Monday, June 26, 2006

Freaky Beeyotches

OK- I hate to do this, because guys- sometimes there are genuine ladies in distress. But a few distinctly shady things have been happening lately, and I do know a lot of nice guys who could fall prey to this kind of garbage.

My dad was raised by a single mom- it's his policy to help out when he sees a woman in any kind of automotive distress. On his way to my house last week, he spots a woman with her emergency flashers on, side of the road, standing next to her (really pricey) white SUV.

She tells dad that the car just died, and that "the last time this happened, the guy who helped me said the car just needed more gas."

Dad asked her if it was out of gas, and she said no, but it worked last time. She started pressuring him to give her a life to the gas station. He then started to realize that there was something weird about this situation. He said "That doesn't make any sense...." and she got all belligerent, which made him even more convinced that there was something wrong with the situation.

Then he tried the car, it started right up. The lady gets even more insistant that she needs to add more gas, it worked last time, and she wants him to give her a ride to the station in his car. He realizes that once this woman gets in his car, she could say all kinds of things about him, and/or be impossible to get rid of. He refuses.

Then she says she has no cash on her, and will he please give her some $ for gas? And Dad knows he's been conned, but he figures it's worth the $5 to get rid of her. As soon as he coughs up the dough, she ROARS off in her supposedly defective SUV.

Then a week or so ago, I went out to the Dirty Olive with two guy friends, and a woman approached us. I had noticed her talking to different guys throughout the evening. My two guy friends were drinking martinis, and I was having a Diet Coke.

She was cute in a girl-next-door kinda way, and she explained that she was with a service to keep people from driving drunk. She made eye contact with my two male friends, and didn't even acknowledge me (even though I was sitting in the middle, and even when I said, "Uh, I'm the designated driver!") and handed them both her card.

The card said smething like "Mother Mary's Driving Service- we drive you home, in your own car!"

The most ironic thing? She was totally off track with both of my guy friends, who just happen to be gay.

We all discussed it, and the whole situation just seemed fishy. All I could think from her behavior was that she was a hooker on the side, or that even if she was supposedly legit, once someone is in your car and has the keys, they know the location of your house, and that you're wasted....and that presumably, someone is followng the driver back to your house...

That just seems like a stupid situation to get yourselves into in this day and age, gentlemen. Just call an old fashioned taxicab and save yourself the potential psychotic episodes.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Worst. Date. EVER. (Part 2)

So of course, the guy calls me. The phone starts ringing off the hook as soon as I walk in the door at 2AM.

"When can I see you?"

Luckily, at this point I am slightly more sober, and have explained the dilemma to my buddy while she drove us home. I defnitely want to avoid the gratuitous "she dumped me, so now I'm gonna ruin her life" scenarios. We decided that proceed with caution was the right approach.

We set a date for lunch on Friday. He has a short day at work, and I have no afternoon classes that day. (Plus, I had a standing occasion at Sudwerk, the Friday hang-out for most of my friends, and a built-in excuse to keep the lunch from turning into dinner if things went south.)

"I always wanted to see you again," said Needy Guy. "I figured that if you saw how much I had changed...you'd like the new me better than the guy I used to me."

HUH?

I tried to disabuse him of this notion, but of course I felt guilty, because the looks had definitely gotten his foot back in the door.

"I always was attracted to you before!" I protested. Hey, it was the truth. It wasn't his looks I had a problem with, it was the whining and manipulation. Oh well.

Friday came quicker than I thought it would. Mainly because by that time, I realized that this was the same guy, and I was making a huge mistake twice, and actually being really cavalier about his feelings.

I drive up to Sweet Tomatoes, and he is waiting in the parking lot. His once-crisp white shirt is soaked with sweat.

The story I get is that his "vintage" Porche was towed, and he needs to go to the DMV to "straighten things out, and will I take him?"

He's been at Sweet Tomatoes most of the afternoon waiting for me to get there.

Faintly, the strains of Psycho start to swell in my brain, but hey, he's stranded. I take him to the DMV, and even wait in line with him (and no, I didn't get lunch.) We take care of the situation, and I start trying to get away. "Ok well, I have a thing that starts at 4:30."

"Well, at least let me buy you gas."

Hell, I'm a starving college student. Twist my arm.

So we end up inside an Arco, and he gets a bottled water, and I get a cherry slurpee (it was the first thing I saw) and he starts lecturing me about how unhealthy all that sugar and red dye are for you. At the counter, I see these HUGE cookies. They're literally the size of Frisbees, and so to distract him I say something along the lines of, "Hey- check out the frisbee cookies!"

"I'll buy you one!"

"No thanks, I don't really want one, I was just commenting that they're kinda big."

"I'll totally get you one, it's OK."

"Seriously- I don't want one. Don't buy it, I won't eat it."

He buys the goddamn cookie anyway, then hops into my car and hands it to me like it's a medal.

So, I am irritated.....rEALLY pissed, actually, as I am starving and have been trapped in a DMV for several hours with this guy who I am totally incompatible with. There is no way I am eating the cookie. At this point, I just want to make it out alive. I chuck the cookie into the back seat without thanking him and start off down the street.

"I'll take you home...where do you live?"

While I am driving, he is trying to grasp my non-driving hand- the hand holding the ICEE. I use it as an excuse. "Sorry- I need to hold onto my drink!"

So he takes my drink away, puts it between his legs like they are a drink holder, and starts petting my hand and nibbling on my fingers while I am desperately trying to steer with my free hand and to extract coherent directions from him to drive him home.

"Uh...turn here?!" I asked, frantically weaving through traffic.

That's when he turned my hand palm up and BIT me really hard.

I screamed "OW!!!SHIT!!!" and slammed on the brakes, and red slush exploded out of my slurpee cup and went ALL over him. Jeans, white shirt his hair, and all over the passenger side window.

If you ever need to distract a man, pouring a 40 ounce cup of ice into his lap is definitely an option. "My new JEANS, goddamn it!" he snarled, trying to soak the red stuff of with inadequate napkins, while I tried desperately not to laugh.

We finally got to his house, and apparrently, hope does spring eternal- he had the gall to ask me if I wanted to come in and "help him out of his wet things." It took about 10 minutes of abject lying to get him out of my car.

Back at Sudwerk, all my favorite drunks really did enjoy that cookie.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Worst. Date. EVER. (Part 1)

So, I felt the need to share this with you people.

Once upon a time, I met a guy in a dance club. He was on the er- husky? side, with nice floppy brown hair and gorgeous green eyes, and bonus- guy was TALL. (Yes, I like 'em tall- sue me.)He was also smart, had a great job, and was juuust dorky enough for my taste. Hey, it's a fine line.

We went out for a few months. Which is where I get to the big BUT in this scenario:

Guy was considerably older than I was, and man, was he insecure...and needy. NEED-y like no other. He also tended towards soppiness in the romantic department, which is just not how I roll. There were a few light episodes that tipped me off that this was probably not going to work out ("Were you looking at HIM?!")but nothing to clue me in to the weirdness that eventually made me stop seeing him.

We had gone shopping- it was raining pretty hard, and he's been pretty annoying all day. ("Were you looking at HIM?!") We both sloshed through the parking lot, and when he went to open the passenger door of his car to let me in, he made the mistake of saying, "I'm not letting you in until you give me a kiss."

Evidently, this was the wrong thing to say to the 19-year-old, already annoyed, soaking wet ME in the rain. I refused. I was nice about it at first, and then when it became clear that I wasn't going to give in, even when he schmooped and made puppy dog eyes, he threw a huge tantrum. With the full-on foot stomping.

So. He finally gave up and we drove in stony silence. He dropped me off at my apartment, and I called before he'd be able to get home to dump him via answering machine. And asked my roommates to please tell him that I wasn't home. (Which they were happy to do- he guy called incessantly, saying things like "I just want to BE THERE for her!!!")

Yeah, I know. I'm going to hell.

A year later, I took a friend from out of town to the SAME club, and this guy starts flirting with me. He seems familiar somehow...but he's gorgeous. GORGEOUS. Wait a second...

Yes, it's the same guy, who evidently had developed a workout regimen, figured out how to use styling products, and was wearing some much cooler clothing than before.

He asked me out. Because I was dazzled by his gorgeousness, because every other girl in the club was acting desperate for the guy's attention, and also, because I am STUPID stupid STUPID (and I might have been showing off from my friend from out-of-town), I told him to "Call me sometime".