Not My Stash

Most everybody has at least one really NASTY breakup in their life . Here’s the story of mine…..

I met C when she started working at the coffee shop by my house. I was 26 and she was a couple years my junior. She was really hot , very sexy and kinda had an “oral fixation” , so to speak. Anyway,things went along great for a few months, she moved in with me ,everything is cool, I’m happy, she’s happy. Then, she decides to switch her birth control pills around and subsequently ends up turning into this raging hormone monster. It was like this ANGER just welled up and started ruling her life, she had permanent PMS for like a month, a severe case.But of course, it was all my fault, right? I tried to reason with her a few times, but she wasn’t hearing it. Since I’m not some pansy-assed metrosexual girly boy that grovels and placates, I soon tired of her shit and made plans to both break up with her, and boot her ass from my home…terms which were basically synonymous at the time, right ?

I prepare for the coming storm ,she gets home from work , and I let her have it . Told her it was over, pack your shit, get out. She FREAKS and starts throwin’ my stuff around , trying to get me to grab her so she can claim domestic violence (she had used this trick in the past, I found out later), but I wouldn’t bite, just calmly dialed 911 . Cops show up and I’m calm but she is raging, so that helps. The cops are kinda hinting that she should leave when she decides to get EVIL, and shouts out “THERES A BONG AND WEED IN THAT CUPBOARD !!” to the cops. That’s where we always kept it, and she knew it.

Remember I said I had prepared for this confrontation ? Part of that was to remove said bong and said weed from cabinet before she got home, and stowing them at another location far, far away. I had foreseen this situation, exactly. So I look her right in the eye, smile, and open up the cabinet and invite the cops to look. “She’s lost it” , I tell them , “look for yourselves”. Nothing but neatly stacked dishes. The look on her face was priceless.So by now the cops are sick of both of us and are saying that since she gets mail at my house, they can’t remove her , blah blah blah. I quickly switch from defense to offense. “Run her for warrants” I tell the cops, knowing she has a freakin’ BENCH warrant for unpaid traffic tickets. They run her.A bench warrant is typically mandatory trip to jail, no bail, until said issuing judge has your sorry ass in front of him in court. She switches from mean, mouthy hell-bitch to poor little sobby girl instantly,but the cops ain’t feeling sympathic by now, so they cuff her up and take her away.

Next day her dad calls.”They won’t let her bail out, but can I come get her stuff?” I’m all “Hell yes, I’ll help you load it up !” So an hour later he shows up, clearly embarrassed. “Don’t know what we did wrong with her ,her sisters turned out OK ….” he says. “Anyway I bought a bigger chainsaw and I thought you could use my old one”, and he hands me this SWEET Poulan 200 chainsaw, in a case,like new, all the paperwork, etc. etc. It was like a peace offering/ reverse dowry /sorry for your trouble kinda thing, for me putting up with his daughter.

This was about fifteen years ago and I still have that sweet chainsaw , and often laugh out loud when using it, thinking of “C”, her downfall, and her poor old nice-guy dad !

Burned Twice

It was just the start of eighth grade when my best friend, Tom, asked me to be his girlfriend after he found out that I had feelings for him (and he felt the same for me). We had a wonderful time going out and to this day, I’m still surprised we aren’t together. Tom was a great, giving, one-girl-at-a-time type of guy. That is, until one day at the end of the school day in November. I was walking over to talk to Tom, smiling with my head held high. Life couldn’t be any better right now! Then I saw him with Stephanie, the school’s biggest flirt who had a boyfriend from a different town and whose main goal was to break up every relationship in the grade. Stephanie was all over Tom– hugging him, holding his hand, and almost kissing him! My mouth dropped to see faithful Tom with another girl. I put my head to the ground and walked the other way, pretending I saw nothing. I called Tom that night asking if he wanted to break up. Tom said that I was the girl and “the only girl” of his dreams. Sounds pretty dependable, right?? The next day Tom walks up to my locker and says “This is me breaking up with you.” I had no idea what happened overnight to make him change his mind (and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to know). But one thing was for sure, I wanted revenge. Good thing Stephanie was throwing a birthday party that weekend for all the outgoing, popular kids in the grade. Tom and I were both invited. The entire evening I spent flirting and hugging and experimenting with every guy, except Tom. Tom was left sitting on a couch all night with a somber face, next to his trustworthy friend (who also recently experienced a breakup), James. At the end of the night, James told me that Tom was so depressed because I was happy we broke up and he still had feelings for me. So, stupid little me, I fell in to it and told Tom that I was never happy we broke up and that I still had feelings for him, too. He told me that what James said was a lie and that he’s “sorry but doesn’t want [us] to get back together.” I was rejected, and still am to this day.

Of Musicians and Debaters

The first time I had met J, I thought he was sweet and charming with an adorable sense of humor. We were on the debate team together. I was 15 and he was 17. We didn’t really get close quickly until our second tournament.

While we were waiting for the bus outside, we had talked about files and arguments then continued when we all climbed onto the bus. Wearing a skirt in November isn’t wise, I’d learned. I’m not sure why, but I reached for his hand. He looked surprised and remarked how cold I was. He held my hand the whole ride. Unfortunately, we didn’t ride back with each other.

That morning, I went to the school parking lot at the crack of dawn to wait for my fellow debaters. I arrived early and he followed right after. We talked and flirted quietly. On the bus, we talked about his guitar skills and poetry.

The entire tournament, we spent every moment we could with one another. During a break round, we snuck off to an empty classroom and surfed the web on his laptop. We laughed and cuddled until we had to leave. On the way home, we stared into each other’s eyes, not a word, not a kiss. Just the feeling on utter connection with another human being.

We hit it off from there, and a few days later we started dating. We spent every ounce of time together. Our conversations were dotted with kisses and sweet nothings.

A month later, I had traveled downtown to watch him debate. Afterwards, we walked around and found a restaurant. We ate our lunch and talked like always, but he seemed distant. I asked him what was wrong and he explained that he had regretted telling me he loved me (he said “I love you” first) because he didn’t know what love is. He said he liked me and didn’t understand why he didn’t like me more.

The rain poured outside and he helped me track a route home since I was unfamiliar with the area. I hesitantly asked him for one last kiss and he told me no. The coldness in his voice was completely out of the ordinary.

“Don’t date musicians, debaters, or writers,” he told me, “They lie too well.”

I miss him. I miss us.

6th Graders Need Love Too

 

 
When I was in 6th grade, I fell in love with a boy, let’s call him Jon. Jon seemed to like me, too. But I was young and shy, so we just started to hang around and secretly loved each other without telling. My love for him lasted over 3 years, but we never ended up in a relationship. Finally, he told me that he loved me, at Walmart by the way. I was just excited and I told him I need to think about that for a day. I was still shy and so I gave him a post-it the other day, which said ‘yes’. So we spent the time in school together, but we never were in an official relationship. He started to ignore me and denied his love. He was hanging around with this one girl, she was younger and littler than me. She had extremely short hair and was a little overweight. Then, when we talked over the internet, he told me that he loved her, not me. She told me that she knew that, but she would never be in a relationship with him, because of me. With my luck, they ended up in a relationship. The fact that they sat right in front of me in school made it even harder for me to deal with it. BUT, she left him for another boy. After that, he fell in love with another girl, but she loved another boy, so he was left hopeless. That all happened within 1 or 2 months. It hurt like hell, but he suffered too so I am finally okay with that. He’ll never get a girlfriend anyway because he’s on the internet the whole day so yeah … you lose, Jon.

Well-Traveled

I was in a long term relationship with a girl I met in college, and we were smitten with each other. She signed up for a ‘Travel Abroad’ program that sent her to Australia for half a year. I told her practically we should think about taking a break for those six months, so she could be free to do what she liked in Melbourne without having to worry about me. She insisted that we stay together. As luck would have it, we survived the long distance, and were even stronger as a couple for it. We learned how to trust each other. A year or so later, after graduation, she had an opportunity to visit Ireland and the neighboring countries for another six months. She left just as she did before. I was cleaning my house for her when she came back to stay with me for a week before staying with her parents, when she arrived from her trip. I tried to greet her, but she insisted that I continue cleaning. She was distant the entire week, blew me off after an Olive Garden dinner, and basically didn’t spend the amount of time I’d hoped for a six month absence. On the second to last morning, she asked me how I felt about the relationship… She broke up with me saying distance was a problem. She moved to Florida, got a new boyfriend within four months, and even brought the new guy back to my town to show off to all our friends. Did I mention she tried to steal my clothes when she left?

The Big Payback

A little history may be helpful for my story… I own a machine shop, for about 10 years we manufactured custom parts for motorcycles, sleds, show cars, race cars, boats, you name it we made it. I had a chunk of the business for awhile… Life was good, living the dream, going to races, trade fairs, had all the toys, then things changed, my niche business dried up and I ended up manufacturing parts for general industry. I was out of the “life style” and ready to settle down….

One Saturday morning I got a call from a client, they need a part made for their assembly line asap. I could only get a hold of one my guys and he was at a ringette game (finals) with his daughter, he had her that weekend. I agreed to watch his daughter and headed down to the arena while he headed to the factory. While on the benches I began chatting to an attractive lady (Jill) who was 30, she had a daughter who was 7 (Berlin). Her daughter’s team lost out but she stayed to chat while my employee’s daughter’s team was playing. I learned that she used to be a professional volley ball player, but dropped out when she got pregnant to a professional hockey player “Blaine”. Later she married him but they ended up getting separated a year and a half ago. He was still trying to get drafted to a major team but the chance of that (at this point) was slim to none. He had not seen his daughter in 6 months and rarely sent any money. In other words he was out of the picture…

After the game we all went for supper….. From that day one for 8 months we spent nearly every day together. I don’t usually like kids, nor do kids like me… but it was a perfect match, I fell into fatherhood very easily. … At about 6 months we decided to sell her house (and mine) and buy a more suitable one, get Jill’s divorce finalized as well as talk to Blaine about me becoming the legal guardian of Berlin. Jill’s house needed lots of work, so I spent about $15,000 in materials and about 5 weeks with friends and family doing the labor. It was ready to list. Jill was going to talk to Blaine and look after the issue of divorce and Berlin.

A couple of weeks later I was working at the shop changing out a cutting machine, later I took everyone out for lunch. I left my wheels at the shop and we all took the work trucks as we were all oily. I got a call on my cell phone from Jill, Blaine was in town and we all needed to talk. I left lunch, commandeered a truck and drove right over to Jill’s. I was pretty excited as I knew what this meant. As I pulled up to the house my stomach began to knot. In Jill’s drive way was a brand new black Escalade, this did not feel right. I walked in the door and Blaine was at the kitchen table dressed to the 9’s and looking every much the part of a professional hockey player. My stomach twisted again, I suddenly felt underdressed. The conversation started out as I originally thought it would, about how I was like a father to Berlin and what a great job I had done and what a bad father Blaine had been…. Then the conversation changed to how Blaine had been drafted to a known hockey team and how he had received a signing bonus. Life would be different now…. My ears started ringing, I don’t remember the exact words, I barely remember much, but it went something like this…. Blaine and Jill were getting back together, it was the right thing to do for Berlin’s sake, they did not want me to see Berlin anymore, they would be selling Jill’s house and would repay me the money I had invested into it…. I barely remember going home, the next day I called Jill and she asked me not to call anymore, that she had listed the house that morning and that would send me a check with the money she owed me….

I would love to have a Karma ending but there is none…. Two months later I received a letter and a check from Jill, she said that after the sale there were mortgage penalties and realtor fee’s etc, so there was not much left…. Enclosed was a check for $1680.00… the balance of the house sale. Later I heard through the vine that they had bought a beautiful house in Blaine’s new city and that they had become popular socialites, Blaine’s career was going very well, and Berlin had her own horse….. I left out a lot about how messed up I was for awhile….. life is cruel sometimes !!