd seen me as the "right" guy to lose her virginity to as vaguely flattering, but the other side of me was disappointed that she'd known all along that our relationship would never extend past that night.</div><div><br /></div><div>After plenty of time spent wondering how I should handle the situation, I realized that I was approaching it like a scorned woman would. I was hurt because someone had used me for sex, for their own selfish reasons. It then dawned on me that most men would kill to be in my position, scoring a no-strings attached one night stand with an attractive female virgin. I felt like an idiot for behaving the way I did.</div><div><br /></div><div>So it was on that day, during the summer directly in the middle of my high school years, that I decreed that I would never again be the bitch in any situation I found myself in. And I haven't looked back since.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-16342771574330264102011-02-27T15:16:00.003-06:002011-02-27T15:21:26.192-06:00My Stalker<div>Through the final two years of my three years in middle school, not a lot of things remained constant in my life. I was going through the hell known as puberty, I'd switched schools in between the 6th and 7th grade, and was still "discovering" myself.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> Consider that a polite euphemism for "started to masturbate regularly."</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the things that did remain constant towards the end, however, was the undying affection of a girl named Erica. I was thrown off by her advances when they began via a note slipped into the grates of my locker one afternoon. Written in green ink on notebook paper, it went something like this:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Dear Ty,</div><div><br /></div><div>I saw you walking. We have a class together. Your cute [sic].</div><div><br /></div><div>Call me.</div><div>(phone number)</div><div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div>Erica</div></blockquote><div></div><div>Reading the name at the bottom of the note, I was confused and also flattered. I'd never heard of this person before or noticed anyone named Erica in any of my classes.<br /><br /></div><div>Then it hit me. A year younger than me, with braces and thick glasses, Erica was the mentally disabled girl that was in my Computer Literacy class. I wasn't sure what to do, and I definitely didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I ignored it.<br /><br /><b>Aside #2:</b> My motto: "Don't want to hurt someone's feelings? Ignore them!"</div><div><br /></div><div>But she was persistent. Over the next few weeks, she would drop more notes into my locker, despite the fact that I never replied to a single one or gave her any indication that her feelings were reciporicated in the slightest.</div><div><br /></div><div>It started to get worse, too. Every time she walked by me in the hall, she would giggle, look down, and rush out of my field of vision. I was beginning to get worried. My sensitivity towards the handicapped like Erica made it difficult for me to say no without devastating her.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> At this point in time, my mother was a Special Education teacher, so I was well aware of how emotionally unstable she may be. I don't mean to generalize this group of people, but it was a distinct possiblility.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soon after her barrage of notes had started, spring break began. I was given a week off from my moral torture, and to be frank, forgot about it completely.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the following Monday, I opened my locker to find a bright red envelope with my name on it. Opening it, I found a card with yet another plea to call her, and to my horror, a wallet-sized copy of her school photo with her name on the back next to a bright-red heart. She just wouldn't quit.<br /><br />I knew I had to take some sort of action against her, for her sake and for my own. So one day, after school had ended, I walked to the special education room where Erica spent most of her time, and asked to talk to the teacher that had been assigned to her.<br /><br />I was then introduced to a polite, soft-spoken teacher named Mrs. Morris, who, after I'd explained the situation, told me that one of the side-effects of Erica's particular disability was that she became obsessed with people that she found attractive, as a coping mechanism.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4: </b>I say "coping mechanism" because she was apparently incapable of admitting these attractions like a normal person, instead choosing to become obsessive.<br /><br />Apparently she'd cycled through celebrities, teachers and other students before, and had lost interest after a few weeks. Mrs. Morris assured me that Erica would become "bored" with me if I continued to ignore her, and the notes would stop. Thanking her for her candor and help, I left.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><br />Three weeks later, the notes still hadn't stopped, and were becoming more and more unsettling. I began seeing her several times a day, as opposed to the two or three times I'd normally run into her. I can't say that I was scared, but I was definitely uncomfortable.<br /><br />So I went to talk to Mrs. Morris again after school, to tell her that Erica's obsession with me hadn't waned. Immediately after I'd entered her room, she rushed over to me.<br /><br />"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry she hasn't stopped bothering you," she said. "I haven't been able to contact you because I forgot to write down your name, and Erica refuses to tell it to me because she knows exactly why I want it. I was this close," she held her fingers apart a small amount, "to following her throughout the day and hoping she'd run into you."<br /><br />After explaining what had been happening over the last few weeks, she sighed and took a folder out from her desk.<br /><br />"These are what Erica has been drawing during her special ed. period," she said, opening the folder.<br /><br />Handing me a stack of paper, I leafed through them. Every single one was a childlike drawing of either me alone, or she and I together, holding hands and partaking in various activities she must have assumed couples did regularly.<br /><br /><b>Aside #5:</b> The few I can remember are she and I walking through a park, playing with a dog and eating dinner together.<br /><br />"She's on a level of obsession with you that I've never witnessed before," continued Mrs. Morris. "I'm not sure what to do about it."<br /><br />"Well, what if I told her that I'm not interested?" I asked. "Would she freak out?"<br /><br /></div><div>"I'm not sure," she said. "We've never had her take it this far before. The last time she drew pictures of someone like this, it was of Orlando Bloom, and we had to convince her that there was no hope. She didn't take it well."<br /><br /><b>Aside #6: </b>And that was the only time in my life that I've ever been inadvertently compared to Orlando Bloom. Get on my level.<br /><br />"If I were to do it," I continued, "I would be very gentle in letting her down. I could even lie and tell her that my fake-girlfriend doesn't like that she's sending me these love notes."<br /><br />"You know...that actually might work," she admitted. "Well, I guess we'll try it and see how it goes."<br /><br /></div><div>We then made plans to call me out of class at a certain point the next day. She told me that Erica would likely "spaz out" when I entered the room, but to not show her that it made me uncomfortable. After planning out what I should say to her, I left.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next day, I was called to the special ed. room just as planned. Walking down the hall, I rehearsed what Mrs. Morris and I had decided that I would say. Soon, I was at the door to the room. Taking a deep breath, I opened it.<br /><br />The instant it swung open, Erica turned towards the door and saw me standing there. Just as Mrs. Morris had predicted, she started freaking out, not quite knowing how to contain herself. I walked over and sat in the chair across from her, as Mrs. Morris sat in the one beside her.<br /><br />"Hi Erica," I said.<br /><br />"Hi..." she said, in between making excited noises with her mouth.<br /><br />"Erica, Ty has something that he needs to tell you," chimed in Mrs. Morris, looking at me and nodding.<br /><br />"That's right. I came here to tell you that I think it would be best if you stopped writing notes to me. My girlfriend doesn't like it, and is getting jealous," I lied.<br /><br />"Girl...girlfriend?" she stammered. "You...don't have a girlfriend..."<br /><br />We hadn't planned for this. Thinking on my toes, I said, "Actually, I do. She goes to a different school. That's why you've never seen me with her."<br /><br />"Oh...well...okay..." she said, sadness in her voice.<br /><br />"But Erica, if you want to be my friend, I would be more than happy to come down to this room once a week to talk to you. But you've got to promise me you'll stop writing notes to me."<br /><br />She looked at me for five seconds before looking away again and smiling.<br /><br />"Okay..." she agreed, still grinning.<br /><br /></div><div>After spending a few more minutes talking to her, I left. I worked out a deal with Mrs. Morris before I did though, agreeing to be called out of one of my elective classes on every Thursday until her obsession with me had faded.<br /><br /></div><div>Two visits later, she was finished with me, and had moved on to a new crush. I saw her in the halls from time-to-time after that, but she never acted the way she had when she was obsessed with me.<br /><br />I ran into Mrs. Morris some time later, close to the end of the school year. She told me that she had been working on this facet of her behavior with Erica, and that what I had done helped this cause immensely. She said that she expected this habit to be knocked within the next few months, if all went as planned. And I hope, for Erica's sake, it worked.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-44516385182412734892011-02-23T19:35:00.000-06:002011-02-23T19:36:01.800-06:00The Camp StoryIn the middle fifth grade year, I was given a chance to attend a four-day camp alongside approximately 80% of my classmates. We took a fleet of buses to the middle of nowhere (Oklahoma), and the 100 or so of us stayed in cabins with volunteer parents or teachers that had come on the trip with us.<br /><br />The cabins were large, rustic-looking buildings with four sets of bunk beds in them, meant to house one parent and seven kids. Our "parent" was the father of one of those seven, Kyle, and was a nice man that let us stay up past our allowed bedtimes and play card games with each other.<br /><br /><b>Aside #1: </b>I specifically remember thinking it was really, really cool that he let us play "Bullshit," even though we had to shorten it to "BS." Even saying the abbreviation made all feel awesome.<br /><br />I was lucky enough to be one of the kids given a top bunk, for reasons I can't remember (I'm sure we had to draw straws or something), a treat that was sought after in the mindset of my grade.<br /><br />Anyways, the day after our first night of settling in, the real fun began. Over the next two days, we would play with snakes, practice archery, look at constellations in the sky, and did plenty of other camp-related activities that seemed incredibly exciting at the time.<br /><br /><b>Aside #2:</b> I'd probably still get excited over archery and snakes, I won't lie to you.<br /><br />Then, on the third day, we went on our first nature hike. The teachers, camp counselors and parents told us that they were combining our cabins into three large groups, and that we would each be cycling through the three trails the camp had to offer.<br /><br />So our groups headed off in different directions, counselors leading the pack and telling the first two-thirds of the kids that could hear them all about how neat the wilderness was. I couldn't hear anything, because I was the last person in the massive line, but I enjoyed the walk all the same.<br /><br />That was, until I felt the all-too familiar sensation of needing to urinate. Badly. Waddling towards the middle of the line where a teacher was stationed, I pulled her aside and explained my issue. She told me to follow the trail that we were on back to the cabins, go to the bathroom, and wait there to join up with them.<br /><br />Following a trail backwards is simple enough, right? Apparently not. It didn't take five minutes before a combination of my overt curiosity with nature and direction-less being found me lost in the middle of the woods with no one around and nowhere to pee.<br /><br />I started freaking out, which is exactly what you <i>don't </i>want to do when you have to urinate so bad your stomach hurts. Then I began running aimlessly towards what I thought was the camp, which is the absolute <i>worst</i> thing you can do in the same case.<br /><br />My panicking plus the jarring motions of running equaled one thing: emptying my entire bladder into my pants with no control over the situation at all.<br /><br /><b>Aside #3:</b> You might ask why I didn't just zip my fly down and pee out. Well, I was in the fifth grade. I'd just got over my fear of peeing while standing up next to a toilet, I wasn't about to do it in the middle of the woods where someone might see my teeny-tiny junk.<br /><br />I had no idea what to do with myself. So I kept walking (not running) in the direction I thought camp was in, hoping to get back and change before my hiking group had returned.<br /><br />A few minutes later, I arrived. The grounds were completely deserted, so I made my way to our cabin and walked in. Stripping my urine-soaked pants, underwear and socks off, I stepped into the bathroom and washed my legs off as much as I could using the sink.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4:</b> Our cabins only had a sink and toilet, the showers were elsewhere.<br /><br />Once I felt I had done well enough, I put clean clothes on and looked at my pile of soaked clothes that sat in front of me. Rather than wash them in the sink like a normal person would, I instead opted to hang them all from the rafters above my bed, hoping that they would dry out before we'd return that night.<br /><br />I stepped outside just as the three groups were arriving at the central campgrounds to swap trails. Re-joining my group, I continued throughout the day as if nothing had happened, with thoughts of my pee-soaked pants lingering in the back of my mind.<br /><br />When my cabin-mates, our "parent" and I all arrived at the cabin that night, everyone stepped into the room only to have their nostrils assaulted with the smell of putrid, stale urine. Immediately, Kyle's dad called a camp counselor and discreetly told him that "one of the kids must have wet the bed last night" and that the cabin smelled absolutely vile. I didn't tell him what had really happened.<br /><br />The counselor then told us all to pack up our things, and said that we'd be moving to a different cabin since this one was clearly uninhabitable. As I packed, I thought quickly and stuffed the offensive-smelling clothes into the very bottom of my bag, where the smell no longer affected the air outside of it.<br /><br />Soon after, rumors started circulating around the camp about who in our cabin had committed the heinous act of peeing the bed, and one of the seven that wasn't me was eventually singled out as the offender. He was alienated for the rest of the trip, and made fun of relentlessly for something he didn't do. Again, I never said a word suggesting that I had anything to do with it.<br /><br />So I write this as an admission. An admission that I, Tyler Walters, pissed my pants at camp in the fifth grade and let another boy take the fall for it. I'm sorry, boy whose name I forgot, for all of the pain I may have caused you. It wasn't my intention, and I sure hope you didn't end up shooting a bunch of people years later because of it.T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-9828165266896458862011-02-20T18:52:00.004-06:002011-02-21T11:55:40.207-06:00The Blackout Story<div>I've never been one to admit that I use the internet as a crutch for meeting women. But seeing as most of my major relationships have begun in some capacity before I've even met the girl, I think it's time I finally stop denying my reliability on the written word to woo females. It's just how I function, I suppose. </div><div><br /></div><div>One of the girls I've done this with was named Bethany, back during the week of my 18th birthday, the summer before my senior year in high school. I was "introduced" to her via a friend from school, and told that she and I would really hit it off if we began talking.</div><div><br /></div><div>So naturally, I took his advice and began playing the game I've come to partake in all-too often. She was pretty, smart, and had a great sense of humor, and I sincerely did enjoy talking to her. She seemed to enjoy my company well, and soon we developed small crushes on one another.</div><div><br /></div><div>There was an issue with seeing her, however. Between work and babysitting her younger sibling, she didn't have a lot of free time. On top of that, she lived more than 45 minutes away, so a trip would take a while if we'd planned to see one another.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then one night, she called me around 10:30, asking if I could meet up with her somewhere and go to a party in her part of town that she was invited to. My parents weren't exactly the "let your kid go to a party with a girl he's never met at 10:30 at night"-type parents, so I told them that I would be spending the night at my friend's house instead. </div><div><br /></div><div>An hour and a half later, she showed up at a park that we'd decided to meet at, 50 minutes later than she said she would. Despite this fact, I was willing to forgive her and move on.</div><div><br /></div><div>But there was a problem. Bethany was not all like she'd advertised herself to be online, and I'm not only talking about her physical appearance, but her attitude as well. 80 pounds heavier than me, with a callous, bitter personality, she was practically the exact opposite of what she'd told me and shown me she was before. </div><div><br /></div><div>But I was stuck. It was midnight and I was supposed to be at my friend's house, and didn't have any other choice but to go with her to this party. So we left, and arrived there nearly an hour later, both exhausted and in bad moods (me because of her deception, her because of my attitude towards her). </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> Before you think I'm an asshole for judging her like this, then treating her badly afterwards, understand my level of disappointment by putting yourself in my shoes. She literally wasn't anything like the girl I'd began to like online, and I wasn't too happy about it.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was introduced to a large group of people upon my arrival, including the redheaded girl who was hosting the party named Allison that I immediately hit it off with, much to Bethany's chagrin. Everyone there seemed glad that I had come, and they all welcomed me into their fold with open arms, telling me to drink as much booze and smoke as much hookah as I'd liked.</div><div><br /></div><div>Happily, I obliged, taking a 2/3-full fifth of high-end vodka and making it my own. One of the patrons of the party saw this, and dared me to chug the whole thing in one go, without stopping. Not wanting to disappoint my newfound friends, and never willing to back down from a dare, I happily obliged. </div><div><br /></div><div>The last thing I remember hearing, as the vodka was being emptied into my mouth, was the long-haired guy that had dared me saying the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>"See you later, duuude."</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't remember much after that. I vaguely recall getting into a pool in nothing but my boxers, and Allison jumping in after me. I remember swimming over to her and trying to kiss her, but I can't remember if I was successful. I also distinctly remember Bethany leaving shortly after my attempt at showing affection to a girl that wasn't her, telling me that I could find my own way home.<br /><br /><b>Aside #2:</b> I realize that I could have very easily had sex with her that night, but I'm near-positive I didn't. As I've said before, alcohol usually makes my man-parts go all limp and unusable.</div><div><br /></div><div>Six hours later I woke up at the end of her driveway next to a pile of my own vomit. A guy with dreds that was at the party was lightly prodding me with the toe of his shoe, telling me I needed to get up and that Allison's parents would be home soon. Still really, really drunk, I slowly stood up and asked him where I should go. He pointed down the street, and I slowly started shuffling in that direction.</div><div><br /></div><div>What didn't really cross my mind was that I was easily a 45-minute drive away from home, didn't know where my cell phone was, and was deathly afraid of what my parents would do to me if they'd found out that I lied. </div><div><br /></div><div>So I continued stumbling down the street, until a kind-looking woman pulled over and asked me if I was okay.</div><div><br /></div><div>"No, I'm really drunk," I replied, slurring my words.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Well get in, I'll help you," she said, unlocking the car door.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not caring that I'd never seen this woman before, or that she may have a secondary adgenda when it came to helping me, I climbed into her car.</div><div><br /></div><div>"You have writing all over your face," she informed me, as we headed in the direction I'd been walking in.</div><div><br /></div><div>"What does it say?" I asked.</div><div><br /></div><div>"The only word I can really make out is 'dick' on your cheek. I think there's an arrow pointing to your mouth, too," she admitted, clearly trying not to laugh.</div><div><br /></div><div>Around then, we pulled up to a Starbucks. Tripping over myself to get inside, I sat down at one of the small tables while the woman walked up to the counter and placed an order. Putting my head down, I passed out until a few minutes later when my order was delivered to my table. The woman was nowhere to be seen, and the barista that gave me my black coffee and cinnamon cake told me that she'd told her to tell me that she was sorry that she had to leave, and that she'd had an appointment somewhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>After trying to take a sip of my coffee, burning my mouth, and spilling it down my front, I resumed my head-down position on the table and passed out again.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not long later, I awoke to four police officers and two firefighters standing around me, one putting a blood pressure monitor on my finger and another rummaging through my bag I'd brought with me. A third began talking to me.</div><div><br /></div><div>"What is your name?" he asked, chuckling.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Ty...Tyler..." I said.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Well, Tyler, you're lucky to be alive, from the looks of it. How much did you drink?"</div><div><br /></div><div>I raised both hands and put out my index fingers, holding them six inches apart.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Th...this much vodka..."</div><div><br /></div><div>He whistled. The other men started chattering.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I couldn't drink that much," one said.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Your liscense says you weigh around 115 pounds, is that correct?" asked the first officer, my wallet in-hand.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yes...I can't gain weight!" I gargled, laughing.<br /><br /><b>Aside #3: </b>Three years later, and I don't weigh more than ten pounds more than this.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Well, we're checking your blood pressure right now to make sure you don't have alchohol poisoning. I assume you drank all of this last night?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yes...last night..."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Well, your readings are okay, it looks like a lot of it is out of your system. You're just dealing with the residual stuff right now. We're not going to punish you, because it looks like this has done more than enough to teach you a lesson."</div><div><br /></div><div>"I don't have a ride home..." I remembered, getting scared.</div><div><br /></div><div>He then asked me where I lived, and after I told him, and he began to look worried. He then told me that they'd found my cell phone in my bag, and were going to call my parents to have them come pick me up. After a few half-assed attempts to prevent him from doing so, the officer was soon on the phone with my stepdad. He explained the situation, gave him the address of the Starbucks, and told him to come as soon as possible.<br /><br />During their exchange, for a third time that morning, I put my head down on the table and passed out.</div><div><br />Some time later, I awakened while being dragged out of the shop by my shirt.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4: </b>I'm not exaggerating, I literally woke up as I was being dragged out. My heels hit the door frame and it jarred me awake.<br /><br />After being unceremoniously thrown into the passenger seat of my mother's Honda, my stepdad quickly walked around the car and sat down harshly, slamming his door. If I had any question as to if he was angry with me, it was answered by his actions.<br /><br />The drive home was filled with no talking and lots of falling in and out of consciousness. When we finally arrived home, a lot of yelling was done, by both him and my mother, followed by me sitting and staring at them in a drunken stupor, not sure how to respond. They both said things to me that made me feel like the absolute worst person on the face of the planet for what I had done, as if this instance wasn't one amongst millions like it in the whole of teenager-dom.<br /><br />Once they were finished with me, I walked into the bathroom and tried to kill myself by slicing my left wrist open with an X-Acto knife.<b> </b>But, as I've mentioned a dozen times previously, I was still incredibly drunk, and...well...missed every single vein I could have possibly hit. By a wide margin.<br /><br /><b>Aside #5:</b> Fun fact: The reason that I started wearing watches regularly was to cover up some of the bigger scars from this day. I'm now a bona-fide watch fanatic.<br /><br />After fifteen minutes of barely bleeding from the few cuts I'd managed to actually make, my mother knocked on the bathroom door.<br /><br /></div><div>"What are you doing in there?" she asked.<br /><br />"Well...I was trying to kill myself, but I don't think it's working," I replied.<br /><br />Quickly, she opened the door and found me standing there on the verge of tears.<br /><br /><b>Aside #6:</b> The fact that I didn't lock the door should tell you how serious I was about killing myself.<br /><br />The next few minutes were a blur. Nothing really important happened, aside from both of my parents being angry with me for trying to kill myself (which is EXACTLY how you should treat a "suicidal" person, by the way). After an hour of sitting on our couch and calming down, I took a shower and went to bed.<br /><br /><b>Aside #7: </b>As I took a shower, I found that there wasn't just writing on my face. It was also on my stomach, my thighs, and shoulders. None of the things were pleasant.<br /><br />Eleven hours later, around 9 'o clock that night, I woke up, still unable to walk in a straight line, but sobered up enough to face my parents. Except, something had happened to them in those few hours. I'll never know what, exactly, but a shift occurred in the both of them.<br /><br />My stepdad hugged me after I walked into our living room, in a rare display of parental affection that I wasn't used to. He'd also gone to the store during my mini-coma, and had bought mango popsicles for me, to help with the dehydration that the booze had done to my system.<br /><br />My mother, for the first time since I was a child, asked me to come into her room to watch a movie with her. Together we sat side-by-side on her bed at watched some lame romantic comedy as we talked about what had happened the night before. She assured me that I would be punished for it, but that I shouldn't worry about it for the next few hours, and should just relax.<br /><br />This was the only time that I can remember my parents being this pleasant to me since I'd started high school, and the only time they were both nice to me at the same time since. If I would have known that all it took for them to be this way was a shitload of high-proof vodka and a botched suicide attempt, I would have done it a helluva lot sooner.<br /><br /><i>This post is dedicated to my friend and longtime supporter Jacob Seemann, to remind him that bad days happen to us all, and to keep soldiering on, no matter what. </i></div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-14452661676530042532011-02-16T13:45:00.002-06:002011-02-16T14:21:09.807-06:00The Stolen Bike StoryI've never driven a car for more than ten minutes in my entire life. My phobia of getting behind the wheel of an automobile has made life very difficult for me, and has made me dependent on either public transportation or biking to get where I need to be. This has instilled a love of riding bikes in me that wasn't there before, and I try to get out and ride as often as possible, just for fun.<br /><br />Such was the case early last January. Returning to my dad's apartment complex after riding around the area and listening to music for a little while, I rode past a tall, thuggish-looking black guy that said something to me as I coasted past him.<br /><br />Being the naive idiot I sometimes am, I stopped, took my headphones off, and had the following conversation with him (code-named "John"):<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me: </span></b>"What?"<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">John: </span></b>"Man, that's a nice bike. Where you get it?"<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Me: </b></span>"Uh. Wal-Mart."<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">John: </span></b>"How much it cost?"<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me:</span></b> "Around $100, I think. I don't know."<br /><br /><div>At this point, there was a second guy walking up behind the first. Latino but equally as thuggish-looking, he joined our conversation (code-named "Ralph"). At this point, I was growing uncomfortable as they stood on either side of me, preventing me from going anywhere.<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Ralph: </span></b>You smoke weed?<br /><br /><b>Aside #1: </b>I've decided that this is the fucking craziest way anyone has ever introduced themselves to me.<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me:</span></b> Uh. Sometimes, yeah.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Ralph:</b> </span>You need some?<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me:</span></b> No, I have plenty, thanks.<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">John: </span></b>You got that kush? That kush is dope. Sheeeeeyut.<br /><br /><b>Aside #2: </b>Yes, he seriously said that.<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me:</span></b> ...yeah. Dope.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Ralph:</b></span> You do bars? Bars are the fuckin' shit.<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">John:</span></b> Yeah, fuckin' bars man, try 'em.<br /><br /><b>Aside #3:</b> Bars are Xanax, for those of you not well-versed in drug lingo.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Me:</b></span> No thanks, I don't mess with pills.<br /><br />At this point, I put my headphones back on and turned around to ride away. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ralph punches me in the temple, disorienting me and knocking my glasses off.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4: </b>"Beat the hell out of anyone that doesn't buy from you" is a pretty flawless drug-selling technique, I have to admit.<br /><br />Still standing and holding onto my bike, the following was said:<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me: </span></b>Fucking owwwwwww!<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Ralph:</b></span> You best get off that bike! I'm gonna hit you again!<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Me: </span></b>Fuck off.<br /><br />So he hit me on the side of the head again. And again. And again. Until I finally let go of my bike. John then stepped in and pulled it away, getting on it and doing what I can only describe as a small victory lap around Ralph and I as we continued to tussle.<br /><br />He was in the middle of trying to rip my bag away from me, when I decided to yell for help as loud as I possibly could. No one in the dozens of apartments surrounding us did anything, but it successfully scared them into running away.<br /><br />Still in a daze, I half-ran back to my dad's apartment to tell him what had happened. We immediately jumped into his truck and drove around the complex to try and find them, but were unable to. A theft report was then filed with the police along with descriptions of both of them, with promises to keep an eye on local pawn shops to see if they would try and sell it.<br /><br />The story should end there. But the next morning, my dad stepped outside to get the newspaper only to find my bike sitting in a parking space across the street from his apartment, as if someone had known it was mine and had left it there for me to find. Aside from missing a few screws and the chain guard, it was in the same condition I'd left it in.<br /><br />Here's the kicker, though: I don't know anyone in this apartment complex or the surrounding area, the guys that stole it didn't see where I lived (or even the area of the complex that I lived in), and the police assured me that they hadn't put it there. To this day, I still have no idea how it happened. I just take it as affirmation that superheroes do exist.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-28546325609312986142011-02-13T17:15:00.004-06:002011-02-13T17:35:02.914-06:00My Supportive Friend<div>In the summer of my fifteenth year, my mother and stepdad were in the midst of uprooting me from our house in Texas, to live in a new one in Arizona. I'd lived in Texas my entire life, and wasn't too happy about the situation.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1: </b>The day that we actually set out to drive from state-to-state was my birthday, something that I've never forgotten or forgiven my parents for.</div><div><br /></div><div>I looked for solace in many places, finally settling on the support of others through the internet. I began making friends through websites and chat rooms I frequented, generally speaking to those that were in or had been in the same situation as me. But there was one person, a female named Jenne, that stood out from the rest of people I was speaking to. She'd been uprooted before, and hated the ramifications of it at first, but had slowly grown to like her new life.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> I should mention that I did not use my real name in these situations. I usually went by my middle name, Drew.</div><div><br /></div><div>My friendship with Jenne began a month or two before we were set to leave. I can't remember exactly where we met on the web, or what made us start talking, but after a few weeks, I couldn't stop. I'd only had one true 3-month long relationship under my belt, and was new to the idea of females paying attention to me. She didn't seem to mind my attachment to her, and soon we were scheduling times and dates for when we would talk to one another via instant messanger. We'd start early in the night, and end up talking well into the early hours of the morning, never seeming to run out of subject matter.</div><div><br /></div><div>I talked about school, my friends, my parents, and anything else that came up. She talked about her job, husband, pets, and what she hoped to make of her life in the future.</div><div><br /></div><div>Did I mention Jenne was 27 years old? I know should have turned and ran after the first few weeks when she'd first mentioned this to me, but my fascination with how completely different her life was from mine kept our strange friendship going.</div><div><br /></div><div>And stranger did it become. Soon Jenne was making references to her mental health state, claiming that her husband didn't love her anymore because she was crazy. She claimed to have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and a slew of other issues that I can't recall.</div><div><br /></div><div>Again, I should have cut off contact with her after this revalation. But it only made her more interesting to me. As our friendship grew stronger, so did my schoolboy-type crush on her. I didn't make my feelings hidden, and she didn't act like it was wrong. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was only a matter of time before she began taking advantage of the attention I was giving her. She began teasing me, telling me about her sexual habits and slight fetishes, while also calling me "handsome" and "cute." Sexually inexperienced at the time, I hardly knew anything of the terminology she was throwing at me. She would imply, but never state directly, that my feelings for her were returned. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3: </b>After everything, I think she didn't admit it because it was because she was truly in love with her husband, though she was convinced he wasn't with her.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then the pictures started coming. Vanilla at first, they slowly became more and more promiscuous as time went on. She never sent me straight-up nude photos, but some were a moved blanket or a shifted arm away from being so. All were self-shot and in black-and-white, the latter for reasons I didn't and still don't know.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jenne would always follow up these conversations and sent pictures with claims that she'd "forgotten" how old I was, and that I kept "tricking" her by acting older. All were meant to be in good humor, and seemed tongue-in cheek, but showed me that she knew what she was doing was morally questionable. I wasn't complaining, because I found her ridiculously attractive, physically and mentally.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4:</b> It's no surprise that I'm attracted to damaged women.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Near the three-month mark of our so-called relationship, I suddenly stopped hearing from Jenne. She was never online anymore, and had never given me a phone number to call, and I was convinced something serious had happened to her. I didn't know what to do. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then, a month later, I recieved an email from her. She had been taken to a sanitarium for a short-term stay after having a mental breakdown one day at work. She was now medicated for all of her illnesses, and things were looking up between she and her husband. She explained to me that her attraction to me was part of her psychosis, and that she no longer felt that way because of the medication she was on.</div><div><br /></div><div>Luckily, I hadn't fooled myself into thinking I'd actually had a chance with her, so my heartbreak was only minor. I tried to continue our friendship after this, but was met with half-assed responses to my emails and attempts to talk to her. I think she was ashamed of the way she'd acted towards me, and didn't want to be reminded of it.<br /><br />Either way, I'm now thankful nothing happened past what did. I'm glad she never sent me nude photos, and that she never admitted that she had feelings for me, because my head probably would have exploded if she did.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-74252395310952874332011-02-06T00:18:00.005-06:002011-02-06T00:30:58.408-06:00The Shower Door Story<div style="text-align: left;">In the summer of 2007, I was many things. I was a year away from finishing high school, I was freshly single, and was going through much-too-long a period in my life where hormones were the decider of my every move.</div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div>One of these decisions that my hormones decided to make was to attend a 4th of July party that the girlfriend of one of my close friends Tom was throwing. His girlfriend, Lauren, and her sister Leah had decided to commandeer their parents' house while they were away for the holiday, inviting me and a few other people over.<br /><br /></div><div>The get-together started out just like any small party, with people slowly getting drunker as it progressed. Amongst the soon-to-be-shitfaced was me, taking shots left and right and using a mixed drink as a chaser. I wasn't a huge drinker back then (I never really have been), but for some reason I felt that I needed to get absolutely wasted.<br /><br /></div><div>Nothing too substantial happened until Tom, myself, and another one of our friends. were all sitting on the back porch, smoking cigarettes. Leah, with an estimated blood alcohol level higher than the three of ours combined, stumbled outside through the sliding glass door. Seeing that I was occupying the only chair, she decided to forgo asking me to relinquish my seat (which I would have gladly done) and opted to plop herself down right on my lap.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, before I continue, I have to mention a bit about Leah. I'd known her for around a year at this point, and she was part of my small group of "lunchtime friends;" people I'd gladly eat with but rarely saw outside of that. She was a sweet girl with a lot of personality, whom, to be frank, a lot of guys at my school would have liked to fuck. I'm not going to say she was a slut, but she definitely didn't mind this sort of attention.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, Leah was sitting on my lap, and like I said, we were both very drunk. Unsurprisingly, she leaned in and started to kiss me. Suddenly, we were in her bedroom, and getting undressed very quickly.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> We didn't teleport, but I definitely don't recall how we made it from the porch to her room.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soon, we were both naked and standing in the middle of her room. Dropping to her knees, she began to giggle in that sort of "I'm going to regret this tomorrow" way that women always do when they know they're going to wish they hadn't done whatever it is they are currently doing the following day.</div><div><br /></div><div>So she began to do said thing. While still giggling. It was terrible. After about five minutes of this, I realized the alchohol in my system was making it hard to concentrate on the task at hand, and I was actually beginning to get bored. Being a bored male during sexual activity does not bode well for the future of the sexual activity, so I asked her if we could move it to her bed and make the pleasure-giving mutual.</div><div><br /></div><div>She laid on her back on her bed, and I got on top of her. At the risk of being blunt, sex started happening. The instant it did, my penis felt like it was being mashed into a brick wall. It was as if I was trying to put it into a hole that was far too small for it to fit in (which in retrospect, was probably exactly what was happening). To make matters worse, her body's "natural lubrication system" seemed to be broken or in disrepair, meaning said brick wall felt as if someone had coated it in sandpaper.</div><div><br /><b>Aside #2: </b>I've had sex nightmares about this exact metaphor.<br /><br /></div><div>There I was trying to fuck the sandpaper-covered brick wall that was Leah's vagina, the door to her room opened. Almost instantly, Leah let out the loudest, most dick-shriveling scream of anger that I've ever heard. Turns out two of the people outside the door had decided that it would be absolutely hilarious if they interrupted our so-called "lovemaking" session by opening the door for a split-second.<br /><br />Her scream, combined with the pain in my groin, made the most important part of my body at that moment go completely limp. I wasn't sure what to do. I hadn't technically had sex with her yet, and wanted to get laid, so I suggested that we go into her bathroom and try to do it in the shower. My drunken mind thought that the running water would make things simpler and less painful on my end, while also cleaning off the thin layer of filth I'd felt my body had accumulated that night.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> From the drinking, not the sex.</div><div><br /></div><div>So we made the nude mad-dash to the bathroom down the hall without being seen by anyone, and turned the shower on. A few seconds later, after it had warmed up, we both got in. The shower that we'd decided to fornicate in was one with dual-sliding glass doors set over a bathtub, with steel bars across both panels on the outside that acted as handles. </div><div><br /></div><div>After situating ourselves inside the shower in the ideal positions, and after I'd...missed a few times, some part of Leah's brain had decided that it would be a great idea to use the shower's glass door as support.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bad idea. Within seconds, the glass door shattered into millions of light-green pieces, raining all over the both of us. Immediately, Leah began screaming the same scream she had screamed earlier, only now the tiled bathroom that we were in made it reverberate all around us, increasing the sound tenfold.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pissed off and visibly bleeding from my feet, I told her to shut the fuck up. As we both stood there ankle-deep in shards of glass, I called out for Tom at the top of my lungs and struggled to cover up my manhood as to avoid any further embarassment.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4:</b> No, I don't have a tiny dick. I just don't like showing it off to my friends.</div><div><br /></div><div>Almost immediately, like the great friend he was, Tom came rushing into the bathroom. Taking one look at the situation Leah and I were in, he began to laugh. Once he was finished, I asked him to get the both of us towels and to brush some of the glass that had spilled out onto the floor away so we could get out of the shower without injuring ourselves. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #5: </b>Something told me to take a picture of what had happened, and here it is:</div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkcHfZ_whmJmgpztJfKtcwFIDnqXteQXTJOkmHwc1lUIQquapuBplTM1OWnJZBO4O1ISCcInfO7TWoc6YgWs0DWKTZSpS3GumksM3BQgSuGqux2Cciw_6Gk5Rh6m9oJrLLPMLnjPfelIrO/s320/IMG_0458.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570457937005407858" /><div>Note the blood stains.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, he obliged. Soaking wet and naked, Leah and I stepped out of the shower onto the glass-free floor and began to dry off. I went into her room and gathered my clothing, and redressed. She would drunkenly talk to people for the next hour before passing out in her bed. I wouldn't sleep a wink that night, and would go home half-drunk and full of regret, with feet shredded to hell and filled with microscopic shards of glass.</div><div><br /></div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-42572950099232372452011-02-02T00:14:00.003-06:002011-02-16T19:14:58.206-06:00The Checkered Blanket StoryThroughout my life, I've been what I would consider to be seriously depressed quite a bit. Whether it be from financial woes, romance woes, or any other sort of woe, I can't help but spiral into a sort of self-deprecating nosedive any time something in my life goes terribly wrong. It usually lasts a few days after whatever it is that has happened, generally being fixed by sex, drugs, or any other vice meant to make the user feel better.<div><br /></div><div>Such was the case towards the end of winter during my nineteenth year. My girlfriend at the time (whom I was living with) had left me, leaving me feeling like a worthless piece of shit. Naturally, I began looking for girls to replace her with, going on random dates with four different females over the course of the next three months. </div><div><br /></div><div>Amongst these girls was an absolutely gorgeous part-time model named Shannon, with legs like toothpicks and a mind just as sharp. She'd invited me to a party one night when she came into my work, offering to pick me up after my shift had ended. Flattered, thinking that this absolutely gorgeous girl was way to far out of my league to be interested in me, I accepted.<br /><br />Two hours later, she pulled up outside of my workplace with a (female) friend in the passenger seat. Hopping into the back, the three of us began talking like we had known each other for ages, me trying to charm the hell out of the both of them.<br /><br />It must have worked on Shannon, because after we pulled up to the house where the party was being held, she locked her arm with mine on our short trek to the front porch. Seeing that I was nervous about entering a house full of people I'd never met on the arm of someone I'd<i> just</i> met, she told me to be calm and assured me that everyone inside would love me.<br /><br />She was right. Her words affected me, instilling a sort of confidence in myself that I very rarely show in large groups. Throughout the night, she stayed by my side as if we were a couple, and I definitely didn't object to her behavior. Soon, we were holding hands and talking to each other like there wasn't a bustling party going on around us. It was the first time I'd connected with someone so deeply since my girlfriend had left me, and it made me feel absolutely fantastic.</div><div><br /></div><div>We started talking about our lives and our interests, and it was revealed to me that she was older than she looked. Five years older than me, in fact. Fearing that she would lose interest if my own age was revealed, I dodged the question in a cutesy way when she asked. But after a few minutes of flirtatious prodding, I finally told her. Luckily, she was not deterred by this in the slightest, and told me that she thought I was older than I actually was, a comment I took as a compliment. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> I'm convinced I am cursed to go through life looking like I'm sixteen, so to hear that I looked older than nineteen is a huge deal. Hell, to even hear that I look my age is a huge deal.</div><div><br /></div><div>As night turned into morning, people started leaving the party. Not wanting to end what I now considered a date, I asked Shannon if there was anywhere she'd like to go before I was to go home. Just as I'd hoped, she offered to take me back to her apartment to "hang out for a little while."</div><div><br /></div><div>We had just gotten into her car when I first kissed her. Through forces unknown, we looked at each other and the moment sort of clicked. After the fact, she began blushing and trying to explain herself, telling me that she wasn't the "type of girl that kissed random guys," and that this was "really weird" for her. Lying to make her feel better, I said that it was strange behavior for me as well, something that seemed to make her feel more at-ease.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> Before you think I'm a terrible person for lying about that, consider how it would have seemed if I said that I'd been in this exact position a few times before. </div><div><br /></div><div>After this shared intimate moment, we began driving towards her apartment. Not five minutes passed before her right hand left the steering wheel to join my left. It was at that moment that I knew I could really grow to like this girl a great deal more than I already did, if given the chance.</div><div><br /></div><div>My tune changed quickly after we had finished our trek and arrived at her apartment. Walking in, everything seemed completely normal. She had an incredibly sweet dog, an apparently nice roommate (who wasn't there), and didn't have any dead bodies of other men that she'd lured into her abode hanging from the ceiling. Nothing was out of place or raised questions. </div><div><br /></div><div>That is, until we entered her bedroom. The first things I noticed were the half-dozen tall glass candles strewn about the room, each with the Virgin Mary on them. Alarmed, I continued to look around the room while we sat on her bed and talked about nothing in particular. I noticed an old Bible on her bedside table, along with a dog-eared copy of Tolstoy's <i>Anna Karenina</i>. Having read the book before, I brought it up in our casual conversation, hoping to then segue into her apparent religious beliefs.</div><div><br /></div><div>It worked. Shortly after our conversation on the finer points of Tolstoy's work ended, I brought up the Bible. Just as I'd feared, Shannon launched into a sort of robotic response that confirmed that she was a ridiculously devout Christian.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> I'm an atheist that is over having issues with religious people, aside from the crazy ones (such as the type Shannon was turning out to be). It's them that usually have the problem with me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then she bluntly told me that she wasn't going to have sex with me, as if I'd asked her directly. She explained that she was one of the believers in the "virgin until marriage" rule, something that her parents had both practiced when they were younger. She even threw in an anecdote about how when she was conceived the first time her parents ever had sex. How she knew this, I hate to imagine.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then she said something that, to this day, still sends shivers down my spine. Something that made me leap off of her bed in disgust. Something that I still can't believe passed through her lips. Motioning to the blanket we were currently sitting on, she said:</div><div><br /></div><div>"Actually, this checkered blanket was the one I was made on."</div><div><br /></div><div>I didn't speak to her much after that.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-17083237146173795792011-01-30T00:00:00.000-06:002012-05-12T19:45:05.322-05:00The Green Crayon StoryAs a person born after the 18th century, I grew up using crayons as an outlet to control my budding artistic "ability." Being a person growing up in the 1990's, I had a crayon set that had dozens of colors, ranging from gold and silver to lime green and burnt umber.<br />
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<b>Aside #1:</b> I've never seen "umber" used as a color outside crayon-speak.</div>
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As any kid that has ever owned a single crayon will tell you, when one of these wax sticks was worn down to a useless nub, it was a sad day for all involved. Even worse, when one broke into two equally useless pieces, the resulting anger unleashed from the single affected child <i>could</i> be dangerous. </div>
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Or, if you were like me, you'd simply throw away the pieces and get on with your life. Such was the case, one afternoon during the second grade. I'd snapped my "basic" green crayon in half while coloring something with the sort of feverish back-and-forth motion that is usually reserved for the most violent of those among us males who masturbate regularly. Not wanting to walk all the way to the trash can in the kitchen from my boy-cave located in the far back of our house at the time, I opted to throw the bits away in the bin located in the bathroom next to my room instead.</div>
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<b>Aside #2: </b>When I was a kid, I <i>begged</i> my parents to let me have a trash can in my bedroom, something they didn't give me until I was well into my teens. </div>
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I should have never seen that crayon again. But I did, the next day after I'd come home from school. Both pieces were sitting on the dining room table in front of my mother, who was sitting in her usual dinner-time seat, waiting for me. Immediately, she launched into what I now assume was a rehearsed speech about how she had been cleaning the bathroom earlier and had found the crayon pieces in the trash. Upon further inspection, she said, it appeared that the crayon had been bitten by a pair of human teeth, assumedly mine.</div>
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Now, I feel like I need to mention my age again at this point. I was in the second grade, around the age of eight or nine. I started reading when I was three or four. At the risk of sounding slightly egotistical, I was by no means a dumb kid. Sure, I'd done dumb <i>things</i> just like any other child, but I was way, way beyond the point of eating crayons. Wax, to me, just didn't seem appetizing.</div>
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Which is precisely why I was baffled when faced with this accusation. Not knowing how to handle being falsely accused at such a young age, I immediately started bawling and trying to string together a sentence to form a defense without sobbing in-between words. Taking my crying as a sign of admittance, my mother demanded that I go to my room and told me that we would discuss my punishment when my stepdad came home from work a few hours later. I don't know what happened inside of my head at that exact moment, but tears stopped flowing and the gears in my head started turning. I knew that once the both of them had rallied against me, all hope was lost, and that I would be labeled a "crayon eater" forever. So I summoned every bit of courage I had at the time, and outright denied having nibbled on that crayon or any other crayon before, and that the one in question had just broken in two.</div>
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Naturally, my mother was having none of this. Having been given the entire day to form this batshit crazy scenario in her head, she was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had in fact taken a bite, her argument driven home by the fact that the crayons' edges didn't match up as if from a break.</div>
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<b>Aside #3:</b> I don't know if I colored with one of the broken halves before throwing it away, or if she'd tampered with them, but they really didn't match up. I'm still not sure why.</div>
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Then she brought something up that must have seemed like a trump card in her mind. A few days previous, I'd gone to the restroom and stood up to see that my feces was a dark green. Freaking out, just as any paranoid child would, I immediately ran to tell my mother about this revelation, dragging her by the arm into the bathroom to show her what had just come out of me. Being assured that "sometimes it happens," I thought nothing more of it.</div>
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<b>Aside #4:</b> Over a dozen websites tell me that this is a side-effect of either eating too much green food or an iron overdose. Being a kid that survived off of artificially colored crap and chicken nuggets, it very well could have been either.</div>
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But she did. Seeing my green poop as the final piece of the puzzle in her case against me, she would hear none of my arguments in defense of my maturity level. Logic didn't even sway her, refusing to admit that it was odd that I'd tell her about my bowel movements when I should have known the cause outright. </div>
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This was the stalemate we were in until my stepdad arrived. Taking her side just as any good husband would, all hope seemed lost. But some small part of me knew that an injustice had happened, and continued to refuse to admit that I'd done anything that they were accusing me of. Seeing this as insubordination and an outright lie, I was told that I would have to sit on the couch in our family room, doing absolutely nothing, until I admitted that I was lying and that I had in fact eaten the crayon.</div>
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I sat there for three weeks. Every day after I came home from school I'd make a beeline straight towards the couch and sit there until it was time to eat dinner, after which I'd go straight from the table to bed. There was no way I was ever going to own up to something I hadn't done.</div>
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And I never did. Eventually, my couch-sitting sentence was reduced to a few hours a day, followed by an hour, followed by nothing at all. My parents had given up on trying to get their version of the truth out of me, and we didn't really speak about it much afterwards. They never admitted their folly, and I never again tried to correct them. It became an anecdote lost in the sands of time.</div>
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Years later, after all of the wounds from this event had healed, the three of us were out to eat with my younger brother at a generic chain restaurant that gives children a packet of crayons to every child that walks in the door. Of course, my brother received one, along with whatever coloring placemat they were offering that month. Opening the crayons, my stepdad removed the green one and offered it to me.</div>
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"Appetizer?" he asked, grinning smugly.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-74594254824290206462011-01-26T00:43:00.002-06:002011-01-26T00:53:50.603-06:00The Babysitting Story<div><i>Before I begin this story, I'd like to ask everyone reading to think of the single most depraved act they've ever committed. If you're cringing while thinking of it, you're on the right track. Now, think of how you would feel if that story was told to every single person you have met or ever will meet in your entire life. That, reader, is what I am putting myself through by telling you this tale. I hope you all enjoy it.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>I've been in a lot of relationships in my life, and a lot of them have been, looking back, pretty fantastic. But as any serial dater like myself will tell you, the bad is always quick to follow the good, as was the case during my senior year in high school.<br /><br /></div><div>I had recently ended what was the most rewarding and longest-running relationship I'd been in at the time, and had began dating a girl that was two years younger than me, named Mia. Taller than me by about two inches, and by all accounts a "sensually curvy"-type of girl (the yin to my "concentration camp"-type body yang), we made quite the impression on the regular occupants of the schoolyard when we began dating. It seemed that by the second or third day of our relationship, everyone (including a teacher that we shared) knew about it. Neither of us cared, because we were too smitten with one another to waste a thought worrying about it.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> Yeah, we were one of those couples.<br /><br /></div><div>Things went fantastically, for the first few months. Besides some initial rockiness when her ex from another state had found out about us, things were perfect. She was exactly the kind of girl I loved at the time: one that would hang onto my every word and provide genuinely impressive feedback to whatever teen-angst bullshit I'd decided to spout out. We were a match made in heaven, the two of us.<br /><br /></div><div>Then sex entered the equation. She seemed to have insatiable carnal desires when it came to me, once claiming that her body ached when it was not naked and near mine. With the both of us still being in school (and obviously living with our parents), it became near-impossible to satisfy her need on a regular basis. So we began to improvise. Everywhere we went became a potential "sex spot." Playgrounds, cars and outdoor walking paths were suddenly places to get laid, under my new mindset.<br /><br /></div><div>Eventually, we both agreed that our public displays of over-affection were becoming far too risky, and opted to sneak over to each others' houses in the dead of night on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it had to stop not much longer after it started. We were never caught, officially, but we had far too many close calls to warrant a continuation of this behavior.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2: </b>Her dad had come up to her room no more than ten minutes after I'd left her house one night, claiming to have heard a noise. I would not be here today if he'd caught us doing what we were doing, especially when you consider the way we were doing it.<br /><br /></div><div>So we were stuck with no place to fuck. As with any sex-deprived relationship, the outside veneer of ours began to show cracks in its surface. We were fighting constantly, not being able to patch up our spats with sex. It was driving us both crazy.<br /><br /></div><div>Then, about a month into our mutual dry spell, Mia picked up a job babysitting for a couple that her parents had been friends with for the last few months. After a few weeks of this, and a lot of trying to convince me to do so, she had me over to their house one night after she'd put the trio of children she was watching to bed. We sat in their living room, cuddled, and watched a movie. Of course, things started to go beyond the innocent cuddle, only to be stopped by my suddenly-found list of morals.<br /><br /></div><div>We didn't have sex that night, though she begged me to. I had some issues with porking my girlfriend in a house owned by people I'd never met, especially when their impressionable children were sleeping less than fifteen feet away from us.<br /><br /></div><div>But the next week, all of my previously-held inhibitions were abandoned. It had now been two months since we last did it, and I was starting to go crazy. Mia had informed me that after I'd left the previous week, she'd snooped around the house and discovered that the master bedroom had two types of locks on it, one on the handle and a chain lock, to ensure that there was no possible way for us to be interrupted by anyone.<br /><br /></div><div>When I arrived that evening, we wasted no time. Leading me by the hand to the couples' bedroom, I began to notice a trend amongst all of their wall-hangings and paintings: each had a very, very heavy Christian theme. There were framed Bible verses and crosses lining the hallway to the room, which suddenly felt endless and Kubrickian. My moral compass was screaming obscenities at me in my head. But I ignored it. I was going to get laid, and I was not going to feel guilty about it. Period.<br /><br /></div><div>Swinging the door open, we entered the one room in the house that felt off-limits. Immediately, Mia slid the chain lock into place and pounced on me. I fell onto the bed, which felt far lumpier than it should have. Pushing her off of me, I stood up and looked at what I'd fallen on. Laying there where I had just been were a pile of children's clothes, freshly laundered and neatly folded.<br /><br />Uncomfortable with this revelation, I asked Mia if we could avoid touching the bed, because it felt so wrong. Begrudgingly, she agreed, and led me over to an easy chair in the corner. Pulling my pants down to my ankles, she dropped to her knees and began to show me just how much she'd missed me. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> If the quality of the blowjob I was receiving was any indication, it was a lot.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soon, she'd pulled her own pants off and was on top of me. But the shape of the chair I was sitting in simply wasn't built for girl-on-top sex, so we moved to the floor.<br /><br />Five minutes later, we heard a noise coming from outside. The knob on the door turned, and the person on the other side tried to open it. Impeded by the chain lock, the door only opened enough to allow a single, tiny arm to enter the room and wave around as the child on the other side called out Mia's name just like she had been doing with mine not seconds earlier.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4: </b>If you ever find yourself wondering what the most fucked up thing I've ever written is, refer to the above paragraph.<br /><br />I don't think I've ever gone from the missionary position to standing that fast. Matching my speed, Mia was re-dressed in a flash and unlocking the door to tend to the child while I hid silently in the bathroom attached to the room. We knew that if he saw me there, the chance of us being able to do this in the future were highly unlikely.<br /><br />I don't know what she said to calm him down, but whatever it was, it had worked, and she was back in the room within a minute. Wanting to finish what we'd started, she began to unbutton my pants again. My moral compass wasn't just screaming at me this time, it had rounded up a few of its moral compass friends to yell at me in unison, warning me that I would come to regret what I was doing at this moment, and that no amount of awesome sex could possibly be worth the guilt I would carry after all was said and done. Once again, I ignored it, as the smaller head of my two began to take over. Thinking I'd already crossed over the threshold between "wrong" and "despicable," I stepped over to the bed and swept the neat pile of clothes onto the floor with a single arm, tiny socks and shirts flying everywhere.<br /><br /></div><div>Suddenly, we were both naked and having the type of tantric sex that even the most well-seasoned porn star would think was a bit much. We did it this way, we did it that way, we did it in ways that we'd never even imagined were possible before.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Aside #5:</b> I'm actually ashamed on Mia's behalf for what she allowed me to do to her that night.<br /><br /></div><div>Once we were both finished, we laid out on the bed side-by-side, sweating profusely. Slowly but surely, we sat up and began getting dressed. Mere steps away from the bedroom door, Mia kissed me goodbye. Somehow, through forces unknown to me even to this day, this final embrace turned into her dropping to her knees for a second time that night. Working with the same type of sexual determination she had while we were in bed minutes previously, it didn't take long to get the job done.<br /><br />Zipping my pants up, I walked towards the door to the bedroom. Inches away from the door handle, my hand stopped in mid-air as it began to rattle against both locks.<br /><br /></div><div>Terrified, I stowed away in the bathroom once more. Seeing that I'd done so, Mia opened the door to find the parents of the children that she was sitting on the other side. Knowing that there was no sense in hiding anymore, I admitted defeat and walked back into the bedroom.<br /><br />I've never seen comprehension of a situation dawn on two peoples' faces simultaneously before, but that's exactly what happened the moment after I stepped into their view. Impressively and miraculously retaining their composure, both kindly yet curtly introduced themselves to me (neither offering to shake my hand, I should note), the husband mentioning that he "didn't know Mia was having a friend over tonight."<br /><br /></div><div>After this admittance, the tension in the air was palpable. Without moving a single part of her body besides her mouth, the wife offered to drive the both of us home, rightly assuming I lived nearby. Not wanting to make worse of a bad situation, I took her up on her offer. I made the wrong choice.<br /><br /></div><div>I've been in a lot of painfully awkward situations in my life, but sitting in the same car as the female half of the nice Christian couple whose bed I just had sex on, next to the girl I'd just had sex with definitely beats out anything else I've ever been through or could even imagine. I wouldn't wish the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach as they dropped me off at my house upon my worst enemy.<br /><br /></div><div>Needless to say, Mia never babysat for that couple again. In fact, they had called her parents and explained exactly what had happened, something that they rightfully never really forgave me for. If there was anything positive to be taken from the situation, its that Mia and I weren't together for much longer after that, and I would come to realize that I was much better off because of it.<br /><br />I'm not the sort of person that looks back on events in their life with regret, so I can't say I'd take anything back that happened that night. But if I could go back and do it over again, I'd be sure tell the couple to change the carpet in their room and burn their bedsheets. I hope they did anyways.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-74808584888588736372011-01-23T07:03:00.000-06:002011-01-23T07:04:22.005-06:00The Adidas Story<div style="text-align: left;">When I was in the ninth grade, I'd finally realized that the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet were an important tool to show people what social group I thought I belonged in. During </div><div style="text-align: left;">my appearance-experimentation phase, I became friends with a kid my age that rode my bus, named Colin.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>Colin was, for a freshman, a total stud. I, on the other hand, was not. With a nose far too large for my face, and an attitude that would have better suited someone half my age, I didn't exactly have women falling at my feet. Sure, the odd girl found my behavior charming, but they were few and far between. So I started to change and mature, using Colin as a sort of guide to do so. I'm not sure if he ever noticed, but I definitely idolized him, in the way friends do.<br /><br /></div><div>One week, Colin came to school with a brand new pair of black and white Adidas on.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b><br />These were the shoes:</div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFv7ydG6IqKBNs3ByqzIb8jEXAcz2n7Vhs0B1dmq_Im_d-t9vss1MS9HqfkVZRVVJsk2fKBbHSr5U1_dQI4sxMkESyGnDhUm9lnU77VKKFJ27aaVCyBp7Cb4gdMubK34frIyp0St_JKlbq/s320/adidas.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565162121727382786" /></div><div>After seeing them on his feet, I wanted a pair for myself. Though initially cautious about buying a teenager a pair of all-white shoes, my mother finally agreed to take me out to get some of my own after a few days of begging and talking them up. I couldn't have been happier.<br /><br /></div><div>So naturally, we went to the shoe store one afternoon after school and bought a pair. I wore them home, and continued wearing them well into the evening. Before I went to bed that night, I even struggled to form a fitting outfit for my new shoes' debut, something I had never done before in my life.<br /><br />The next day, I wore the fuck out of my new shoes. Compliments came in left and right, some from people I didn't know. Colin, instead of being weirded out, embraced our twin footwear and was amongst the complimentary. </div><div><br /></div><div>The story should have ended there, but it didn't. You see, Colin didn't only ride my bus, he was also in my art class. The week I got my new shoes happened to be the same week that we were studying chalk pastels in said class. Normally this wouldn't have been a big deal, but Colin and I began talking about how plain our shoes were, and how cool it would be if we got different-colored laces for them.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> Anyone that went to school between 1985 and 2005 knows that all kids fucking loved weird or colorful shoelaces, for some reason.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, unfortunately, we realized we had boxes of the perfect shoelace-coloring devices sitting on the table in front of us. With 15 minutes left in class, I quickly untied and removed my laces and put them on the table in front of us. Deciding to go with a multicolored effect rather than one single color, we each took one and went to work.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few minutes later, we finished. Streaked with every color in the 24-pastel box, we both agreed that they looked awesome. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3:</b> They looked awful. Seriously. Like someone had eaten Froot Loops, a rainbow, and a gay person before throwing up on them.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I laced my shoes back up, and was on my way. Art class was during the latter half of the day, so I didn't have much longer before I went home. But in those few hours between coloring my shoelaces and going home, something terrible was happening to the tongues of my shoes.</div><div><br /></div><div>You see, when Colin and I were discussing our coloring project, we reasoned that if it looked bad, I'd just go home and wash the laces. No harm, no foul. But the 14 year-old me didn't realize that the treated leather that they used for the outer sole of my shoes was porous, meaning that every single rogue, powdery molecule of the <i>chalk</i> pastels that we'd used had seeped deep into said pores, dying the material permanently. I tried everything to remove it: toothbrushes, soap, putting them in the laundry, and plenty of other things. But nothing worked. They were ruined forever.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't think I need to describe how angry my parents were. Let's just say that if "being sent to bed without dinner" was actually still considered a punishment, I would have been sent to bed without dinner. As it stood, I was grounded for a indeterminate amount of time, and had to pay my parents back for the money they'd spent on my shoes by doing tons of chores around the house.</div><div><br /></div><div>For some reason, I thought this was the biggest travesty that the world had ever seen. So that night, I hatched a plan. Swiping a few sheets of printer paper from my stepdad's office, I decided to start a petition, rallying against my parents' decision to ground me.<br /><br /><b>Aside #4: </b>There was a lot of Fox News on in my house at the time. Don't ask.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the next three days, I gathered signatures from everyone I saw at school. Of course, I told them about the situation that had led me where I was, and every single peer sided with me unquestionably. After around signature #100, I started to get cocky, and began asking teachers to sign it. In my mind, getting a single autograph from a <i>grown adult</i> was worth dozens, if not hundreds of teenage signatures. But none of them would agree to sign it.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #5:</b> In retrospect, this was probably wise on their part, since my parents would have likely called and complained to someone important (because that's the type of people they were).</div><div><br /></div><div>But finally, on the third and final day of my quest, my elderly female English teacher decided that she'd take the risk, and lend her name for my cause. Even better, she told me that she was going to write my parents a note on the subject, something that both surprised and flattered me.</div><div><br /></div><div>After I got the pages back, I saw that her letter had taken up the entire bottom half of the last page, the top having already been filled with my classmates' multicolored handwriting. Impressed with myself, I read over what she had written. Then I read it again. And again. It went something like this:</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>To the parents of Tyler Walters:<br /><br /></div><div>I'm writing you this letter to tell you that your son has been distracting other students with this petition in every class for the last three days. His other teachers and I had a meeting yesterday, and decided that if this doesn't stop, we will have no choice other than to punish him for interfering with class.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for your time,</div><div>(signature)</div></blockquote><div><br /><b>Aside #6:</b> I'm paraphrasing, but as far as I can remember, this is almost exactly what it said.</div><div><br /></div><div>I started panicking. They had held a <i>meeting</i>? About <i>me</i>? Seriously? I didn't know what to do. So I did what any stupid high schooler would do: I tore off the bottom half of the sheet containing my teacher's letter, and threw it away, not wanting to throw out the entire sheet and waste the other half-page of signatures I'd worked so hard to get.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thinking I was off the hook, I took my finished petition home, with over 150 signatures spread across three-and-a-half pieces of paper. But the instant I crossed the threshold into my house, I could sense something was awry. There was a palpable tension in the air, one that had definitely not been there that morning before I'd left. Slowly walking into the kitchen, I found my mother sitting at the dinner table, reading a magazine. She looked up, and I could tell something was wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then the yelling started. The teacher that had written that note had called my house right after she'd written it, to ensure it was actually delivered. It wasn't, of course. But the teacher had gone ahead and told my mother exactly what it had said, and then some, claiming that I was a "nuisance," had "no respect for authority" (as evident by my petition, she explained), and was a "massive distraction to (myself) and others." It was absolutely devastating. </div><div><br /></div><div>But that wasn't the worst part. After verbally annihilating me, my mother asked me for the three-and-a-half sheets of paper that had caused so much grief. After scanning it over, she asked me about some of the stranger names that were written down. I guess that I had been so caught up in collecting signatures, that I didn't notice that a decent portion were completely made-up by the assholes I apparently went to school with. Feeling like I'd lost some great battle, I sulked up to my room to begin what felt like a long-term prison sentence.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few years later, when we sold them in a garage sale to people that had come by to pick through our junk, my mother was forced to sell them for a price considerably lower than the one marked on the tag, only because of the multicolored smudges. I couldn't help but smile a bit as the man that walked away with them told his wife that he was sure he could get them out with some "dish soap and elbow grease." He'd learn.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-699617002322464062.post-39348360743163791782011-01-18T03:04:00.001-06:002011-01-18T03:07:54.335-06:00The Potato Salad StoryNo one ever believes me when I say that I <i>hate</i> potatoes.<div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #1:</b> Except for French fries. Those don't count.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mashed, diced, baked, it doesn't matter. I absolutely despise them. Not because of how they taste, or feel (as I so commonly tell people), but because I had a...traumatic experience involving them when I was around 9 years old.</div><div><br /></div><div>My mother, stepdad and I had all sat down to eat dinner. I can't be sure as to what the main course was, but it doesn't matter. Amongst the two or three side-dishes that were sitting on the table, I saw one that I'd never tried before. It was potato salad, and my mother told me that I'd have to at least try it before I was to be excused from dinner. Not a big deal, right?</div><div><br /></div><div>Wrong. After finishing everything else on my plate, the ominous, lumpy "salad" still remained. Using my fork, I cut a corner off of one of the potato chunks before putting it into my mouth. Almost instantly, I felt my throat close as my gullet simply refused to accept the food that was being shoveled down it. I spit it out into my napkin before being scolded by my parents for what had just happened. My mother, never missing a chance to make me feel guilty for even the tiniest thing, put her hand over her mouth dramatically and claimed that she had "lost her appetite." After she left the table, I was left to face my stepdad, someone I didn't know too well at the time.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #2:</b> He had married my mom less than two years earlier.</div><div><br /></div><div>I didn't know it at the time, but I would soon discover that he was a very hard-headed individual. One that clearly didn't consider my choked-on slice of potato to be a "true bite."</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #3: </b>If my life story ever becomes a sitcom, I'd love to have clearly exaggerated version of kid-me sketch out a diagram on a napkin of what should be considered a "true bite" in relativity to the mass of the object being bitten vs. the mass of the actual bite. Genius kids always get good ratings.</div><div><br /></div><div>After unsuccessfully trying to coerce me into eating more (something I think anyone would refuse to do, given the situation), he began to get frustrated with me, telling me that I was absolutely forbidden to leave the table until I had eaten a single chunk of potato. Matching his stubbornness, convinced that the potato "bite" in question had nearly killed me, I continued my single-food strike until well after he'd left the table, minutes ticking by on the oven clock across the kitchen.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soon, a few hours had passed. I kept sitting, refusing to budge until I either died of starvation or they were forced to let me get up. Suddenly, it was well past midnight, and both of my parents were asleep. Laying my head down on the table next to my plate, I fell asleep.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next morning, I woke up with the sun. My mother was already up, brewing her usual pot of coffee. After seeing that I'd woken up, she walked over to me.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Did you sleep here the entire ni-"</div><div><br /></div><div>Her words were cut off as thick, white vomit spewed from my mouth and nose, all over the mostly-empty plate sitting in front of me. Rushing over to comfort me, my mother began to mop up my vomit with a dish towel after telling me that she was going to make me some chicken nuggets after I'd gone to the bathroom to clean myself up.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Aside #4:</b> I've never really thought about it before, but I find it funny that my mom had no issue with seeing me vomit, but had a huge issue with me spitting out a tiny piece of potato that I hadn't even chewed once. Also, it should be noted that she made me chicken nuggets an such an early hour because normal breakfast food would have likely upset my stomach even more.</div><div><br /></div><div>Standing up and walking down the hallway, my stomach felt empty. My kidneys ached from lack of urination. I could barely hold my head up. But I had won. For the first time in my life, I stood up for something I believed in, and never backed down for a second. Every argument or fight I've ever won, every time I've defended anything I believed in has stemmed from this one moment of pure, unabashed victory. </div><div><br /></div><div>But as I mentioned earlier, winning came with a price. I have never, ever eaten potatoes in any sort of raw form in the ten-plus years since. I've tried, but I simply can't do it. </div><div><br /></div><div>I guess there is just something deep, deep within me, buried in the back of my head, near all of my primal instincts and central programming that refuses to let the silent assassins known as potatoes make another attempt at my life.</div>T. Waltershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854110323128784944noreply@blogger.com0