Let My Burning Bridges Light My Way...

Thirsty Thursday

2011-12-28T09:40:00.001-08:00

During the days of fraternity house livin' and the "today doesn't have any consequences on tomorrows outcome" we used to regularly host a gathering of people at my house for drinking and debauchery called "Thirsty Thursday."

The idea behind thirsty Thursday was multifaceted. These weekly occurrences allowed for new "prospects" (girls) to come hang out at the house in a smaller less ruckus driven fashion. Which was great, let's say you met someone new Monday through Thursday around campus and they already had plans for the weekend, then you could defer to inviting them out to Thirsty Thursday and their weekend plans would remain unaffected. This meant often times that you would invite multiple prospects out and then it came down to a matter choice rather than a hunt. The different options also meant that there was nearly always an amazing girl to guy ratio. Much of the magic of these evenings also lay in the timing. Most people were exhausted and stressed out from a week of classes and fully ready to blow off some steam by Thursday night. This meant that you got to hang out with people at the height of their week and some might even say these people were pre-disposed to get into mischief. As you would imagine, some of these Thursdays were the best nights of my life.

On this particular thirsty Thursday during the early part of my Sophomore year, things had gotten off to a great start. I had a handful of girls in attendance that I had personally invited and one girl I had spent nearly half my freshman year flirting said she might be coming. In the past whenever I invited this girl to any of our events she'd always decline and claim to be dating someone or have other plans that night. Come to think of it, I'd spent far too much time chasing this girl for it to have gone no where, for so long.

I was in full working the room fervor by 11:00 and a lot of my time revolved around slapping hands with guys I hadn't seen since the week before or flirting with a couple of groups of girls in different parts of the house. During this part of my life, I truly was the epitome of a "bro" or "frat boy." I'll absolutely admit it, the social status along with the reverence to my "fraternal ideals" seemed to be the only thing of any importance. Every experience and encounter during that time was new and therefore exciting. Someone had flipped me the keys to a new life. It was like being the biggest nerd and suddenly stepping into the most popular kid's skin who was far better looking, more confident, and immensely more popular than you could ever hope to be and the voice in your head says, "take this thing for a ride, enjoy it."

After grabbing another beer, I began working my way back to the kitchen when she walked in. Her name was Kali, she was a Sorority snob with a bit of southern class. Her body was curvy, she had long straightened blond hair, and gorgeous light blue eyes. She stepped into the the Kitchen from the porch and my eyes fixed on her. She was wearing a short jean-skirt with a low cut top under a little mid-drift length black jacket. I think I stiff armed one of my friends just to be the first to meet her in the middle of the kitchen.

"Kali hey! Glad you could make it," I said walking over with my arms spread outwards for a big hug.

"Oh my god! Hey Taylor!" She screamed as she leapt on to me grappling around my waist and torso nearly knocking me off my feet.

"Wow, how's it going stranger?" I asked laughing spilling beer on the back of her jacket and on the floor around us.

"So good, I'm great. It's been so long since we've hung out!" She said lowering her feet to the ground and running her hands down my arms.

"I know!" I said trying to meet her level of excitement realizing that she'd already had a couple of drinks prior to getting there.

"My friends started pre-gaming without me and then they decided to go somewhere else instead, lame right?" She said putting her hands on her hips.

"That's fantastic," I said laughing and directing her into the living room/beer pong room.

Soon we were playing beerpong together while we caught up on all the things that were current in her life. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend and was pissed at all men (except for me of course). She was excited about the semester as she had just changed majors from Marketing to communications and I'm pretty sure her favorite flavor of ice cream was cookie dough. I've had more engaging conversations with a fucking broom stick, but she laughed at all my jokes and I didn't care about her brain. In those days that's what mattered, the idea of having the attention of the hot girl in the room was enough for me. The second game had turned very touchy feeling on our side of the table. I'd put my hands on her hips to move to the other side of her while she pinched my hips from time to time when I'd miss. I was shooting like shit on purpose to get off the table, even then I knew I couldn't very well get anywhere with a girl if all I was doing was flicking a ping-pong ball across a table into a cup. Eventually the other team finally sunk the last cup and I was "free to move about the cabin."

"Would you like to take a shot in my room?" I asked with a smile reeking of self confidence as I finished the last sip of beer in my cup.

"Definitely!" She shrieked and giggled as she followed me into my room.

My room was just down the hallway from most of the furthest reaches of the party, a lot of the yelling and other noises were drown out and with music looping on my computer in the background. I had taken a sub-conscious mental note from all the over-the-top cheesy male seducers I'd seen on television and in the movies. As if the spirit of Giacomo Casanova or Don Juan had personally overseen all of the amenities I'd taken care to set up like soft comfy couches, rope lights that gave the room a red hue, lit scentened candles, and of course- chilled bottles of liquor. As if this whole set up would leave women defenseless to my charms. I pulled a bottle of jager out of my mini fridge, slapped a couple of shot glasses on my desk, and cracked open a soda for a chaser as I poured the shots. She started kissing my neck as I finished pouring the second shot.

"It's awfully nice of you to visit, Kali. It's taken way too long." I said handing her a shot and picking up my own.

"I'm glad you invited me, cheers" she said clinking the two glasses together and spilling half of hers on my floor.

I knocked my shot of jager back and tossed my shot glass back on the desk and went in for a kiss.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back. We rocked slowly back and forth as I put my hands around her lower hips. I got a hold of her jean skirt and slid it upwards so it was now around her torso. She had a fantastic ass and I felt like I was now going to be one of the privileged few in the world that would get see it! This was my discovery of El Dorado. I couldn't believe my luck, in my head I was doing back-flips like I had just won the lottery. Was all of this happening to me?! If I had met Niel Armstrong at that moment and he attempted to tell me about the moon landing I'd pipe up and say, "fuck the moon dude, I just got this girl's jean shirt above her waist."

She slowly pulled off my shirt and kissed my ear as I scrambled to pull hers over her head too. We made our way over to my bed where she jumped on top of me. She undid my belt and ripped off my jeans then practically tore my underwear off my legs. I couldn't tell you how thrilled I was, this was something that was months in the making and everything was playing out beyond my expectations. If someone had told me earlier in the night that this was going to happen, I likely would'nt have believed a word of it.

Her long blond hair hit my lower stomach as she went to work sucking me off. It wasn't the greatest bj but at that time it didn't have to be, I was hooking up with a hot sorority girl with shit for brains. This was a girl I had idolized for a number of months and she was giving me her undivided attention. She was a big fan of attempting to deep throat which isn't a bad thing, but it often gets me out of a regular rhythm because of accident gnashing of teeth. On the plus side, deep throating produced a more saliva-laden bj, which I'm a big fan of. So I kicked back, closed my eyes, and put a smile on my face. We were about five minutes into the act and I was in heaven as she continued quite rigorously.

"Enjoy this." I thought to myself.

"Haahck!" I heard from below my waist as I felt more saliva than normal now between my legs.

She kept going.

A few seconds later it felt like I was sitting on a puddle so shifted my weight a little and reached down under my butt to feel what exactly I was now sitting on and my fingers hit something less viscous than spit and more chunky in nature. I pulled my hand out to look at it in the dim candle light, my fingers were covered in brown and yellowish bits of food.

"Did you just throw up on my dick?" I asked looking down at her and then back at my hand again.

"Well if you didn't take so long!" She yelled getting up wiping off her mouth with her forearm clearly embarrassed.

"Well I hardly think that's my fault?" I said again looking up at my hand frozen like a witch doctors monkey claw.

She quickly put on her shirt, "GoH! Just forget it!" She yelled storming out and slamming my door.

I was stunned and didn't really know if I had said the wrong thing. I was just observing, that's all. It all happen so fast. I didn't think she'd run away. I scooted back on my bed and saw a softball size puddle of vomit laying on top of my blue cotton comforter. I sat there for a minute looking at my hand, genitals, and bed covered in slime and vomit and I started to laugh, "Fucking kidding me? How the hell does this to happen."

I sideways flipped out of my bed and used one hand to pull the blanket off and threw it in the corner to be dealt with later. I wrapped a towel around my waist and then slipped out of my door and quickly jumped in the shower.

After my quick rinse, I got dressed again and was back out in the mix of a full blown thirsty Thursday with nearly a hundred running around only a short moment later. I did two laps around the middle level trying to find her, I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I thought it was probably in poor taste to leave it the way we did. I couldn't find her. She must have been so embarrassed that she had gone out the front door, walked all the way down our long driveway, and waited for a ride by the street.

As I was about to make my third lap a random cute girl grabbed my arm and stopped me, "Hey! Do you live here? This house is awesome! Do you know where we could get some shots?"

I took a look around the party and then back at the girl. A big smile appeared across my face, "I've actually got a couple different types of liquor in my room just down the hall here."

The cute girl and her equally pretty Asian friend walked with me arm-in-arm back to my room and my Kari problem seemed to melt away. The miracles of college.

Kari and I never hung out again after that night. Even though whenever I saw her around campus, I'd wave and sometimes wink. The following year she gained a lot of weight and that would put an end to any attraction I once had for a girl that gave vomit blow jobs named Kari.

Don't shit where you eat

2011-12-21T16:23:00.000-08:00

There's an american proverb or anecdote that instantly conveys a strong message via it's simplicity and blunt nature when it hits your ears, "don't shit where you eat." It's simple and direct. A few variations of this phrase are, "Don't shit where you sit," "Don't shit on your own doorstep," and probably the most euphemistic example, "Don't be sick in one's own hat." Generally these are all fancy ways to say don't make problems for yourself in places you frequent.

This is the story of how I ended up having sex with one of my female room mates which eventually lead to me having to find a new living situation. This story requires a bit of back information, to understand completely; bear with me.

When I first moved out to San Diego, Ca I only knew a handful of people. The whole concept of the trip was to expand my horizons (literally), learn more about other people/myself, and discover what else life has to offer. I realized if I wasn't going to take such a big chance now, then I'd likely never do it later.

Prior to making my move I needed to set up my living arrangements. I made the mistake of moving in with a young guy I found off of craigslist. He lied to me in our back and forth correspondence prior to my moving in. This guy didn't have a life and his entire existence was unimaginably plain. Work, sleep, video games, girlfriend, in that order.

I told him I was looking for someone to show me the area, I wanted to room with someone that would be up for hitting the bar scene with me on the weekends. Since I didn't know anyone there I explained that I would need some major assistance in expanding my social/professional network. He said he worked hard during the week but loved hitting the bars with tons of friends around the area on the weekends. In truth, this kid didn't have any friends His only "friends" were co-workers at the enterprise rent-a-car. And he never went to bars because he thought they were a waste of money.

He claimed that his "hot" girl friend had tons of hot friends and it wouldn't be a problem to pair me up with one of them to hit the town regularly. In reality, She only came over to watch him play video games... and fight. She never spoke more than a few words to me at a any given time. I never met her friends.

He said there were hot young female neighbors that were "awesome" and they had a reputation to "fuck everybody." Apparently they would be a ton of fun to party with. The first week I moved in, I heard the people living in house in front of us were having people over. I stopped by with a 30 rack of bud-light and a handle of Jack Daniels and said, "Hey I'm Chris' new room mate, we live in the condo right behind you all. I haven't had a chance to meet any of you guys yet. I just moved here from Virginia a few days ago and I don't know anyone in the area yet. I brought some alcohol, can I join you guys?"

You would have thought I said, "I'm going to be preforming an abortion in your back yard do you guys want to watch." Looking around the room, all I spotted were pudgy trashy looking girls with muffin tops. Awkward stares and a long silence were eventually stifled by one girl saying, "Um, we're pre-gaming right now. We're not having a party. Thanks." And they closed the door.

Lastly, this guy claimed to be a regular "weekend warrior" and he said that he loved hitting the bars. We went out once together the entire four months I lived with him. He always had an excuse to stay in. The first time he ever tried whiskey was with me (which is just sad at age 22). The kid was a loser, slob, and a major douche-bag. After the first week I knew it was a mistake and I was ready for a change.

When the lease came to an end toward month number four I had already been perusing a the Rooms/shared section of craigslist for months in search of my next place. I ran into all the familiar problems you can expect with meeting strangers and broken toys off of Craigslist. I got to tour bedrooms that smelled like animal kennels, rooms smaller than my current closet, flaky losers (california corn-flakes), halfway houses, and other bizarre freak shows that ultimately lead me to respond to an ad for a room with two girls in a reasonably priced house only five blocks from the beach and one block from the bars. Things were look up.

I exchanged pictures and facebook information prior to meeting up with one of the girls. Eventually one of my future room mates and I set a time and date to meet at a bar so that all parties would be comfortable with "who or what" they would be moving in with. I was pleasant and friendly during our meeting and kept all flirting to minimum. This was the girl I would inevitably sleep with three months later. She was a year younger, not terribly attractive due to the mouth full of crackerjacks she had for teeth, and a slightly frumpy body to boot. In her defense she seemed nice and didn't come off as someone capable of mood swings, just an overall sweet girl. Let's call her Annie.

We signed a lease agreement shortly thereafter and within a week and a half I was all moved into my new place. I actually pictured my life being very similar to the show, "three is company."

Living with girls for just the first few weeks had opened my mind to new ideas about women. Given my previous living situations were dorms, fraternity houses, and home; I suppose I had never imagined myself living with in such close quarters with girls my own age. I hadn't the slightest clue that women were more than capable of being such slobs until this experience. I pictured them decorating the house and making it an immaculate pleasant little place to live in. Instead, I experienced the cold realities of sharing a bathroom with girls that constantly shed long hairs, had poor toilette etiquette (everybody poops, I just don't want to see it), and truly sickening encounters with used feminine products. Not to mention these girls were leeches when it came to everything from toilette paper, to beer, to ice cream.

One of the more interesting observations I regularly viewed with interest was the blasé nature of promiscuity amongst the women between the ages of 21-25 in Southern California. Here's a fun fact, all women will go through a slutty stage. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just hadn't sunk in until I saw it regularly first hand. And let's be clear, we all have our own definitions of what a "slut" is. But even the harmless looking ones will prove this point while dragging a fat guy with a goatee and flat brim hat home from the bars, because they can. As you might expect, my room mates vehemently denied that they would ever hook up with random guys they met at bars. This was an effort to curtail any type of suspicions that might lead anyone to think otherwise. But nearly every weekend, I would make my way downstairs for breakfast and watch the gamut of dudes stumble out of the girls respective bedrooms from the night before.
When I pried further and discussed relationships at length with these girls and it really gave me some solid perspective on how things worked. Both of the girls had at least two guys they were regularly "hooking up with" or as they put it, "seeing" while they also were regularly flirting via text a steady four to five additional guys. Much of the text flirting didn't go beyond just that because the girls said they enjoyed the attention and compliments throughout the day. When I asked their friends if they had similar life styles, they all agreed that it was pretty common place. I don't want to say this is staggering but it does give you the ability to position yourself and see these things a bit more clearly.

That being said, it's important to realize that even though a girl might be texting/flirting with you at the moment, she'll likely have 2-3 other guys in rotation doing the same thing to keep her options open and also boost her self esteem. By that same token, there should be ZERO guilt in diversifying your options because rest assured, you're not the only bogey on her radar.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that when most women are made dumber by their choosing to waste an unimaginable amount of time watching mindless shit on TV. It warps their understanding of common sense and forces them to behave like the psychopaths they regularly watch on TV. Although there is something amusing about a television program that actually makes your dumber after watching it. Enough of this rant, I could go on for hours here.

During the first week the other female room mate, Adrienne had made an effort to sleep with me by crawling into my bed after our first "room mates night out" at the bars. We had gotten back to the house late and she claimed that she hadn't set up her bed yet, so she followed me into my room and crawled in my bed. Once there she began making purring noises sliding her legs around. I'm not deaf, blind, and dumb I can pick up on a hint.
Since day one I was determined to keep our living situation platonic; I stuck to my guns. As she kept scooting towards me and making odd noises I continued to mumble things like, "it's not gonna happen," "we'll both regret this," "go to sleep in your own room." She took off her bra and made a few more weak attempts at turning me over until we both fell asleep. I was proud of myself for avoiding what would obviously have been a big mistake.

Three months later, and things were still going quite well. None of us had made any other passes at each other. We all seem to get along quite well and we seldom had any tiffs or quarrels. We even went out during the week nights and on the sometimes on the weekends together. But soon the honeymoon would be coming to an end.

I was working at a larger corporate organization in the area during that time and earlier in the day, the red cross' blood mobile had come to visit our building. Ever since I got guilt tripped into donated blood in college with one of my now deceased veteran buddies, I always donate whenever the opportunity presents itself. One of the little celebrated upsides of donating blood is that you're a very cheap drunk for the next day or so while your body tries to produce more blood to make up for whats been taken out. This means that your alcohol tolerance is lowered significantly; which implies that you can get drunk on practically ten bucks.

Upon arriving back home from work later that day, the girls invited me out with them to hit the bars. We stopped at three differently places within the first two hours and slammed drinks at bottom dollar prices. I was already feeling a heavy buzz after drink number two when started talking to some marines. The girls thought the guys were attractive and I took no issue with facilitating the relationship. I made the introductions and started chatting with one of them and mentioned why I donated blood. This guy felt compelled to buy us a round of shots and I thought it to be rude if I even considered declining. No good deed goes unpunished, so a minute later I showed my appreciation for his gesture by buying a round of shots for our whole group. After a few more shots one of my room mates disappeared leaving me and Annie having a great time, but pretty hammered. At one point I checked my phone and saw it was already late and we both had work the next day.

"It's almost midnight Annie," I said waving down the bartender and signaling the check sign in the air. "We should get out of here."

"Yeah I know, I'll close-out too." She said grabbing her jacket and sliding her arm into the wrong sleeve.

We both thanked the marine guys we drank with and said our good-byes the strangers we met along the way then headed for the doors. We stepped out into the cool Pacific Beach air and headed down the sidewalk towards our house; a short five block walk from the bar.

We walked arm-in-arm loudly joking and laughing obnoxiously about the hysterics that had taken place that evening. As we neared the last few blocks I started up with the sweet/over-the-top drunk talk, "Annie, I'm really glad we live together." I said playfully. "You guys are seriously the best. If you knew how much better I have it now compared with what I first lived with..."

She laughed.

"You and Andrienne have turned out to be so much fun. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm really glad we're room mates. You guys are great."

She paused for minute as we walked , "I really like living with you too," she said softly.

A few moments later we stumbled through the front door and we both drunkenly headed to our respective bedrooms upstairs. I shouldered through the door and face planted into my bed and was moments away from passing out when I suddenly heard my door swing open. I looked up to see Annie in my doorway. She walked over to the edge of the bed pulled the covers back and climbed in.

"What are you doing?" I asked a bit confused as she began nuzzle and kiss my neck.

"Shhhhhhh." She said as she started to kiss my cheek and was moving towards my lips.

"Annie, go back to your room. I think it would be a really bad idea if we did this right now."

"No it's fine," She whispered in my ear as she began to rub my chest. "I want you. You're hot."

Laughing at first, "I appreciate that, but I'm too drunk for this and I don't think it's a good idea. Any other night I might show you how play ball but this isn't the time."

I wriggled away and slid all the way to the opposite side of the bed. I put both my feet against her with my back to the wall. I slowly sideways kangaroo-kicked her out of my bed until she slid off the edge of the bed and onto the floor with a thud.

"What the fuck?" She yelled at me from the floor and sitting up.

"Annie, go to bed. This is not a good idea. Maybe another time." I said in a more stern voice.

She pushed herself to her feet. "Fine, you're missing out."

"I'm sure I am. Night hun." I called after her as she stomped out of my room and slammed the door behind her.

Not more than a minute went by and I'd almost fallen asleep. Slam! My door flew open. "Now what?" I yelled frustrated looking upwards and squinting at the silhouette of her figure in the doorway.

I watch Annie roll her underwear down her legs and past her knees to the floor and kicked them to the side. She then unhooked her bra and tossed it beside my bed. Once again she lifted the covers and slid right back into the bed to nestle up next to me. Her hand drifted past my chest and under the waistband of my boxers.

"I'm not a machine here, I'm just a man. I've tried my best here, you're not allowed to be pissed at me for this in the morning." I said looking over at her as she put on the I'm a huge slut smile.

We started to kiss and my hands drifted towards her body. The rest of the night gets a bit hazy. I remember blips, or stills of "erotica." I'll say thins, for a girl with bad teeth she was actually reasonably gifted at oral. I remember turning her around in different positions, legs were extended over shoulders, we were standing then falling, laying sideways while upside down, there might as well have been a back-flip in there as well. My thought process is that if you're going to dare to put on a pair of ski's on my mountain I'm going to send you down the craziest, steepest, unimaginably treacherous slope you've ever even conceptualized. And just like any good ski trip you can count on being a little scared, having fun, and expect to be sore the next day. I'm sure if I watched everything from a third perspective sober I'd probably pee my pants and be in tears laughing.

In the morning I woke to realize I hadn't set my alarm for work and I was still incredibly hammered. I looked around and knew I was in my own bed. My eyes drifted to the clock, it was already 10:00 AM. I was confused and out of sorts, was it Saturday? That's not possible. Was it? I knew I was drunk, that's a start. I started to try and piece together the previous nights events. I sat up and realized I was completely naked. It's like living the movie, momento a pocket of polaroids would sure as shit help me out right now. I took a visual inspection of my room to try to throw together some type of explanation for my current state of affairs. There was a porn website streaming video on my computer, a few candles were barely flickering on my dresser, and there was a puddle of lube all over my desk. I peered over the edge of the bed and spotted a bra and pink thong laying near the door. "AHHH FUCK!" I Yelled out loud. Smacking my palm to my forehead. Instantly my mind began racing over the previous nights events. "Did I really fuck my room mate?!" I groaned.

I jumped out of bed and got to my feet. It's only Thursday and I'm already an hour late for work. I grabbed a towel and threw it around my waist as I stubbed my toe on the door frame stepping into the hallway, "OW Fuck! Annie!" I yelled out hopping on one foot in the hall way. I pushed open Annie's door. she was passed out face down in her bed. "We slept in! Wake up!" I yelled.

She wrenched her head upwards and turned to look at me, with hair matted to her face as I turned and ran to the shower.

I stood there in the shower for a bit trying to bring all the pieces of the previous night's events together with the random images of sex and shots. How did I manage to get so drunk? How did all this happen? Did I really bang out my room mate? I laughed out loud as figured out the chain of events in order all the way back to donating blood in the blood mobile. Somewhat impressed with outdoing myself and that my charitable gesture had turned so devious yet slightly disappointed in my behavior.

Once out of the shower, I dove onto my bed and found my phone. I quickly texted my manager and told him that I was running late due to setting my alarm clock for the wrong time and began throwing on clothes. I passed Annie in the hallway on my way out the door and all I could think to say was, "Hey stranger!"

She looked at me confused as I got out the door walked over to my car still feeling incredibly haggard. I lit up a cigarette and hit the road.

I laughed through half of my commute at how absurd the previous night was and how incredibly awkward my next conversation with Annie was going to be. I simply had to write this one off as an unintended consequence of being really awesome. "Good thing I live with chicks," I said aloud laughing hysterically as I parked at my office.

As I got into my first hour at my desk, I received a text from Annie, "I kind of remember doing stuff with you last night. Can we keep that between the two of us?"

I wrote back, "Well you started it. LOL Sure. Not a problem."

When I got back home, I had already anticipated having "the talk" with Annie and had memorized a few key talking points. But she avoided me awkwardly the rest of that afternoon and by the time the weekend came around she was all but ignoring me so I left it alone. We never addressed it. This was likely my fatal error. Always clear the air on these things as soon as possible, time only complicates situations like this. Well I guess my fatal error would have been hooking up with her in the first place... or drinking after donating blood. Whatever, I had to play the hand I'd been dealt and hope for the best. As you might guess I'm not much of a poker player.

That Friday I had my regular "mo-hawk" girl over and received a death stare from Annie as we marched upstairs to my room. From that point on, things were different between Annie and I. She took offense to me going back to my regular girl just two nights after her and I had one drunken crazy night together. Had I sat down and talked about it with her right away, I think this story may have gone differently. From that point on, Annie took a new hostile attitude towards me. Passive aggressive behavior became the new norm. The other room mate followed suit soon after.

I was no longer invited out to "room-mate nights out" and this would eventually lead to the girls teaming up on me about everything little thing that bothered them. Soon yelling matches over little things began to be a regular occurance. The girls became even less considerate and started knowingly eating my food, drinking my alcohol, and worst of all; opening my door to yell at me about the volume of my music while I was in the act of having sex. It wasn't long before I asked that the three of us sit down and have a rational talk about our current living situation. It was my hope that we could try to fix all the issues and get everything that was bothering us out in the open.

Unfortunately, rational thinking is not one of the things that most girls possess, much less those in Southern California. I laid down ground rules for the meeting (no yelling, person attacks, etc) and explained that we all needed to act as diplomatically as possible to resolve our problems so we could have our more civil living situation. Within a minute, the "meeting" was turned into an aggressive out-pouring of emotion. Annie started yelling at me as if she was one of the star characters of her beloved reality television shows and the other one backed up all of her strange accusations. I could tell she had been saving up all the "zingers" she had learned from watching the dramatics play out on television shows like the Bachelorette and Jersey Shore. The issues being brought up were now completely out of left field. Andrienne jumped in and said she wanted to trade rooms. In reality, it was because mine was slightly bigger and had a balcony, but she tried angle it as a "safety issue." She claimed she felt "less safe" living on the lower level. Her rationale was that she would be more likely to get raped and killed living on the lower level and was losing sleep every night over it. I was in awe of level of crazy we had stepped into. It was clear that neither of them had any desire to work things out and drew more pleasure out of trying to be difficult for the sake of being difficult.

I tried to cool the situation off by maintaining my composure, speaking slowly in an even voice, and focusing on things that we could all agree on. This enraged Annie as she had mistook my tone as condescending. As I struggled to get this thing back on the rail both girls continued making personal attacks at my overall demeanor and lack of principles. After back pedaling and defending myself to these two idiots for a good ten minutes we hadn't gotten anywhere. In fact we had gotten further away from harmonious living than we ever had been before. After a few more attempts to sideline the outrageous demands and low blows, I threw out the idea of moving out. The two girls silently looked at each other and then back at me and nodded, "we think that's the best idea."

"Stupid cunts..." I said to myself. I stood up walked outside and lit up a cigarette.

My dad had taught me a valuable lesson when I was very young. "You can't argue with crazy." There are some people that can be presented with a logical case and all the facts to make the right decision but they choose to defer to their emotions and in the hopes that even though they're wrong, the sought after feeling of vindication (no, I'm right) is more important than the comprise. Or another way to look at it:

Now I'm not sure if my regular "escapades" would have ultimately lead me to end up in the same predicament I later found myself in. But having been through it, I'd rather error on the side of caution and avoid this type of thing altogether. It's best to save yourself from the additional stress and simply abstain from the lures of having fun for one night in exchange for weeks (maybe months) of misery to come. That's right boys and girls, don't shit where you eat... unless you're sure you're not coming back.

...On second thought, I wouldn't have this story to tell if I had followed my own advice. Maybe sometimes it's better to flick matches at a gas can to find out what happens next. Life is short, let your burning bridges light your way ;)

Making Moves

2011-11-09T16:04:00.001-08:00

I finally secured a house in Arlington, Virginia to move into last week. I had been actively searching for a new place for two months prior to my success; I had been passively searching for a room in a single family home for two months prior to that.

My search was made longer because I refused to settle on a place that didn't meet all my requirements. My requirements were:
-Must be near the metro
-Rent has to be cheaper than $750
-Room mates have to be social
-Room mates must understanding that some people have fun regularly.

I wanted to be "near the metro" so I could explore the city more and have a practical option of getting back from the bars shithoused. Obviously having a place nearby to bring someone home with lends itself to have advantages.

I didn't want to spend more than $750 because I'm still on a budget and have a lot of student loans. Unless I start tacking away at them more seriously, I will be paying them forever.

The room mates had to be social, I want to have the option of expanding my own social network but I also want these people to be accepting of my friends. I am a big believer of the idea that you should always have a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with the people you live with. I want to be able to grab a beer with the people who live with me and not have to feel like I'm pulling teeth to throw something fun together.

Lastly, I had major issues in San Diego stemming from the noise I made when I lived with two girls (cunts). I like music and I have loud sex. Let's move on.

I found a place that was only three blocks from the metro and rent (including utilities) was only $675. That's a steal considering housing in the surrounding area can often be double that price for the same accommodations. I really liked the distance the house was to bars and Metro. I e-mailed the people living there with a specially crafted message,

"Hey,
I saw your ad and from the sounds of it, I think I'd be a great fit. I'm 25, I co-founded a small start-up and have a good source of income. I'm low key during the week with the exception of the occasional happy hour from time to time. I'm looking to live in a house where I can be friends with the people I'm living with, not awkward acquaintances. I like to work hard and play hard on the weekends. I have a good social group of friends and never have trouble making new ones in new situations. I consider myself a like-able and very sociable person (although doesn't everyone?) I usually reserve my weekends for most of the fun but try and stay active with the gym, outdoor activities, writing, and whatever unique events in the area catch my attention. I'm a clean person, respectful, and I'm not the type that subscribes to dramatics. I'd be happy to come by any time after 5 today or this week.
Cheers,
Taylor"

I received an e-mail later that day from someone named, "Burak Bekiroğlu" who claimed to be living in the house. I had never seen the letter "G" with horns above it. My first thoughts were that this guy was likely an exchange student and therefore lived with other exchange students and I would likely not have the desire to step into a disjointed reality. I did a quick google search and found that "Burak" was a freelance photographer/media professional from the area. In his e-mail, Burak asked if I could come by later that night. He wanted me to meet him and the room mates. I was eager to get into a good living situation and this was a great deal, I agreed to show up at 7:00.

I got to the house on time. There was pretty limited parking on the street but the house was located in a really nice area and was closer to the metro than I had first anticipated. The porch was a bit of a mess as part of the roof on one side appeared to have water damage from a recent cave-in. In spite of that, I knocked on the door.

"HEY! You must be Taylor!" said a squirrely thin balding guy with a greasy beard.

"Yeah," I said shaking his hand and stepping inside, "Really great location."

"Yes," said Burak awkwardly, "Well. Oh," He picked up a stack of mail sitting near the door and started to thumb through it for a while as I stood just inside the doorway looking around. I felt strange pushing past him to look at more of the house so I just waited for him to get finished looking at the mail. I'm sure he didn't have a clue that it was probably a strange first impression. He then opened a letter and began to read its contents while I stood there. "Hmmm." He said outloud, eyes fixed on the letter.

"Were you expecting a letter today? Something important." I asked trying to shuffle more into the house to get a better look at the living room.

"No." He said turning the letter over and then looking at the envelope.

He opened a second letter and began to read. I could see other people walking through the living room and around into the kitchen just past him.

"Hey, so this is a nice living room." I said noticing that he was reading junk mail from national geographic and nothing important enough to be wasting precious seconds of my life.

"Oh, yeah." That's the fireplace and the book case." He said tearing his eyes off the junk mail.

I rolled my eyes.

"What kind of work do you do?" He asked as we walked a few steps into the living room.

I gave my little "elevator pitch," and then said, "You do photography or something like that right?"

He went pale. "Well how do you know that?" He asked in a strange tone.

"Well I saw that you had a pretty unique e-mail address it was bekiroglu.com, so out of curiosity I looked up the site.

"You looked me up?" He said in a creeped out tone.

"It was a strange e-mail address, I was doing my due diligence, doesn't everyone google everyone these days? I didn't realize this was a big deal." I said in a playful manner.

"No, I'm just not used to people doing that." He said trailing off.

"It's not a big deal Baruk. I'm not stalking you, you're not my type" I said jokingly. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

Things weren't off to a great start but I can always bounce back. I was already put off by the weirdness of this guy. I was hoping the other people would be more normal.

"Yeah ok, well here's our communal room." He said leading me a few feet further into the next room that had a shitty TV, a super Nintendo, and an xbox in it. One of the female room mates rounded the corner and introduced herself while her and Baruk made inside jokes of a jovial nature with each other. She asked me what I did and I gave her the same spiel I had a moment ago. I then asked her about her job.

"I'm a massage therapist," She said in a laid back but proud way.

"I love massages," I said, then I put on my over-the-top-clearly-I'm-kidding eligible young bachelor voice, "if you ever need anyone to practice some of your work on, I'm your guy."

The joke fell on deaf ears. I would have been better off farting. She looked at me confused for a second. I reacted quickly, "Well at least your not a gynecologist because the joke I would have made in that situation is about me doing some freelance work in college."

The was a brief pause and Baruk and her looked at each other and she let out a laugh and he followed by a forcing out a short awkward "tuh" sort of chuckle. Baruk did not get the joke.

I was shown the open room, bathroom, and basement. Then I was led into the kitchen where I met two other people. One was a chubby plain looking girl that lived there and the other was their gay friend who wanted to exploit the awkward situation because he didn't have anything better to do. I can't blame the little shit for trying to make the environment more entertaining but I still don't think it was his place to say anything.

And so it began; a four on one rapid fire barrage of questions. Before I could finish answering one question, someone else in the group would get bored and ask another and another while I was still finishing the first question.

-What are your thoughts on Video games?
-Why are you moving?
-What college did you go to?
-Can you cook?
-Are you one of those guys that really likes sports?
-Do you like gay people? What about gay marriage?
-Do you care about sharing bathrooms
-What do you do for fun?
-Do you have a large tv that you would be willing to put in the common area?

I got through some of the basic questions and then we started weaving in questions that were clearly an attempt at getting me to admit something negative. The gay kid sat back curling his wrist around a beer bottle, "What do you do other than workout and drink?

It was a loaded question insinuating that I didn't have a life. This question was also coming from the same douche that asked me, "how do you feel about girls farting;" only moments earlier.

"I suppose it depends on the weekend. I travel, I enjoy checking out new things, I write." I sat up on the counter to look more relaxed.

"You travel and do what? Drink?" The guy asked expected me to be thrown off or admit some character flaw. The others looked at him due to the audacity of the question and then back at me for the response.

"I mean, if you're asking if I have a drinking problem I think that's a bit over the line. I like meeting people, so yeah- often on these trips I'll imbibe in some boozing. I'm still a young man." I say put off a little by the tone in which the question was asked.

"What's your favorite drug?" Said Baruk looking at me pleased with himself.

Another loaded question.

"I mean I could answer this question and completely blow myself out of the water here. It's a little unfair. Almost unreasonable isn't it?"

"Well we want to know what kind of person is moving into our house." One of the girls said.

"I have no shame in telling you guys anything about myself, I just think it's a rather unfair question. Are we talking about all drugs?" I asked.

"Whatever you think it means." Baruk said quickly before anyone else was able to step in and clarify to help me out.

I noted that the decor of the house had overtones of a "hippie" lifestyle, there was a super Nintendo sitting out, and one of the girls had an ironic tee-shirt on. I'd put my money on the chances of that house being full of stoners, especially since only one of them worked a regular 9-5 job.

"I guess, well- I've been to Amsterdam three times. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy weed but I haven't smoked in months. It's just not really something I go out of my way for. But if it's around, I don't have a problem with it." I said pleased with the diplomatic wording of my answer.

"Well you know," Baruk said, "food is a drug."

I ran my fingers over my forehead and into my hair physically effected by the stupidity of the rationale we were now wading through. "So is LOVE Baruk!" I said throwing my hands in air out the absurdity of the direction the questions were going.

"Tell you what, maybe if we have time when I move in, we can have a long philosophical discussion about that." I said getting a laugh out of the girls.

"We're you in a frat?" One of the girls asked me tilting her head.

I know that for some people this is a "deal breaker." The assumptions and negative connotations that go along with this "title" aren't good for your image until people get to know you first. I've found that people judge my actions differently if they know I was in fraternity. My intelligence, motives, and passions are immediately demoted and downgraded in most people's eyes.

It's easier for most people to use schemas to catorgorize other people and put them into "familiar buckets." If I give any type of affirmative response to that question my character and morals are reduced in their eyes to that of felon out on parole. I'm sorry a lot of guys have ruined this title, but I'd like to think I have a unique set of characteristics and don't fit the mold of a the stereotypical "bro."

I made my best attempt to convey this idea to the group in the kitchen but I wasn't sure it really sunk in. I figured they had their own ideas and I wasn't going to change their minds in the span of ten minutes in their kitchen especially the way questioning was going.

"Hey-so I Imagine you guys have gotten a good idea of what kind of person I am." I said walking through the kitchen. "I think we're getting off the rails now, I'm glad I got the chance to meet all you guys.You all will probably need some time to discuss, if you think I'm a good fit, please let me know. I'd be happy to move in. This seems like a great place to live."

I really didn't care about any of them, I just wanted an inexpensive place to hang my hat. I shook hands and everyone seemed very pleasant when I left.

Two days later I got a text from Baruk, "Everyone really liked you, do you think you could come by and meet the last room mate tonight?"

I jumped at the chance and later that evening I stopped by the house. On this visit I was greeted at the door by a taller hipster looking guy. He had a shorter haircut, a pencil thin mustache, and was wearing a skin tight ironic vintage shirt under a button up vest.

He invited me back into the kitchen as he was making himself dinner, "You're the guy that works out and drinks right?"

I squinted at him. "Yeah well, I do more than that." I said scratching the back of head.

We talked about work and the area for a little while as I got the impression that this hipster was not a fan of anything I had to say. He never made eye contact with me the entire time I was there. I tried joking with him, I made an effort to sound like I wanted the house for people living in it, and I even said I was good at fixing shit around the house because I knew they had a lazy landlord. Nothing seemed to change the tall hipster's demeanor. I even complained about things that most everyone hates, because hipsters are world renoun complainers- and I got nothing.

As we were finishing up, a second guy came into the living room and was being given the tour by one of the girls He was a slower moving medium build guy with a mop of blond hair on his head. When he introduced himself to the others I could clearly catch a stoner voice and mindset. He seemed in awe of everything around him. I can only describe him as Adam's Sandlers character from the hot chick.

"WOW! You guy's got two refrigerators? That's so tight."

"Great isn't it? We live in pretty crazy times." I say elbowing the tall hipster getting a slight reaction out of him.

The weird pothead kid was now going through drawers in the pantry, "Who here buys gushers? Those are the best!" He said while opening another cabinet.

I laughed as exited the kitchen with the hipster guy following me out, I wanted that kid to ruin his chances all on his own.

"It was good finally meeting you," I said to the tall hipster. "You guys have my info, I can move in ASAP. I'd really like to move in if you guys are up for it."

"Yeah, we'll let you know." He said plainly shaking my hand and closing the door behind me.

I didn't have a clue as to how that went. I texted Burak and asked him when they might have an idea of what their decision was going to be. I wanted to make sure I had the chance to look at other places if this one was going to fall flat.

"You're in the top three, we'll have a decision later in the week." he sent back.

The next morning I got on craigslist and did some more searching for a places to live to make sure that in case I didn't get this house I wasn't missing out on any other deals. I opened up the "rooms/shared" section of craigslist and spotted a familiar ad.

Burak had re-posted the original ad I had first responded to. I scanned through the entire ad and found that all the wording was exactly the same except for one minor addition to the about you section, "Must have good source of income, clean up after themselves, be respectful..." and in big capital letters, "NOT A BRO."

... what a fucking joke. And there it was, even with all of my efforts to prove otherwise; I had given the impression that I was the quintessential bro. When did I start giving this impression? I didn't high five anyone or brag about things that were given to me. I was really pissed. I had been very calculated with my behavior and even held back some of the "fun loving me" because I didn't want to be too extreme right out of the gate. Was I really a bro?

I e-mailed Burak right away. I explained that my gregarious and confident demeanor can often be misconstrued for arrogance. I told him that it's not uncommon that my outgoing nature can be intimidating to some people. The personality they saw was not a result of my time in a fraternity. That's just me. That "behavior" (not that I felt I was at all out of line) has gotten me this far in life. I attached a video of Dom Mazzetti from youtube and said, "It's not as if I'm THIS guy, seriously come on?! I hope you reconsider."

He sent me a quick reply via text, "Hey Talyor, sorry about that. We all really liked you. We just wanted to cover all our bases and make sure we don't miss anyone that we haven't met yet."

Note that he didn't even try and deny that my visit had prompted an update to the ad. I responded and said it was "ok" knowing full well what was happening. This was a guy that avoided conflict and wanted to sound nice so he tried to sugar coat the excuse for looking like an absolute douche.

Later that evening I received a an e-mail, " Hey Ryan,
I wanted to thank you again for coming by and wanting to live with us is our modest home. We thought you were really cool and you were definitely up for contention but we've decided to go with someone else sad to tell you. I wish you all the best of luck in finding a place I'm sure you'll find someplace cool. Hope to see you around town and shoot the shit soon.
Burak."

Like I would ever grab a beer with these schmucks after wasting two trips to see their house just to be told "no." My response, "I do appreciate the heads up.., Lol, thanks for considering me "brah""

At the end of the day, it was more of "a feather in my cap" than anything else. My overall presence, even at its lowest setting, had appeared to be so overwhelming for this group of people that they went to the trouble of making sure they didn't encounter anyone within three shades of my personality again. I'll wear that title like a crown, even if I don't fully agree with all its intricacies.

Sup Bro?

As if I wasn't ugly enough before...

2011-11-03T07:59:00.000-07:00

I had the unfortunate luck one day of growing a bump on my forehead. I thought it might have been just a deep pimple or something. But with each passing day it grew in size. After a week of having this "zit," it had quadrupled in size and was swelling so much my right eye had become puffy. It was getting to the point that I assumed I was either growing a horn or perhaps a second head. (Note picture above was at it's biggest when I had to be out of town for two weeks).

It became noticeable even in poor lighting and was distracting for people I'd talk to. It was so visible that I was tempted to make a Facebook page for it and potentially get it started on linked-in because it was getting more attention than the rest of my face professionally. I opted to go to the doctor after realizing that hot/cold compresses weren't helping. I did my research prior to seeing the first doctor out of concern and within a minute of speaking with her she suggested I visit a dermatologist. I asked if she could just give me a cortisone shot to which she took offense and asked if I thought I was a doctor. I said, "No but I play one on TV" and she promptly left the room.

A week later I met with a dermatologist that looked at it for a few moments and said, "That's a cyst, let's try a cortisone shot and if it persists in a week, I'll send you to plastic surgery to have it cut out. After coming down off my high of validation that I might be as smart as a doctor, I went went with the shot.

The shot did a little to change the appearance of the bump and it was clear after a weeks time I'd have to see a plastic surgeon. I set the appointment and showed up with expectation I'd be going under the knife.

After I waited in the waiting room for a brief time the nurse brought me to another room and took my vitals. She informed me the doctor would be in shortly.

Minutes later there was a knock at the door, "Hey man, how's it going?" said the doctor entering the room. He was younger, a thin and taller than average asian man with thick dark rimmed glasses.

He called me "man" a few more times as we ran through a handful of questions and before we started talking about the surgery.
"Does it hurt?"
"Does it itch"
"Does skin cancer run in your family"
"Has this appeared before... etc"

I don't like when employers, doctors, or people I depend on think that using "bro-cabulary"® on me is acceptable because it appears I speak the lingo. That only lowers my opinion and estimations of you. Quite frankly I'd prefer ""boy" or "sport" if I have to choose anything as an alternative to "sir" or "Mr."

He finally sat back and said, "Well Taylor, it looks like you have two options- man. One- we cut it out and you'll have a small scar. Or you can leave it as it is but there's a risk of it turning into cancer down the road and it's possible it might re-occur. Cool?"

Thrown off by the question, "cool?" I steam rolled forward.

"How big of an incision are you planning on making?" I asked the doctor.

He made a haggling face and said, "Probably not more than a centimeter."

I nodded, "I hate for this to be a major problem later, I'll just bite the bullet. Can we do this today?"

He shrugged,"Sure man, let me see if the operating room is open."

The doctor left the room and I was alone with my thoughts for a minute. It seemed like the idea of avoiding the possibility of cancer on my face would be the best option considering I already had a reddish bump on the spot we would be operating on anyway.

A moment later the nurse came in and showed me into the operating room. She instructed me to lay down as she got supplies ready. The doctor came in a few minutes later and asked me to sign a piece of paper attached to a clip board. I did and we he began to prep my forehead with a brown alcoholic smelling substance while the female nurse set up the light and put the tools on a stand near my head.

"I'm just going to numb the general area before we get started. This should sting a little."

The doctor placed a few towels around my face and eyes as I felt a needle hit my skin and a cool sting ran through the upper right side of my face. It's very similar to getting a navocane shot at the dentist if you have a cavity.

The doctor squeezed, poked, and prodded. While making noises like "Mmm hmm." Or "Ah.. mmm." There were a few long pauses where it seemed like he was confused and was looking at the nurse for comic relief.

I could feel sharp stings as he pulled his hands away from my face a few times and dabbed my forehead with gauze. A few minutes later he turned to the nurse and said, "Do a biopsy on this tissue and we'll close him up."

As I felt the pin-pricks of a needle entering my forehead I started to count the number of stitches he was putting in. It seemed like a lot more than just two, considering I was under the impression that we would only be dealing with a centimeter long incision.

"Alright, that will do it." Said the doctor, "I'm going to clean up, get some paperwork for you with instructions, and the nurse will help you out while I'm gone. I think it looks fine."

The tone he used when he said "fine" denoted that he was convincing himself.

"Looks fine?" I asked grasping for any shred of reassurance I could as he left the room.

The nurse pulled away some of the towels and started tidying up the area around me.

"Mirror?" I said sitting up nearly knocking over the table next to me like the scene out of the first batman movie when the Joker has his face reconstructed.

"I don't think..." The nurse started to say looking around the room.

I pointed at a turquoise hand held mirror sitting on the counter adjacent to the blood pressure equipment, "Mirror." I stammered extending my hand open palm towards her.

She cringed a bit and handed it to me.

I pulled the mirror up to my face gazed into it a my own reflection.

"Oh." I said just barely above a whisper. "Shit."

"I thought this was was supposed to be a centimeter incision. That's an inch!" I said starting to realize the gravity of the situation.

"Well," The nurse began.

"There's four stitches here." I said brining the mirror closer. "I'd hate to have a measuring contest with this guy. If that's a centimeter, then I've been sporting a footlong since middle school." I said getting more worked up.

She laughed but I wasn't kidding.

"Does this place have the metric system mixed up with something else?" I asked the nurse while fixed on my reflection in the little hand held mirror.

"I have a vagina on my face. That looks like a bloody vagina." I said looking at her with some concern as the doctor entered the room.

"What happened Doctor??" I asked pointing at my face and setting the mirror on the table next to me.

"Everything went fine," he said thumbing through a few documents in his hands while not looking at my face. "The swelling will go down soon."

"We talked about centimeters," I said pointing directly at my forehead. "This is an inch." I said grabbing the mirror and looking at it again.

"I'm sure it will barely be noticeable in a few months." He said handing me two sheets of paper. "We'll take those stitches out in a week, make an appointment up front."

The doctor disappeared around the corner as I stood up in disbelief still eyeing my forehead. "It looks like a vagina?" I said throwing my hands up and looking at the nurse for a response.

She shrugged and tore the paper off the chair I had been sitting in and continued to clean the room. I walked out and began to laugh at the absurdity of the entire thing. Though not as extreme as what the joker had gone through in the batman movie, I imagined that I would have had better luck doing it myself while drunk. The idea was counter intuitive. I exchanged what was only a small bump on my face for a more noticeable bright inch long slit with a string coming out of it.. I have a vagina, on it's period- on my face... great.

The cost of forgetting is worth a free TV

2011-10-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

It's funny, you don't realize how many people you've met in a city until you start seeing some of the same ones in different places regularly. It's a common idea that most people stick to familiar nightlife spots because people like to drink in places that they're comfortable with. Most people have a "regular" spot or a "go to." I usually rotate between a large pool of places- on one particular night I ended up at a spot I frequent nearly once a week. It's called "Mr. Days." Imagine a sports bar with two levels. It usually doesn't take too long to get a drink and there's a dance floor that caters to a younger crowd, the average age is probably 24ish.

I usually hit this bar after I've had a good number of drinks while in the company of a handful of friends. On this night, I broke off from my group and did my wondering thing. While cruising solo coming back from the bathroom, I spotted a blond and brunette (7 & 8) standing by themselves near the top of the steps on the second level.

"Hey! What are you two out celebrating tonight?" I asked as I walked up.

"What?" one of them asked giving me a look like she was offended that I ruined their conversation.

"Uh, we remember you, you used that line on us already." One of the girls said trying to cut my confidence in half as they both burst into obnoxious laughter.

"Oh? So we've met before? I'm sorry I don't remember you guys." I said nonchalantly with a charming smiling as this was not the first time I'd ever encountered this. "And where did we meet?"

"Don't worry about it," blurted out one of the girls still laughing as she did a hair flip turn and walked away.

"No wait, I'm serious, I tend to meet a lot of people. I don't always remember everyone I talk to; especially if it's the end of the night. Do you remember my name or even what we talked about?" I asked the one that hadn't already started to walk away.

"You got my number over at Spider Kelleys." She said folding her arms.

"Alright, let me check my phone, what's your name?" I asked pulling my phone out of my pocket and scrolling through my contacts.

"It's Heather." She said confidently.

"Well hey Heather, my name is Taylor." I said extending my hand to shake hers.

"Is my number in your phone?" She asked looking down at my hand refusing to touch it; then fixing her gaze on my phone.

I let out a big sigh, "Ok, It's entirely possible. I wouldn't write it off that we've met. Let's see," I shuffled through my contacts and pulled up the only random 'Heather' in my phone without a last name or notes in it. I open the details to display the number.

"Is this you?" I asked smiling turning the screen towards her.

"Oh my god, that's my number. What a creep!" she shrieked turning away and rushing towards a nearby group of about five guys only ten feet away.

This was not the response I expected. "Hey Heather, we're not done here?" I called after her.

I stood there perplexed for a moment. I scratched my head while I watched her approach the near by group of guys and use exagerated bodly language while appearing to explain our brief encounter. This was followed by uproarious laughter as she turned sideways and pointed directly at me, "Yeah! He's standing right there! What a fucking weirdo -right?!"

More laughter. What the hell was going on here? I walked over in an unassuming fashion to quel what could be an over blown misunderstanding. Just as I came up next to her she darted around the guys and headed towards another group nearby. "Hey wait!" I yelled after her as she vanished behind a torrent of moving people. I turn toward the group of guys, "What did that girl say about me to you guys?"

"Dude," one of the guys pipped up, "leave her alone man." I gave him an "oh really" face as two of the guys in the group mumbled something inaudible to each other as the both nodded in agreement while looking at me.

"Clearly you the situation was explained improperly... I don't even know that girl, I must have met her bla..." I spot Heather pointing at me and laughing while standing with a different group people in the bar (mostly made up girls). They were having a great laugh at my expense a little further away. This was getting out of hand.

"The fuck is this?!" I yell after her as I walk away from the guys to do damage control.

I approach the second group and begin to explain the situation to blank stares. As I look past them, I see Heather talking and gesturing in my direction while standing with yet another large group further away.

"Oh Godamnit!" I yell while in the middle of the upstairs while leaving the second group I was in the middle of trying to convince that I'm not a stalker.

"That's still pretty creepy," one of the girls says stirring her drink with a straw and lifting it to her face while she looked back and forth at her friends who were nodding in agreement. They all appeared deeply concerned that a stalker (me) was in their midst.

"Well, well-you're a fucking idiot." I say walking away running my fingers through my hair and over my face.

My entire talent pool was being poisoned. I've never experienced anyone making such a concerted effort to sabotage my night. What made it worse was that none of it was deserved. I hadn't done anything wrong here. Even if I were to somehow try to turn the situation around on her, I still don't appear to be a good guy. My game was shaken enough to bring me into a shallow hole of frustration and put me in a despondent mood. Part of me knew I had persevered after worse. But given that it was a less crowded night and I was in a sour mood, I didn't think I had any business being at that bar anymore.

Before I go any further in this story, I have to note that it's my personal belief that you should never let anyone control your thoughts, feelings, or attitude unless their existence has a major significance on your life. And even then, I don't think there is any reason that you should ever let someone get you down on yourself.

I left the bar a few minutes later trying to figure out what to do with these feelings of inadequacy. I had been taken for a ride. I felt cheated and beaten. I'm fully aware that in some situations I probably deserve that type of embarrassment or action done to me, but not for this. It's not like I had been sending her "cock pix" via text. As I pondered over a cigarette once we got back, I begin to pull up a hazy memory of meeting this Heather girl the week before at the bar she had mentioned just before last call. I probably got her number with little more than a minute of conversation and I likely did it as an immature drunk confident boost to be able to say, "well tonight wasn't a complete waste of time." I doubt I had any intentions of actually calling but it's like getting a useless conciliation prize.

If you've read any of my stories, you'd know that I'm not one to be defeated so easily.

Upon waking, I set my mind to using Heather's number against her. What types of things can you do with a random phone number? A quick google search for "spam a phone number" turned up limited options. Most of my options required me to to sign up for most of the services and confirm via text that I wanted to be spammed. I also wanted to stay stealthy and distance myself from the project. Craigslist was prefect solution for this problem.

I got on the free section of craigslist and clicked post, I then crafted the perfect ad using an old e-mail address. It read something like this, "I'm moving today and I've been trying to sell my Phillips 42 inch plasma TV, it's about 4 years old but works perfectly. I originally posted it for $350 but at this point it just needs to be out of my apartment. I can help you move it, I just need it out of here. I'll be home for a few more hours. My phone doesn't get e-mails right now so you can call me and I'll let you know where I live.
-Heather (703)###-####"

I posted the ad with a big smile and kicked my feet up while staring at the ceiling. I imagined the hundreds of phone calls and the irate nature of the craigslisters finding out there was no free tv. It was by no means the nicest solution, but I felt justified that I offered up a pantheon of awkward moments in response for an unnecessary wrong doing to me.

Flash forward a few months.

I was drinking at a little hole in the wall bar not far from Mr. Days. I took a smoke break and sat down with a friend on metal patio chairs near the front door outside. A slightly chubby girl approached me and tapped my shoulder, "Do you know my friend?"

"Um, Maybe," I said looking around starting to laugh at the vagueness of her question. "I know lots of people's friends. Is she real or imaginary?"

"No, you're the fucking creep that put my friends number on craigslist." She said folding her arms and squinting at me.

I hadn't made the connection yet, "You've got the wrong guy, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Was this a casual encounters thing? Who is your friend?"

"Her name is Heather, you got her number, and stalked her." She said raising her voice trying to draw more attention to her tirade.

I looked around to see if people were watching me, "What are you on drugs? Hunny, you must have me confused for someone else. I don't have the slightest clue as to what you're talking about. I'm not sure you realize how crazy you sound. Let me get this straight, a girl I don't know thinks I put her number on craigslist. Does she have any proof?"

"She knows it was you. My friend doesn't even want to come over here because she recognized you and is scared to come near." Said the girl standing behind me.

I begin to realize that I AM the guy she's talking about, but I stick to my guns. That looney bitch isn't going to get me twice.

"Is this how you pick up guys at bars because I could teach you some way better techniques." I said laughing at her while my friend blew smoke in her face and began to laugh too.

"You should apologize to my friend right now. She got phone calls from strange people all day." Said the girl.

I cracked a big smile, success.

"Apologize to your friend for putting you up to this? Or for being being a nutjob? Nah, I don't think so. I'm sorry that I'm entertained by this." I said tapping some ash off the end of my cigarette.

"You do realize you sound quite crazy" my friend chimed in.

I leaned back and fixed my eyes on this girl, "this is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. What kind of chick walks around accusing strangers of playing weird child games. I don't know you or your friend but if you're going to be rude about this entire thing and end this discussion right now. You must be out of your mind to walk up to someone you don't know with such a bizarre accusation. As a matter of fact, if the person who did it was questioned, why the hell would they give you a straight answer either way. Tell your friend to grow up and if she's afraid to come drink here because of misunderstanding, I say you leave her outside. But I'm not going to play stupid games through a translater. If she wants to come by and apologize to me I'll be here."

As I finished my last words more of my friends came to my defense. And reassured the girl that I had nothing to do with such a scandalous act.

"Taylor's a great guy, that's something he would never do." I heard one of them say sincerely.

The girl looked at me puzzled and then stood up tall and peered over her shoulder to where no doubt her friends were waiting. "I'm sorry, you seem like a really nice guy. This was stupid. I feel stupid."

"It's ok hun, you should feel a little stupid. You take care of that looney friend of yours. Don't let her get you into to much trouble" I said as she backed away from the table with a confused look on her face.

By now the rest of my friends had gathered and one was giving me an incredulous look. "Did you really post a girl's number on craigslist?!"

I burst out laughing, "Of course I did?! Why would you put that type of behavior past me? That girl's friend was a total cunt!"

A roar of laughter erupted as we flicked our cigarettes into the street and headed to a empty spot at the bar for more drinks.

This gym isn't working out...

2011-09-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

I was at my gym the other day nearing the end of my workout when I spotted an old friend on the lat-pull-down machine next to the treadmills. I pulled out my head phones and walked over.

"Hey! I didn't know you came here?" I said throwing the back of my hand into his shoulder.

My friend wheeled around and we exchanged pleasantries and small talk for a bit.

"How long have you been working-out here? I've yet to see anyone I know in here." I asked looking around.

"Yeah" he said trying to catch his breath putting his hands on his hips. "I used to come in here pretty regularly, but I've been working out after work near my job so I've been going to a different place for a while now."

"You're not really missing much in here." I said smiling looking around. "The upside is you don't really have to wait to get on any machine or use equipment."

"I know!" he nearly shouted while laughing. "There's absolutely never any attractive women to look at in here! I thik it helps with the work-out."

"Doesn't it just suck going to a gym that has nothing but ugly chicks!?" I yell laughing and rolling my eyes to catch an chubby girl with frizzy curly brown hair and square black glasses on the exercise bike only a few feet away. She's clearly intently listening in on our conversation and now I'm getting a death stare.

My friend, much more polite than me notices the same girl scowling at both of us and he frantically makes an effort to change the conversation but ends up just stuttering in a befuddled fashion for about five seconds.

"Well it's true!? And you're not helping the situation." I exclaim turning my head completely towards the girl and giving her an equally dirty look.

My friend's face turns bright red and I start laughing hysterically.

"Straight from the hip." I say motioning one of my hands like an old western gun slinger.

"Sometimes I really admire you Taylor." He says with a big smile.

I tell him we should grab a drink in the near future and we part ways while the girl puts in her head phones visibly pissed off.

Selling the last few non-essentials before moving is supposed to be fun

2011-08-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

I tried to sell a few shoe boxes and some binders of old baseball cards that I had collected when I was a kid, prior to leaving for San Diego. I hadn't as much as opened one of the beat up binders since I was nearly twelve years old. I knew a place that my friends used to go to when I was a kid and when I looked it up, I was surprised to find out it still open nearly 15 years later.

I walked in carrying three binders and two shoe boxes filled with odds and ends from when I collected every different type of sports card from first through fourth grade. As expected, I was the only customer. From the walls up to the ceiling, there was nothing but cards behind glass covered up by stacks upon stacks of cards. There were display cases on top of display cases on top of even more display cases. There was relatively limited floor space due to the pack-rat nature of the place. I tip-toed around boxes of cards and odd sports memorabilia up to where two men sat silently eying me.

"Hi," I said, "I'm moving to the West coast and was hoping to get some money for my collection of cards here. I watched one of the men roll his eyes and walk away to the back leaving me with the younger putz of the two.

"Put one of the boxes up here," he said, rubbing the counter top in front of him.

He opened the first box and pulled out a few cards. He silently looked at me then back at the cards. He let out a sigh as if I was scum for setting foot in the holyland of cards and then tossed tossed the cards back into the box. He then grabbed the binders and opened them to the middle and flipped through two pages. The other idiot came over shortly after and began flipping through a few cards in the second shoe box.

"Got anything that's worth more than forty cents?" one of them says, while flipping through a stack in his hands, looking directly at me.

I wasn't sure if he was serious at first, so I said nothing and I watched the other doofus join in and ridicule me for awhile about how much my cards "sucked" and for my "sheer lack of good cards."

At first I was offended, but I started to think about how funny the situation really was. This grown man in his late 50's hunched over a shoe box mumbling was trying to insult me by putting down the thin pieces of cardboard I had collected as a child.

The phone rang while he shuffled through the second box and he picked it up and propped the receiver between his fat face and his shoulder while he continued to look through the cards. "Yeah I'm just looking at this one guy's cards he just brought in... I'm going to low ball him, these things are worthless."

I could tell we about were to enjoy ourselves a good old fashion "battle of the wits" at a card shop.

He finished his call, hung up the phone, and settled up to the display case, "I can't offer you much, it's almost not worth my time to go through these things," the guy says.

I cringe to think of what he actually does in his free time.

"Not to mention, there's absolutely nothing good in here. I'll give you $10," he says, putting his hands on his hips.

"Yeah," I say sheepishly starting to pick up the boxes, "I'd probably have better cards if I didn't have to deal with the confines of becoming an adult or having a sex life. Or a life in general. I'll sell them on craigslist."

The guy was stunned. I turned and headed for the door but not before spotting a display case holding a hologram "charizard" pokemon card, and I nearly lost it.

I started to laugh while pushing the door open, "Thanks guy. Real fucking winner over here!" I shout as the door starts to close behind me.

I got home and realized I'd left one the shoe boxes of cards sitting on the floor of the shop. I was willing to let it go considering the entertainment I got out of it and the lesson provided that teaches us, "some things are just easier thrown/given away than trying to make a 'buck' on them." It makes me think George Carlin was onto something when he said: "Isn't it funny that your shit is stuff, and other people's stuff is shit?"

That's two strikes

2011-08-30T18:51:00.000-07:00

I met this cute girl one night during an adventure out in Fairfax, Va on a Tuesday. I was 23 and was having drinks at one of my regular bars named, "Pj Skidoos." On this particular night, the bar was less crowded and as the night got started I began to take notice of two girls sitting opposite of me across the bar.

I downed a few beers with friends as I kept an eye on them for the first hour. It appeared that they had come to enjoy one another's company while looking around to see what kind of male suitors the bar for might produce. After I exchanged a few elongated glances at the cuter one of the two, I motioned for them to come join me on the other side of the bar. The two girls looked at each other and laughed then began whispering to each other. A moment later they motioned for me to come join them. I smiled, finished my beer, and told my boys to come join me in a minute or two.

Once I got over to them, I threw on some charm and made with some quick introductions followed by an offering of shots. We took a round of shots together and I started to get to know them. They were room mates and were both 21 year old students at George Mason University. The cute one was named Corine and the other girl turned out to be Corine's room mate; clearly the the goal-keeping, mother-hen, cock-blocking friend. My friends soon came over and joined us at the girl's side of the bar. As I continued to charm Corine, the dialogue progressed into what we looked for in the opposite sex. She explained what she was looking for and then asked me what I wanted in a girl. "Something like you. So long as you can dance, that would be a deal breaker." I said winking and laughing.

Within minutes Corine and I took to the nearly empty dance floor and began dancing up a storm while one of my other friends occupied the room mate.

As the night progressed Corine and I hit it off quite well. We made-out for a while off to the side of the dance floor as we caught our breath from dancing for nearly thirty minutes straight. We took a cigarette break together and exchanged phone numbers. My friends had been helpful in keeping the cock-blocking friend away long enough for me to at least plant the seed of interest. I was intrigued to by this girl and opted to hold off on attempting to seal the deal that evening. Seeing as how I had work in the morning it wouldn't make much sense to do try anything that night anyway. I looked at it as setting myself up for an assist on a slam dunk during date number two.

Corine and I ended up making plans to see each other the upcoming Friday at a different bar in same the area. When Friday came around I was really excited to see her again. We picked right up where we left off on our second date. I was impressed with the conversation, her sense of humor was refreshing, and both of us were getting drunk rather quickly. In mid-conversation she stopped me and asked, "Would you like to see my apartment? It's like a mile away."

I almost choked on my tongue. "Um, so long as I can crash there, I'd love to take a look at your place."

After waiting nearly forever to get the bartenders attention I flipped him my card and waited patiently struggling to fill the silence with Corine. I asked her a number of questions that probably seemed extremely mundane trying to fill the void of waiting for this fuck-head to get me closed out so I could be all over this girl at her place.
"Do you have assigned parking?"
"Was that place your first choice?"
"When does the lease run out?"
"Have you gotten to know your neighbors?"
"Do you ever throw parties?"

I was starting to sweat when I finally got my card. I scribbled in a shitty tip and hit the road.

I followed her in my truck the short distance back to her place and found parking. We barely got up to the front of her building as a lull in conversation hit and we both caught each other checking one another out. We were barely inside the door before we both grabbed for each other. No words were spoken as shoes and clothing began flying off. We shuffled our way to her bedroom where the lights were already off. She pounced on top of me as we fell onto her bed.

I was already shirtless as I sat up slightly and undid her bra while she straddled me. I dragged my fingers over her body and as she began unbuttoning my jeans. She shifted her weight and rolled me on top of her and I went to work kissing her neck and working my way down towards her waistline. She was in great shape and had a really well put together body. "Fantastic body Corine," I said as I kissed my way further down her body.

"Aw thanks" She giggled, "You're not so bad yourself."

Contrary to popular belief, guys like hearing compliments from women in the bedroom as well. I'd say for every ten compliments I give, I'll maybe receive one and it's some bullshit like "You're a fast walker."

I'm sure for most women it doesn't occur to them that guys need any type of mental reinforcement or ego boost or perhaps it's not a woman's job to be complimentary. But sometimes it's nice to know that you're mildly impressed or even just complacent with the shape I'm in. If I spend six-plus hours in the gym every week and resist all the natural built-in urges to eat shit-food regularly, it's nice hear something like, "you've got a really nice body."

I unbuttoned her tight jeans and slid them downwards towards her knees. I slowly moved my hand below the ridge of her underwear. My thumb rests on the elastic of her underwear as my fingers straighten out and slide further downwards and suddenly I flinch and pause.

What is this steel wool? Bird's nest? Some type of awful piratical joke. She had a massive bush.

I recoiled my arm and slid off to the side while propping up to rest on my elbow for second. My initial thought, "there's no way in hell I'm even going to mess with that."

My mind starts racing. Do I say something to her? She has to have realized I've stopped my forward progress, what should I do to act like this is normal. I began tracing circles with my fingers over her stomach while I attempted to figure it out. This was bullshit. I had put in all this work just to deal with THIS! How do I say "You've got a huge fucking gross bush and I can't believe you allowed me to get to this point before I found out?"

I didn't want to believe it, everything else had gone off without a hitch, this is the type of thing I would consider a deal breaker. I've had a hairy one or two in my past before and it's not even remotely pleasurable. I get nothing out of it. Especially in a room where it's really dark I feel like I'm hooking up with some kind of animal or maybe someone wearing a really strange disguise.

I began to realize this had messed up my rhythm. In the natural order of foreplay I'd using go down there and do some work, but there was absolutely no way I'm putting my face down there, it would be like kissing a man with beard.

She worked her jeans all the way off and rubbed her legs against mine.

Fight or flight was about to kick in. I needed to decide if I was going to hit eject in a really awkward and humiliating way or bite the bullet and take one for the team. "Maybe I felt something that wasn't there, my finger was only down there for a fraction of a second. Perhaps I'd made a mistake." I said to myself.

I worked my way upwards and started kissing and caressing her body. I reset my hand drifted my fingers towards her waistline. I was trembling when my finger were met with dense long coarse hairs. I pushed a little further and was blown away by this thing. This could very well have been the biggest bush I'd ever encountered. It's not my thing, I don't understand why a women living in an industrialized nation in this day in age would event want to put up withing having something like that. It didn't make sense, she was a really attractive girl yet this was so counter to everything else I had experienced leading up to it. I was perplexed by the idea, why would you have this? Defense mechanism? Extra padding? Warmth in the winter? I don't know how to operate in that type of environment.

I was furious and tempted to say something but I bite my lip. "You can do this!" I said to myself. "You'll be mad at yourself if you don't just go with it."

Once more, pulled my hand out and continued slinking my way down her waist without removing her underwear as I lightly drag my fingernails across her ribs in a swirling zig-zag motion and as I continued to get lower on her body. My head was now past her crotch and I began to gently kiss her the inside of her lower thighs. It wasn't until I was heading back upwards that I was hit by a waft of a strong moldy "feminine odor." I recoil back a bit and peer upward at her crotch through the shadows and the dim street lighting spilling through window shades. I could see pubic hair poking outside of the underwear on all directions.

Inconceivable. That's two strikes. I probably could deal with the bush but add the overwhelming odors and we've got ourselves a nightmare.

I moved back up north and continued to kiss her as I weighed the pros and cons of the situation. I was on a serious dry spell, I hadn't been laid in nearly a month and truthfully I was really into this girl's sense of adventure, wit, and aesthetics (with clothes on). Although she may have blown all of these for lack of hygiene.

But I didn't count on being subjected to some cruel sexual version of Sophie's choice. I'm quite frankly grossed out by anything short of perfect in that area of a woman. This was a surprisingly tough decision. But even if I decided to pass, did I even know how to hit eject?

I convinced myself once again to persevere, although I vowed that I would mention something to her about it later. I began rubbing the outside of her underwear while trying to think of a the best course of action.

I still had a chance to flip this thing into a blow job then not reciprocate over matter of principle and I could of course explain why I wouldn't be putting my face in that if she insisted. I would have no problem having that dialogue because I would have already gotten my rocks off and there would be no mood to kill. Maybe I could spin the whole thing as me being a great guy, like I'd rather get a blow job now and wait until we have a deeper connection before sex. Then I could also tell her to clean up that mess prior to that event and everybody walks away a winner. Just as I was about to request a blow job she suddenly pulled me in close and said, "I want you to fuck me."

My face turned bright red, not because I was embarrassed by that type of bedroom rhetoric, but because I really didn't want to put any part of my near that messy taco.

"Can you warm me up with a blow job?" I asked confidently.

"Seems to me like you're ready to go" she said grabbing my penis through my jeans.

Dammit. I had to think fast, I knew even the view of the huge hairy mess even in dimmed lighting would be an instant boner-killer. In a moment of what I thought was sheer brilliance, I whispered, "How about doggie-style?"

"Sure!" She said sitting up and excitedly kicking her underwear off.

She got over to the edge of the bed and I got up behind her and place my hand on over her bush and was sickened by the sensation. It felt like she was sporting a box of tangled fishing line hanging down from her vagina and going all the up to the crack of her ass. I almost laughed as I tried to maneuver just my hands to the right places but I somehow I kept my composure. At that point I was there for the story that would soon follow not even as much the victory of a new notch on the belt and resetting that internal how-long-has-it-been-since-the-last-time-I-had-sex timer.

As the act of sex began, I paused to think, "well maybe this isn't so bad."

That was just before the smell hit me. Wafts of salty, sour odors, filled the air and began stinging my nose. She seemed to be having fun while I was starting to gag. I searched for a shirt to cover my nose but couldn't see anything in the poorly lit room. I tried breathing out of my mouth and that helped very little as my eyes began to water.

To my credit I stuck it out till the end and we both eventually got our rocks off.

I asked her if we could shower right afterwards and she thought nothing of it as she tossed me a towel and I followed her into the bathroom. At that point, I was just glad that I wouldn't have to worry about being followed by all the stray dogs in the neighborhood when I left in the morning (kidding).

Ordinarily the story would end here, but due to a dating slump I kept this girl around for a little longer.

She and I actually went on a handful of dates after that night. I've said it once and I'll say it again, I'm a fan of full disclosure. Shortly after our first sexual encounter I would ask her to shave everything and make an attempt to "get the area right" before we hung out again via text. She claimed that her ex-boyfriend had enjoyed the "natural" look down there and she hadn't had sex in nearly nine months since their break up so that would explain what I had found. She didn't have any response to the overwhelming oders. We continued to see each other for a number of dates after that, she was a lot fun but the sexual side of things was becoming too hard to overcome. I found out our third date that she didn't do oral sex and even if she "cleaned up down there" I wasn't able to get over the smells she "naturally" put off.

I stopped talking to her for a handful of weeks because she didn't ever want to spend money to go out anywhere and I was getting tired of paying for everything on every date. She never seemed to have any money even though she worked a lot and was always buying clothes. One night we were laying around at her house and we began to talk about money woes. I explained that I used to get drunk infront of a webcam had gotten donations my freshman year when I used to cam at the fraternity house after parties. She perked up when I said couples make decent money if the right people donated while they watched.

Although she appeared skeptical at first, she tilted her head sidways and said, "Sounds like fun, I'd give that a shot, but my laptop is broken."

I had loaned my old laptop to my dad and threw out the idea of dragging my old webcam with it from my house in Vienna. She was all in, shortly thereafter we were back at her apartment in Fairfax with a big bottle of wine, my old laptop, my webcam, and a big shit eating grin on my face. She opened the wine and poured two large glasses while I began to set us up to cam on the bed in her room. I plugged everything in and it became evident very quickly that something was wrong.

I hadn't used that lap top in months but I remember it being rather temperamental before I gave it to my dad. Removing the battery, hitting a number of different keys, and even shaking it produced no results; it was obvious my laptop wasn't going to work.

"Are you sure your lap top is broken?" I asked Corine

"Yeah, if it wasn't broken I wouldn't have to go to the library every day to get my work done." she said slumping her shoulders with a cute sad face.

"Who's lap top is on that desk in the kitchen?" I asked with a smirk.

"That's my room mates, but she doesn't really like me using it."

"Really." I said getting up to take a sip of wine from my glass, "is she home?"

Karina paused and twisted a lock of hair around her finger, "I think she's on a date," she said with a bit of a playful smile.

"Ok, let's use hers." I said shrugging my shoulders while placing my glass of wine on her night stand and unplugging the usb webcam.

"Well only if she doesn't find out." Corine says sheepishly.

"It'll be fine! She won't find out." I say laughing gesturing towards the door while taking her hand.

Moments later we fired up the room mates laptop in the kitchen and I had the webcam up and running. I sat in a metal folding chair with Corine on my lap as we started to down glasses of wine while searching through different CAM sites. Within a few minutes we were streaming live footage, canoodling on camera, and chatting with other people online.

The experience can be a big self esteem boost if you ask me. Corine's last relationship was with a guy that constantly put her down and made her feel like she was worthless; a real douchebag. The whole thing had left her somewhat insecure/slightly broken. So she wasn't quite ready for all of the incredibly nice and endearing comments people began to make.

The interesting thing about these "caming" sites is that most people write genuinely sweet and surprisingly nice things in a attempt to spur a dialogue with an attractive stranger. This is actually done in an effort to cure their own loneliness by eliciting some type positive response from whoever they're talking to (me and Corine) on the other side of the screen. But if some people like making other people smile... and get naked... seems like an overall win-win to me.

Over the next couple hours corine and I laughed as people showered us with compliments and requests while we sipped sweet red wine in our underwear pausing at moments to kiss and sometimes dance with Pandora radio playing in the background. We were having a blast and often times laughing hysterically nearly spilling the wine everywhere. We took breaks every twenty minutes or so to smoke cigarettes outside on her back porch. During our short cigarette breaks we either danced or held each other close and blew plumes of smoke into the cool December air. We were having a really good time with each other just giggling about the hilarity and non-nonsensical goofy-fun-nature of our night and what it had turned into.

The whole thing was rather harmless but still it had a little hint of voyeuristic ludeness as we were both in our underwear and kissing on cam intermittently. Somehow we lost track of time and just as we had finished off our last sips of wine, when suddenly the door flung partially open as it caught on its chain latch. Corine's room mate had came home earlier than we expected.

"Oh shit!" Corine said laughing and trying to whisper, "My room mate is home."

"No big deal" I said smiling and winking while closing out all the windows on the computer and unplugging the webcam.

"Why is this locked?" Shouts the fat drunk room mate from behind the door.

I watch Corine throw on my sweatshirt and signal for me to go into her room. I grabbed my webcam and sweat pants and scampered off to her room as she undid the lock to let her room mate in.

"What were you guys doing?" She asks loudly as she got into the apartment. "Were you on my computer?"

Corine fumbles, "We were just... having fun, hanging out-nothing."

Silence followed as I hear the room mate approach her lap top in the kitchen; a long pause.

"The fuck!?" the room mate screamed. She must have accessed the browser history... sneaky bitch.

"What the fuck?!" She squealed again, I've got to play damage control as I can tell Corine has no idea how to handle this.

I was in the process of putting my sweatpants on and looking for my shirt in Corine's room when I heard, "You guys were watching porn on my laptop!? That's sick, THAT'S SICK! Are you kidding me?"

I dashed out into the hallway and sprung into the kitchen.

"Ok settle down," I say entering the kitchen pulling my sweat shirt down and smiling in a goofy fashion while looking at Corines sloppy fat room mate who was now practically hyperventilating and was bright red. Corine cowered off to the side of the living room.

"You're sick," She yelled at me, "there's something wrong with you!" she shouted as she walked towards me.

I started to laugh more. "Alright, settle down. Let's be adults here. We were just having a little fun, no reason to get your panties in bunch."

"I told you this guy was a perv." She shrieked, "this is illegal, I should report you to the police, what you're doing is disgusting and it's against the law."

"Wait, what are we talking about?" I ask rhetorically, "What is it that you think we were doing. We're not fucking minors or animals. We were using my webcam on that computer. We weren't even naked, relax. You have no idea whats going on here and you're making misinformed accusations."

"Get the fuck out of my house asshole" she screams. coming towards me in an aggressive way.

I straighted up, "this is getting out of hand, calm down; if you touch me, I will defend myself." She stopped, "Now, I'm willing to sit down and have a grown up conversation with you, but you're acting like an immature brat throwing fit. We were just having a little fun on the webcam, it's not a big deal. I'm sorry we were using your laptop. It's not like we fucked on your bed or in the kitchen for that matter? Quite frankly whatever we were doing is none of your business."

The fat girls face got even more red. She turned her head and glared at Corine who was speechless, "Corine, this is illegal! I want this dirtbag out of our apartment right NOOOOOOWWWWWW. Right now! Right NOOOOW!" She screamed out at the top of her lungs as she grabbed her lap top and headed towards her room.

"Hey don't yell at her like that you fat little shit!" I said raising my voice. "We can talk this out like adults. You don't have a clue what went on here and you have no right to come in and start trying to judging either of us. Besides, I've been drinking, and I'm not in any position to be driving anywhere. Just because you want to throw a child-like hissy fit after you've had a bad date doesn't mean other people should be forced to have a bad night and put up with your displaced anger."

She turned before going into her room at the end of the hall, "If you're not gone in the next five minutes, I'll have my guy friends come over and they'll remove you for me, fucking pervert." She slammed her door. "I knew he was disgusting!"

I walked over to Corine who was now expressionless. She had remained pretty much speechless for the entire scenario. "Well that was a normal reaction. Are you ok?" I asked putting my hands on her elbows.

Corine mumbled a few words kept with the spacing out act as I heard the room mate screaming more from behind her door.

"So Mom, so get this! Corine and that weird fucking guy she's been dating were watching porn on my lap in our kitchen while I was gone." The fat room mate swings the door open ambles out into the common area while on the phone with her mom.

"Are you fucking kidding?" I say glaring at this girl parading around the apartment ignoring me and regaling the past two minutes on the phone in front of Corine and I in an attempt to make the situation more awkward.

I grab Corine's hand while she's still in an embarrassed-catatonic state and led her back to her bedroom. I shut the door behind us as Corine laid down on her bed still expressionless.

"Can we both agree this is stupid, Your room mate is being a huge cunt, you didn't do anything wrong here. We were having fun and everything was great until your room mate came in and turned it into something else and then proceeded to make it weird. I have no desire to have a dialogue with your irrational friend at this time. You didn't do anything wrong, just relax. This isn't a big deal." I said to Corine as her room mate stomped around still throwing a tantrum in the kitchen with her mom on the phone.

"I never should have let you talk me into any of this." She finally said in monotone.

"Wait What? We didn't rob a bank? Seriously, this is not a big deal. Nothing wrong has been done here. Why is this a big deal? So what, we used her computer. I didn't jerk-it on her keyboard?"

She rolled over and softly said, "You should go."

I heard her fat friend raising hell and continuing to scream into the phone, "I know! Then he tries fight me in the kitchen and says he's not leaving... I know right?!"

"Look, I'm not even going to pretend this is an issue. Your friend is clearly on a different planet, listen-" I say tilting Corine's face to look at me. "I can't leave you here otherwise that chick is going to pour poison in your ear for the remainder of the night after she continues this stupid little guilt tirade. I'll be made into the devil before I even get out of your neighborhood."

"I don't know what to think." She rolls her eyes and turns away again.

"How the fuck did this happen? We were having fun and can still have fun," I said laughing. "Are you sure you want me to leave?"

She let out a big sigh.

"Corine, It makes the situation far less complicated if I remove you from it and we go elsewhere. Let this loony bitch cool off for a little. I know one of my friends is having people over tonight. It's only 11:30, we can still get there with plenty of time to make a night of it. I'd feel terrible if I left you alone with that screwball who's still yelling on the phone in there. This whole situation will be hilarious tomorrow, let's make a run for it while we still can, shall we?" I said standing up and smiling at her.

She sits up and says, "No, I have to side with her. She's my room mate."

I didn't even know what to say. I didn't foresee anything good coming out of trying to re-salvage the situation. I wasn't in the mood to stick around and have a brawl with her room mates guy friends and If Corine wasn't going to stand-up for herself much less for me, then there's no chance I would want to continue anything with her after this evening anyway. We got caught in a slightly embarrassing situation, big deal. Accept that you were using your friends laptop for something that she didn't approve of, assert yourself, and move-on. It's just too bad because we really were having a good time.

This would be the last time I'd hang out with Corine at that house if I left alone. Judging by her room mates lack of maturity in this situation, I'd imagine she would surely be against me coming back for any future visits; and seeing little Corine asserted herself; there was no chance of a disscussion on the matter ever taking place between the two of them. I was still living at home at the time so there wasn't much of a future for us to meeting up in private. It would probably be for the best, I had already set in motion my plans for moving to Southern California and would be there within a month anyway. I didn't have the energy to put into something that I was only going to be able to enjoy for a few more weeks.

I blew all the air out of my chest in disappointment and sat on the edge of the bed putting my shoes on. "I guess I'll see you around then. You don't have to choose one or the other on this one. Come with me and we'll let this thing cool off."

Silence.

I got up and grabbed my laptop, webcam, and sweat shirt. I said nothing as I walked out of Corines room and past her room mate who was still on the phone, now in the living room. As soon as I shut the door behind me I heard every lock being turned and fastened followed by Corine's room mate yelling from behind the door, "Corine are you fucking kidding? Are you seriously kidding me?!"

I laughed to myself as I pulled the last cigarette out of my pack. I got to my truck and headed ten minutes down the road to a friends house. I pulled up and saw a group of my old friends through the window in the front of the house playing beer pong in their living room. I pushed open the door and said, "Gentlemen, have I got a story for you." Thunderous laughter followed as I stepped inside and someone flipped me a can of Natural light.

I wouldn't end up hearing from Corine until nearly 2 years later, but that's another story altogether... "Ordinarily the story would end here, but I kept this girl around for a little longer."

Whiskers me timbers!

2011-08-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

I've had some awful run-ins with excessive body hair on women in my time. Perhaps my disdain for it is so realized from the fact that I was gifted with the burden of a mammoth-like fur covering on my own body. Whatever the case, it's been my belief that there is no excuse for it. Thus I will take the necessary steps to "man-scape" on a very regular basis. I know how this practice is viewed from a classical standpoint, but my expectation is that if I'm taking the time to properly shave and keep my personal forests within check, then I am allowed to criticize my female counterpart when she "drops the ball."

There are actually multiple stories that I could transition to, as I've somehow managed to encounter a lot of female body hair quandaries in my time. But one had its own special flavor that I felt made it stick out just a little more than most.

Let's get it all out there so I don't have to feel strange about it: I met this girl via an online dating website. When she showed up to the bar to meet, she didn't look too unlike her pictures. She even turned out to be a really sweet girl. She was a little obsessed with cats, but it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. Let's call her Katie.

After our third date in about 10 days, we opted to go back to her place. We drank some wine, had sweaty sex, and then sat around talking. I asked her if she minded that I stay over, she said she had been hoping I would. She left the room to get changed into some pajamas. When she got back to bed wearing her "bedtime clothes," I couldn't help but stare. I just laid there with an inquisitive look on my face.

"What?" She asked, looking at me puzzled.

"Those have to be gayest pajamas I've ever seen!" I yell laughing and throwing a pillow at her, "your shirt says, feeline sleeping and it's got pictures of a sleeping cat."

"Oh shut up! So what? I like cats" she shouted, embarrassed, diving into the bed and rolling up in the sheets.

"Quite a clever play on words!" I said softly into Katie's ear while I draped my arm past her hip and pulled her into me.

"I'm just kidding, it's very cute." I said pulling her closer and attempting to put on a genuine smile.

"It's more of an old lady outfit-" I stopped myself mid sentence. Squinting at her face, I'd spotted something. Above her lip, in-between the laugh lines on her face. A faint, thin brown, inch and a half hair was growing out of her face. It was positioned in the exact spot that a cat would grow its "whiskers."

"It couldn't be," I thought to myself, leaning in and getting a better look.

"What are you doing?" She asked shattering my deep gaze, having noticed that I was staring at her face inquisitively.

"Nothing!" I said, kissing her on the cheek, "I'm really exhausted, I'm going to get some sleep," I said flipping over, "I'm very tired."

She turned out the lights and my mind raced over the possibilities of what I had just seen. I came to the conclusion that I must have seen something that wasn't there and drifted off to sleep.

In the morning we both got up a little later than expected and I had forgotten all about the hair. We hopped into the shower together and began kissing. I turned my head upwards towards the shower-head as to let the water hit my face. Suddenly the thought snapped back into my head, "If it's still there, then it has to be a real whisker."

I looked down and sure enough, the thin lone hair (not quite the same thickness as a real whisker) still stood. She had a one and half inch long hair coming from where a cat would have its whiskers and yet she hadn't cut, plucked, or shaved it?!

I later found a statistic online that said the average female looks in the mirror or catches her own reflection 30 times a day. Furthermore, women on average take 12.5 minutes to put on make-up almost daily. That's a lot of time in front of the mirror to not know that you've overlooked a whisker. A lengthy whisker at that. How would this even be possible?

But, what if she knew about it-? What if she was all aware of it existence the whole time and knowingly kept it. What would that mean if she left it there? For what purpose? Did she think she was a cat? Had she known it was on her face all along, what did that say about her as person; allowing for a single strand of facial hair to grow so long.

I was confused and I needed answers. I had avoided hanging out with her for a week or so because I knew it would be all that I'd be able to look at when I was with her.

I was a few drinks in with some friends at a bar and I felt compelled to explain the situation and get some advice.

"Have you tried pulling it out while she's sleeping? Or maybe just with your teeth?" One of my friends said.

"Yeah," I mumbled apathetically, "what if she wakes up and freaks out?"

"-Or worse, she wants to keep it!" Another friend shouted laughing.

One of my female friends looked like she was in deep thought and pipped up, "First off, that's gross. But there's no way she doesn't know it's there. Women look at their faces too often. Are you able to deal with the fact that she might be aware of it and just want to keep it around because it makes her feel more like a cat-?"

Silence fell onto the group for a moment.

Staring intently at my whiskey-coke, I wiped condensation off the surface of the glass, "I'm going to have to ask her about it. I told her I'd see her tomorrow. It's going to have to happen."

As it turned out, she wasn't able to make it on time to our date the following night. But, said she would call me when she got done with a little get-together with her co-workers. I got the call at about 11:30 PM.

"Hey hot stuff," she said sounding a little drunk."Wanna come over?"

"Yeah, that sounds good, I'm going to finish my beer and I'll be over there."

I arrived at her place with a nice little buzz from drinking with a few old friends down the street. I knocked on the door. As she appeared from behind it, I locked eyes with the whisker. I came in as she started to tell me about her night and I kept staring at the hair waiting for a lull in the conversation so I could bring it up. It was impossible that a single strand of hair was so able to stress me out. Before I had a chance to say anything we were already in her room and she was on top of me kissing passionately. I was nervous and also a little afraid that the hair might end up going into my nose and making me sneeze. Clothes started falling off and I made an effort to stick with kissing the neck to avert the hair. I realized that I'd have to ask her after sex and settle for an evening of doggy-style so as to not stare at her whisker the whole time.

When both of us were finally finished. We laid there and talked for a minute or two and a short silence fell over us. It was now or never.

"Hey," I said clearing clearing my throat then reaching towards her face with fingers in a plucking motion. "Look at that. It looks like you've got a little hair growing out of your face."

She reeled back a bit and her eyes darted around the room, "Yeah, I know." she said quickly.

"Oh." I said softly, putting my hand back down beside me. "I, uh. Alright." I didn't know what to say.

"Yeah..." She said.

A long silence filled the room to the brim when she suddenly got up and left the room. A few moments later she was back. "There, it's gone okay." She said crawling back into bed attempting to snuggle into me.

Looking down with a bit of a grimace, "Did you think you were a cat?"

She turned her head to look upward to at me for a moment, then turned back and rested her head on my chest.

"Hmph..." I said aloud reaching over to her nightstand and turning off the lamp, "that's pretty weird."

"My Tummy Hurts."

2011-06-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes timing is everything. I firmly believe that we are so often victims of circumstance rather than choosing how or what we want to do. For example, if Elvis had been born ten years later or ten years earlier, then he'd likely just be some no-name guy living out in the middle of Tennessee. I enjoy the role that random chance has in my life. I think part of the reason I've managed to stay single for so long can be attributed to the fact that big moments of change tend to creep into my life just as I'm starting to get to know someone.

When I was 22, I took a semester to go to school abroad in England. It was a wonderful experience. Looking back on it, it may have been the happiest time in my life. in fact, once I arrived home, I had a new found sense of "self."

I had only stepped off my plane a mere two hours earlier and I was already heading to a party at a friends house. I couldn't wait to share my experiences and see all my old friends I hadn't talked with in nearly three months. Upon arrival, I was nearly overwhelmed with all the reuniting celebrations and shots to make up for lost time.

After working my way around the house to all the different areas of the house I stumbled onto a cute brunette girl named Kirsten. She had light brown eyes, straightened chestnut brown hair, and tight little body. Her sense of humor and overall pleasant demeanor was very infectious. We instantly clicked, that night we stayed up talking until nearly 5:00 AM, just talking! I was really impressed with her. She was rather dumb, but besides that she had everything I was looking for; personality, looks, good listener, sweet, etc.

We even waited until we had gone on a handful of really great dates before we had sex. A second rarity with me. After going out together for the fourth week in a row, I was already starting to wonder if it was time for me hang up the old single life-style for a taste of something "regular." It certainly felt like it was heading that direction.

It was a Wednesday like any other. I had hinted to Kirsten over the weekend when we hung out that I was hoping to do a dinner and a movie thing with her that night. I sent her a simple text firming up our plans and said I would be heading over to pick her up as soon as I got dressed.

"I don't know, my tummy hurts." I received in response.

I was a little puzzled by this because we had text back and forth about our plans; this was the first I had heard of her being ill. I had also really been looking forward to showing her a good time. I decided to call her.

I placed the call and learned back in my computer chair. "Hello?" She said answering, sounding perfectly normal.

"Hey, are you ok?" I say with a genuine tone of concern.

"Oh, Yeah." She said plainly. "I've just had stomach issues all day and I think I'm over-reacting."

"Alright," I said a little empathetically, "I was really kind of looking forward to this. I understand if you're not feeling well enough. Are you feeling well enough to come out to dinner?"

"Yeah, she said. It's not that bad. It's a light stomach ache and it's pretty much gone." She said.

I put on my over the top bachelor voice, "Well I know it's not from a certain Aunt flow visiting because that was nearly two weeks ago. Take some pepto and let's get together!"

"It's not a bid deal, I'm fine. Really." She said playfully, "I want to see you tonight. When are you coming to pick me up?"

After a little more flirting, I told her I'd be there in about 20 minutes and headed her direction.

Once I arrived, I greeted her at the door with a hug and kiss. I did the entire gentlemanly thing where I opened her door for her then ran around the front of the car and got in. I started my truck and began driving to the trendy Chinese place.

I'm a big fan of full disclosure. I'm aware that bodily functions are a part of everyone's day-to-day. That being said, I'm not grossed out to find out that someone spent the day shitting out their liver because they ate bad seafood or something. In fact, that's actually funny to me.

"SO!" I said turning to her giving her a funny little grin. "What happened with your stomach. Is it any better?"

"Ugh!" She exclaimed laughing. "Nothing it's not a big deal."

I start to laugh, "well, if it's not a big deal then why did you almost let it ruin a perfectly good Wednesday night date? Is it bloody diarrhea or something? What are we talking about here?" I ask.

"Ew!" She shouts looking at me. "No, it's nothing like that."

"Ok, well I'm a grown up." I say winking at her.

"Do you really want to know?" She says wincing a bit.

"Yeah, I can handle it." I say rolling my eyes while staying focused on driving.

"Ok, " She takes a deep breath, "So I went to a house party at my friends place last night and I started having sex with this guy and the condom slipped off. So I had to get the morning after pill. And my tummy has been hurting ever since."

"WAIT WHAT?!" I shouted turning my head glaring at her.

"It's not a big deal." she says surprised that I'm upset.

"Are you fucking serious?!" "You're joking right?"

She looks at me innocently and slowly shrugs.

"What the fuck Kirsten? I've been taking you out on dates?!" I yell completely shocked and appalled.

She looks out the window, "Well if I knew this was going to be a problem, I wouldn't have told you."

Checking my mirrors, "I'm taking you back home." I announce firmly while getting into the left turning lane as we approach the traffic light ahead.

"No, wait." She says confused. "Just drive, we can talk about this. Why are you mad?"

"What fucking planet do you live on?" I come to a stop at the red light and turn to look at her. "Normal people don't do this! I've been taking you out and showing you a good time; You're out fucking other dudes!"

Confused and on the defensive, she looks flustered, "Well I didn't know we exclusive."

"What a fucking joke you are." I say shaking my head turning my eyes towards to the road trying to will the light to change to green.

"I can make this up to you." She says in a much softer tone. "I even had a huge surprise planned for us tonight instead of doing the movie. Now everything is ruined."

My eyes shifted back towards her, "What kind of surprise?"

"I'm supposed to be house-sitting my neighbors place. They're like super rich and have a really huge house with an outdoor hot tub, a deluxe shower, and a California king size bed. I'm supposed to be house sitting for them until they get back."

The turning arrow light turns green.

I inhale and perse my lips knowing that a moral decision has been laid out in front of me. On the one hand, I have the option to take a high ground on this one. I could say "no," and base it on a matter of principal. If I choose to take the mature route I will end up giving a speech about character and her lack of human qualities as I drop her off.

Or; I can choose to displace that anger in the form of sex. If I allow for the indiscretion to be considered "a momentary lapse in judgement, a mulligan, incidental, accident,etc." I'll not only get laid but also have the option of never talking to her afterwards. I'll also have the chance to rail out a slut in an expensive hot tub outdoors while breathing in the cool crisp December air.

I pause for a moment, "I'm not even that hungry, how close is the house?"

Kirsten smiled. "Not far."

I shake my head as I turn on some music then cracked a smirk, "You better believe I'm going to fuck the inconsiderate-retard-slut out of you."

"You better." She said rubbing my knee.

Holy Fetish NightClub Batman!

2011-05-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

I've always said I'm an advocator of the new, strange, and different. So it's no coincidence that I'm still hitting the online sites every once in a while in search of something I wouldn't always find otherwise. I can honestly say I've dated the gamut of different types of women and will probably continue to do so until someone hits the right balance.
I think dating all kinds of girls builds character; from enjoying the ones with mohawks that have daddy issues and love BDSM (B&D- bondage & discipline; D/s- Dominance & submission; and S&M- sadism and masochism) to experimenting with the girls next store. It's tough to zero in on a type because I just happen to like variety. That being said, I wanted to share the strangest and worst date I've ever been on in my short history.

Setting the background:
This story doesn't get its full effect unless you know the events that preceded it. It all starts with an online dating site that is a bit different from Match.com OkCupid or perhaps eHarmony.com. No, this site brings together a different part of society that still holds it place in the "underground." I'm of course talking about kinksters/fetish lifestyles scene. Like the majority of the population, most of my friends are unaware of the sites, and if they are- they aren't joining them. As I began to sink into this lifestyle and meet people, I always asked the people I meet "why are you here?" Most everyone says the same thing initially, "someone introduced me to the lifestyle and recommended the site."

Then shortly after that, you could expect to get a handful different responses meaning the same thing. People say something like:
"My regular relationships/sex life was to vanilla"

"I'm just more self actualized and know what I like. And most people have a hard time participating in what I like."

"The media and accessibility of sexuality in our culture simply has me looking for more because I want to explore what else is out there."

Whatever the reason may be, I found myself on one of these sites. I threw together a humble,coherent, and thoughtful self description, a list of curiosities/turn-ons, and a PG rated slew of pictures to gain some credibility and possibly spur some interest. It wasn't long after I created my profile on this site that I started to receive messages. I usually stand by the rational that as a male I should seldom if ever be sending the initial message as to avoid being labeled the stereotypical "creeper." During my first few months, when I received a message from a person that seemed relatively attractive and reasonably intelligent I'd message them back and forth until I either lost interest or we would actually met up.

I'll set the record straight and start by saying I didn't meet up with droves of people. In all reality, I maybe met with maybe 7-8 people over the span of 2 years. Keep in mind there is a very limited talent pool. Most people that find these sites are little older, more socially awkward than the rest of society (or just crazy), and more often out of shape. That's not to say I didn't talk with more, it just means that both parties had to see a mutual attraction and saw a reason to meet up. Out of my 7-8 in-person meet ups, most of them were bad experiences and the ones that weren't were just ok- not great.

This brings me to my most recent meet up with a 25 year old girl from this site.

I had come across her profile while surfing the site and did a brief read of her fetishes:

"Into: accents (receiving), anal beads (everything to do with it), anal sex (receiving), appealing to my brain, as well as my body., ass play (everything to do with it), belt spanking (giving), biting (everything to do with it), blindfolds (everything to do with it), blow jobs (giving), body worship (receiving), bondage tape (everything to do with it), bruises (receiving), butt plugs (everything to do with it), choking (receiving), corsets (wearing), costumes/dressing-up (wearing), dildos (everything to do with it), domination (giving), double penetration (everything to do with it), erotic photography (everything to do with it), fingering (everything to do with it), flirting (everything to do with it), forced orgasms (receiving), hair pulling (everything to do with it), high heels (wearing), holding her to the bed by her wrists (receiving), humiliation (giving), intelligence, kissing (everything to do with it), kissing a beautiful woman's legs (receiving), leaving marks (everything to do with it), lingerie (wearing), masturbation, mens hairless chests, moaning, screaming, groaning and other sounds of pleasure and pain (everything to do with it), morning sex before work, multiple orgasms (everything to do with it), mutual respect, trust and communication., oral sex (everything to do with it), orgasm denial (everything to do with it), piercings (watching others wear), polyamory (everything to do with it), porn (everything to do with it), rimming (everything to do with it), rough sex (everything to do with it), scratching (giving), seduction (giving), talking dirty (everything to do with it), tattoos (everything to do with it), teasing (everything to do with it), threesomes (everything to do with it), toys (everything to do with it), vibrators (everything to do with it), waking up to your tongue in my cunt"

After reading that impressive and unusual list, I sent her a message with a few lines that said something to the effect of, "You seem like the interesting type, I'd imagine we could get along. Let me know if you'd like to grab a drink sometime." She responded positively and we began to message each other back and forth.

We finally both agreed to meet up for a happy hour in Arlington on Cinqo de Mayo. Cinqo De Mayo is a drinking holiday without the prestige and class of St. Patricks Day. I sent her a message the morning of saying, "I know I sent you my number but I don't have yours. It might be a good idea for me to have in case something comes up for we end up somewhere else."

Her response was, "Do you have an iphone or a droid so you can send me a message via the website while you are out?"

Needless to say I wasn't interested in playing silly games. I understand the concept of "a girl's gotta be careful now-a-days," I really do. But if you're going to meet someone for happy hour (and you don't fully know what they look like) and plans could rapidly change, a cell phone number has a purpose. I went to a total of 4 different bars with my friends that day and sent her a message saying where we were headed after we left each one. I finally got a response at the end of the night, "I'm just now leaving dupont (DC), can we just meet another time?"

Unimpressed, I waited 3 days to e-mail her back. Once again, we chatted back and forth for a bit and finally agreed on a second go-around at meeting up. We set a time and place in Arlington. I got message from her while I walked around the bar for 10 minutes feeling ridiculous while trying to look for a girl sitting by herself. She explained on the that she had gone to the wrong bar in DC and was heading towards Arlington, where I was. Although slightly annoyed, I said it was fine and went to go meet friends at a close by bar in the nearby area. I grabbed a few beers with the boys and stifled my frustrations about the whole predicament.

She eventually called me 30 minutes later to tell me she had just parked and I said I'd see her shortly.

I walked into the bar I had been at nearly 45 minutes ago and ordered two drinks and waited for her arrival. A few minutes later, a surprisingly attractive brunette with short hair conservatively dressed in office attire walked in and said, "Taylor?"

I walked over and gave her big a hug, "Well who decided to show up, look at you?! I said looking her up and down, You like great."

She smiled and said, "Thanks." Without recipricating the compliment.

I generally don't like non-compliment-recipricators because it translates to a "ME-ME-ME" mindset which usually proves to cut across all realms of their character. It means a person is generally unimpressed by anything that doesn't involve them, so that's a cue to talk as little about yourself as possible. There is usually an unreasonably high self esteem that requires constant reinforcement. If you know that selfishness is the norm when it comes to everything (including sex) and how to counter it, a good time can still be had. I've encountered these types many times before, just pretend to be "somewhat" unimpressed by their success and ask more questions about their short comings with what seems like genuine interest. This has them spending the entire evening trying to prove themselves to you without spending much time boring them on topics like anything else.

We grabbed a seat outside and spent the majority of the time talking about her. Most times I tried to share something about myself she would lose eye contact and seemingly look bored. To her credit she had confidence, ambition, and an open mind. Once conversation got off the topic of her, I actually began to have a good time. We chatted for nearly 3 hours when I eventually hinted at the time. I asked her if she would be up for going out on Friday to a place in Logan Circle that has an amazing 7 Piece house band cranks out the tunes from Same Cooke to James Brown. She thought the idea was great, and although I wasn't totally sold on her, I willing to give her a shot.

I walked her back to her car in the parking garage and went in for the hug first, pulled back momentarily then started to kiss her. She kept biting the tip of my tongue and seemingly didn't know what she was doing. I laughed a little and kept going. Pretty soon she had clinched onto a fist full of my hair and yanked my head back. I did the same. I brought my head forward and sunk my teeth into her lower neck, just above her shoulder. She had wrapped a leg around mine as her dress slid nearly up to her waist. A few people walked by with undoubtedly funny looks on their faces. She was the rough type, I didn't mind.

"It's a shame we're both not going back your place tonight." I said.

She pulled back a little. "Well I didn't invite you yet."

"Oh right," I said, "We just got finished talking about how doecause you believe that anyone who hooks up at a bar is trashy."

She leaned in and kissed my neck then my my ear, "We're not at a bar anymore. Are we?" she whispered.

"Interesting, point." I say rubbing her waist and pulling her in closer. "It could be a lot of fun."

"Well I'm waiting for my period to be over, so it's probably a no-go for tonight anyway." She said pulling back a little and resting her hands on my shoulders.

"I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that boys don't get periods, besides I don't fuck on the first date... I'm a classy guy." I said winking at her with a debonair smile.

"Well I do have a pit-bull at home he's not always so nice."

"That's ok," I said. "I like dogs, even the mean ones."

"I don't know, I'm just not sold." she said. "What do I get out of it?"

"You did say you own a lot of toys and I'd imagine there's a laundry list of things I could think of doing that might just be worth it."

"Other people can't get me off using my toys." She stammered.

"I'm not other people and at least I'm willing to give it a shot."

I thought about it for a minute, it was already 11 and I knew that if I played my cards right on this one we could start a regular thing. The vast majority of first night conquests I've had never have a re-occurring follow up.

"Well it's late anyways, I'm fine with meeting up on Friday and having a whole night to decide whether or not our amazing time merits sex. Let's just shoot for a great Friday." I said backing up slowly and letting her hands fall down by the sides. "I had a great time tonight."

"Yeah ok, I did too." She said smiling getting into her car.

FLASH FORWARD TO FRIDAY DAY AFTERNOON:
We had exchanged a few texts throughout the week and had established that we were still going to the live music lounge that night. Until I received this text:

She was asking if I'd rather cancel the plans we had made and go to a fetish/swinger party in Baltimore instead. I'm just as open minded as the next guy but I had never been to one of these before. Sure I had heard about them and maybe I was even a little curious about going, but I'd never gone purely for the reason that I just didn't see myself being comfortable in that environment.

I could only assume this was an odd way of testing my resolve to be open guy who is cool with doing new things and perhaps higher threshold of is "weird." "I don't scare easily, so I responded with a question of logistics hoping to shake her idea of hitting a fetish scene for a second date.

She messaged me moments later about a similar kinky club in DC that had a sexy zombie theme going on in NE around 10:00. I agreed to go, and asked what to wear to one of these things. She said, "I'm going in a black corset, meet you there at 10?"

This didn't help me understand what I should be wearing to a fetish night club and furthermore I was hoping we could grab a few drinks and ease into this very new experience as team first. I text her my reservations but she steamrolled right through them, with "You're a big boy, I'm sure you'll be able to figure something out."

So there I was, unsure of what the night was to bring; about to head into a very bad part of the city to an unfamiliar place and meet a girl I knew just as little about. Being that I knew I would be in such new territory, I decided to meet some friends at a bar for liquid and moral encouragement beforehand. I got dressed in dark blue jeans, polished black leather dress shoes, a dark black fitting dress shirt, and a nice dark pin stripped sports coat. This attire would be fitting for most any club anywhere and I was hoping it would do the trick for me at the fetish night club.

I picked up a pack of smokes that allowed me to excuse myself from any strange situation and possibly make friends outside the establishment without much difficulty. I'm great at making friends in smoking circles, isn't everybody? I bought an energy drink to give me the silver tongue fend off any "talker's-block" I might get in a new environment. I even picked up a handful of miniature bottles of whiskey and jager in case my nerves got the best of me and I needed liquid encouragement.

I met my friends at a dive bar in Arlington and told them about my grand trip to North East (NE) Washington, DC (DC). My plan for the evening was met by some strong criticism and humor. I downed my first shot and second shot of the night followed by two jack-and-cokes. I got some more words of encouragement and headed to the metro. I got into my pump-up zone as I chugged my energy drink during the 5 minutes I spent waiting on the platform for the train. I had a mild buzz going and I was totally psyched up for whatever could happen that night.

Once on the train I sent a few "heads-up texts" just to increase her level of nervousness and excitement. "I'll be there soon, tonight should be fun!"

I made it to my transfer point. Due to a delay I sent another text saying I was running behind and it was at this point that I started to get a little nervous. I hadn't received any responses yet. By the time I got on the second train, half an hour had gone by due to delays and my bladder was so full I was having difficulty walking. I was starting to wonder if she was going to show up at all. I hadn't gone all this way just to be stood up. When I finally got off the train at the New York Ave metro stop in NE DC, my bladder was so full I considered risking blowing off my dick by pissing on the tracks potentially hitting the 3rd rail with my steam. But I held it in. I got off the the elevated outdoor platform and walked in a hurried pace to the street below. I took an immediate turn and saw a rough looking neighborhood coming up on my right. "Bingo!" As I approached I could see it was dark and noted that there would be plenty of places to pee. I walked up between a few cars parked near an abandoned warehouse I could tell I only had mere seconds to get this pee started or I was going to ruin my jeans.

I sent a strong stream into the bricks near a black esclade next to a warehouse. I hear a door to the building next to me swing open as I continue to pee on the bricks nearby.
"WHHHHHHAAARFFF!" A fat black man violently puked in a wretching fashion a few yards away. Lucky for me, I just out of view of him. I almost wanted to laugh out loud because it's really funny to watch a grown man power-washing the sidewalk with his stomach acid. I so badly wanted to say something like, "Hey man, we're trying to keep this place nice." I finished up and snuck away back the way I came.

I picked a general direction as I got my phone out and tried to locate where I was on my GPS. I realize I'm in the heart of a very bad neighborhood and my phone won't give me any indication as to where I actually am. It keep s telling me I'm downtown and I know that's not right. I find a gay guy a block away walking his two dogs and ask him for directions. He says he doesn't know where either of the streets I'm looking for are. I later find out that I was only 3 blocks from both of the roads I asked about. "I recommends that you find a cab, you don't want to be lost in this neighborhood... especially dressed the way you are," He says walking away. Frustrated and pissed I pick a direction and try to figure out my bearings when I get through an intersection or two.

Meanwhile, unlucky for me there just aren't cabs in this neighborhood. It's not that kind of place. I'm starting to get increasingly nervous because I can't seem to figure out where anything is. I receive a text from the girl, "I'm here at the fetish club, you here?"

"Just a little turned around and had a delayed train, I'm on my way." I write back.

Staying on the solid direction I picked and I hoped that my GPS would kick in soon or maybe I can find a cab before that.

As I approached a large overpass, I spot a man in dirty clothes on the other side of the street heading the opposite direction of me talking loudly and angrily to himself. As I get closer to the overpass I see that there is a group of 15-20 gangster looking kids between the ages of 12-15 under it already walking my direction. "Eyes forward and walk straight." I say to myself.

As I start to pass the kids I saw one of these little punks had "little john" black tear tattooed on next to his eye. I think I'm in the clear when I hear things hitting the ground around me. A beer can wizzes by my head and hits the street next to me "TING-TING...TING." "These children are throwing garbage at me..." I think to myself in a moment of feeling helpless.

It's not like I can take on 20 of them and besides they're a bunch of kids. I hear them laughing at me but I keep walking and before I know it they're behind me I'm out of the tunnel and into a new street. I pull out my phone again, what luck! My gps is working and says I've gone 3 blocks the wrong way but I can still get to the Kink night club if I walk six blocks up and to the right.

I make it through the tunnel and pull out a miniature bottle of liquor and down it as I walk parallel with a major road. "If I just stay on major roads, I'll be ok." I keep thinking as I notice the area has gotten increasingly seedy and I'm the only person walking on the sidewalks. I approach the intersection I'm supposed to continue toward and I see a sign on the front of a huge barrier on half the shoulder of the road and the sidewalk. "Sidewalk closed for pedestrians take detour" it read with an arrow heading to a poorly lit street.

"Mother fucker...this shit is getting old" I say out loud. These kind of things only happen to me.

I try to flag down just a handful of cabs while I debate on whether I want to go the route less well lit. After 5 minutes and my failure to spot anymore cabs, I open up my GPS and chart my next route. At least I won't get lost if I get mugged. Looking at my intersection, I know that if I go two blocks down and make a left turn it'll be a simply 4 blocks straight away to the fetish club.

When I finally arrived at the straight away, my arms just kind of dropped to my sides and stood for a moment in astonishment. It was a long strip of abandoned warehouses. It's laughable how ghetto it is. All the building have their lights off, everything is filthy, rusted, and boarded up. The entire scene looked post apocalyptic with the exception of the the vehicles parked in no particular fashion or order. I lit a cigarette and started walking. I passed lots of crumbling buildings with fences topped with razor wire and an unmarked dark night club. There were actually people waiting in front of the door with about 15 black guys and a few groups of guys hanging around their cars watching me as I walked alone on the other side of the street.

I hear one guy a group of black dudes behind me say to his friend, "Yo, Look look look." I tried not to look over but I could hear at least two sets of feet begin to follow me. I have no desire to deal with this, and the last thing I plan on doing is looking behind me because that might antagonize these guys. I am already extremely stressed out as they come. I look down the road further up and spot a group of 3 older bums ahead of me just hanging out. I increase my speed and stride in their direction.
"What's up fellas?!" I say loudly.

They glance up as I pull my pack of cigarettes out and put one into my mouth. "Would anybody like a smoke? "I gotta get rid of these things."

Instant friends are made over cigarettes. I hand a cigarette to one of the bums as I pull my lighter out and turn my head slightly to see that there was a group of 3 guys following me has stopped and are now talking and as I hand out two more cigarettes I see them walking back the other direction. I can't be sure that they were absolutely trying to follow me, but I'm willing to bet that if they were those bums made me look like I was one of the regulars here, I might have told a different story. I gave out a few more cigs, told them to have a good night, and kept going.

I'm nearly overwhelmed by this point but I can see on my GPS I'm practically there. Besides, once I get inside I'll be fine. I get onto the right street and as I approach the door I see two nice looking girls about my age walking up to the same place I am.
"Are you guys here for the event too?" I ask as I pull another cigarette out of my pocket.

"Yeah we're a little late." One of them says laughing a little as the other knocks on the door.

A black guy opens the door and says, "This is not the entrance. Ya'll have to go around."

The girls and I exchange names as we make our way around the back of the building.

"I've never been to one of these before, I guess it's my first time." I say chuckling.

They look at each other and laugh, "we've never been here either." one of them says.

"How did you guys hear about this thing anyway?" I ask.

"Facebook!" They both say almost in unison.

I laugh a little. "Yeah me too! I'm actually meeting someone here. I'm going to finish my cigarette but I'll see you guys inside."

I wave to them as the bouncer checks their IDs and they walk inside. I can hear the beat of the music outside and see a few people smoking cigarettes dressed in dark outfits off to the side of the door.

About 30 seconds go by and the two girls rush out the door with bewildered looks on their faces.

"That was fast?!" say loudly.

"This is not the Stevie Wonder tribute concert!" One of exclaims loudly as they walk past me "It's some gross swingers thing!"

I start laughing at them, "Shit I thought I was lost. Come back if you change your mind, have a good night girls!" (Apparently this is what they were looking for - the Friday May 13th happens to be Stevie Wonders birthday: http://www.2dopeboyz.com/2011/05/10/wonderlove-a-tribute-to-stevie-wonder-mixed-by-dj-rhettmatic/ )

I flick my cigarette, get my ID checked, and pay my cover to a chubby pale girl and her chubby friend at the door. I hear rob zombie music pumping loudly behind the heavy wooden door next to me. I take a deep breath, pull the door open, and step in. I was inside for all of a few seconds and my initial reaction is disappointment... not fear, not surprise, not even confusion. There was maybe 25 people total standing around the edges of what can only be described as two middle family home basement sized dance floors and a small bar area. These people were by no means attractive. The vast majority of women were fat older pale chicks in leather corsets with too much make-up on. These were not models or even fun looking people. These were the folks that looked like they were in the goth group in high school and never grew out of it. This was not the "A" team. I walked up the bar and ordered a whiskey coke from the dominatrix behind the bar. "$9" she said.

"Fucking great." I said under my breath. I cringed as I handed her the money then turned and posted up on the bar facing the dance floors. Out of the shadows came a familiar face.

"You finally made it!" yelled out the girl I came to meet.

As she came in for a big hug I could see not only was she wearing a small low cut corset but she had decided to wear nothing below the waist except for a leather thong, fishnets, garter belt, and high heels. She looked very well put together. Oddly enough
I noticed she had something in her hand. She was holding onto a leash, I followed the length of the leash with my eyes to see it was attached to a studded collar. I pulled back my gaze to see the collar was around the fat neck of a gross looking girl wearing a tight fitting corset that did little to pull-in her big belly but pushed her fat titties into her double chin and neck. She was wearing zombie make-up and overall was just a terrible display of humanity. I looked her up and down more inquisitively than anything else and limply shook hands with "it."

"Sorry about the lateness! "I yelled over the music. "A lot of weird stuff happened!"

"What?!" She yelled. "I can't hear you!"

"Show me around, I've never been here!" I yelled into her ear.

She pulled back, "OK! Let's go to the jellyfish room!"

Running with the fat zombie girl on a leash, I casually followed them to an area where neon lights had been placed atop a bunch of long strips of cloudy styrofoam that hung vertically from the ceiling. The effect was supposed to be somewhat of a jelly fish tentacle hanging down that reflected some of the light but it was also opaque enough so that you could see much else. The two girls started to dance and giggle inside the "jellyfish area" and I mark this as the moment I began feeling slightly out of place. I don't know how to dance to Rob Zombie's music and even if I did, I wouldn't do so in an odd formation of hanging styrofoam. I started to try and dance when I noticed that parts of the foam were damp due to other sweaty fat people parading in and out of the area.

"HEY!" I said finding her in the weeds of the styrofoam mess. "I'm a little stressed after my trip getting here. I'm going to burn a cigarette outside."

"You smoke?!" She said giving me a face. "I do when I drink and when I'm feeling some stressed and right now that's both."

I turned around and walked past a few trannys and more fat chicks to get out of the main door leading downstairs and outside. I pulled out my cigarettes and took a deep breath. I leaned up against a cool brick wall and sparked a cigarette. This was not what I had expected. I hadn't really properly mentally prepared myself for this thing. I usually can make friends wherever I go but this wasn't my crowd. I didn't realize that I'd have to try and socialize on my own and had no idea how ugly and awkward the other strange people there were going to be. It was 11:15 and I knew I had to give this thing a fair shake given the terrible situations I'd already endured leading up to it. I managed to make a few friends outside while trying to clear my head. I had a good conversation who two odd gay guys and a couple in their 40s that had been swinging for years, they seem like relatively well grounded people given the circumstances.

I came back up to the club level and found my date chatting with a fat guy in a trench coat, another ugly fat dominatrix girl, a tranny, and a short gay guy.

"Hey have a drink with me," I said pulling her into me. "I feel a little out of place here."

"Why? Isn't it fun?!" she said smiling.

"I'm not sure about fun, but it is interesting and very different. I feel out of place. Maybe I'm just not dressed the part? I thought there would be more people or maybe just more better looking people." I said with a raised voice pointing at a guy wearing a diaper.

"We're going to be here for a while." She said, "Maybe you should have worn something more kinky?"

"I mean I could go shirtless, but I'm not sure that's really the way it works in here."

"Go for it," she said with a grin.

I glanced around and unbuttoned my shirt and slid it off then pulled my white tang top over my head. "I hope I don't attract the wrong kind of attention in my new outfit," I said looking at the tranny who was now staring deeply at me.

"I'm sure it's fine!" She yelled into my ear over the music.

I got our drinks and tried to walk into the into the dull conversation with her and her odd friends without any luck. Instead of leaning in to try and hear over the annoying electronica music I just began people watching instead. If this were a bar or even a house party I'd probably would have left long ago due to lack of talent and abundance of boring, unattractive, and people. There were still only about 25 people there and nothing worth looking at besides the girl I came to meet. What was more interesting was that few people were dancing and the vast majority of the people were standing in groups of two or three.

"Let's go!" I hear as she grabs my arm and we walk with the entire group to the empty dance floor.

"Here, hold my drink." She said pushing the drink into my hand and turning her back to me to face the fat dominatrix female friend.

I have never been nor will never be, "that guy." I'm not a cup holder. And I'm not the guy that sits and watches other people have fun with the person I have dibs on. It's not like I'm the jealous type, I just don't take a back seat role in social situations. I'm not going to sit around and look pitiful in the hopes that my date might remember I'm still here when she gets thirsty. I was starting to get bothered. I took a few large gulps from her drink then put it down on top of the speaker.

Scanning the room for potential sources of entertainment, I came up with nothing. I can ordinarily pick out the needle in the haystack but this time it wasn't going to happen. The 40 and up creepy crowd had began eying the girls on the dance floor in a very pervy manor and a few other weird looking gothic people had closer to get a better look. I made a few attempts to get a conversation going with the people around me with absolutely no success.

"How many of these have you been to?"

"Which one is your friend?"

"Do people normally not drink during these things?"

"Where's the after party?"

"Hey that's an interesting outfit, is this normal for a Friday?"

"Are you guys vampires that sparkle in the sun or douche bags that don't know how to meet normal women?"

These people are generally uninteresting people who don't have the social awareness or know-how to hold conversations in normal bars. The few blips of conversation I did get into were more of a bragging contest with fat chicks about how "kinky" they really were. Something about a fat chick bragging about being tied up a lot is just not appealing. I wanted to say, "If you spent so much time being tied up how is it that you've seemingly been able to locate food so easily?"

Eventually I placed my nearly empty drink beside hers on the speaker and walked up to my date on the dance floor.

"I was hoping we could dance at some point." I say pressing closer to her and cutting the fat girl out of the circle.

I've never been a bad dancer and I know I'm good at making people look sleezy; so it wasn't hard to impress the lame audience. We danced for one odd hardcore rock songs and once it ended the DJ put on something that nobody could really move to so the area cleared out relatively quickly.

By the time we stepped away from the dance area my date and her fat ugly dominatrix friend had already began talking again. After I stood around for a while longer, I decided I wasn't going to try and make anymore conversation with the weird people around me due to my last failed attempt. I found my jacket and grabbed the last miniature bottle of whiskey out of the breast pocket and headed outside for a smoke break.

It was starting to get late and I was getting frustrated. I'm a conversationalist when I go out. I don't have to be the center of attention, I just enjoy genuine conversation that goes somewhere. I had a reasonably decent conversation over the span of three hours the first time this girl and I hung out and now I've had maybe the accumulation of 10 minutes. Furthermore, I was getting tired and the alcohol wasn't making me more social anymore, I was just getting more drunk. I could tell when I started to slur my words, but shortly after trying to talk to one of the guys outside I knew in my mind that I'd had enough. I had a decision to make. If I stayed I might be able to sort this one out and do my best to have fun for the remaining time we were there. If I told my date I wanted to leave now, she might tell me to walk back to the metro alone and think of me as a poor sport. But seeing as how my date had driven, if I were able to charm her enough I might be able to convince her to leave now so I wouldn't have to walk back through the ghetto and I could potentially get laid when we got back to her place.

This party wasn't getting any better and it wasn't getting any earlier. It was already 1:45 AM.

I went back inside and found her on the dance floor with a slim but ugly girl with fake dragon wings on her back.

"Hey, how do you feel about getting out of here?" I said in her as best I could without slurring.

"You smell like smoke, gross." She said reeling back.

"Thanks. I had to find an activity that allowed me to engage people. I was getting bored of walking around silently like most of the other people. There's nothing cool about seeing the same fat people mill around every 5 minutes while you're doing the same thing." I said with some conviction.

She was not amused. "I'm not leaving. The metro is only four blocks away. I am under no circumstances having sex with you tonight." She proclaimed.

"Wait what?!" I shouted. "I've done my best to be a team player here. I've never been to one of these before. This isn't my zone. I've tried very hard to enjoy myself but I haven't really been able to talk to you for more than a few seconds at a time. At least let me ride with you back to Northern Virginia."

"Well who's fault is that, you kept leaving for smoke breaks." She touted.

"Well yeah, I didn't have much in common with these people and it's not as though they have anything interesting to say. I chose something nice for our second date so that we both could have fun and be comfortable and this was a far cry from what I wanted. I am not comfortable here." I said putting my hands hips and giving her strong eye contact.

"Well first off, this is not a date." She started,"I don't know where you got that idea. Second, we can do the lounge/dance thing next weekend."

"How is this not a date? Wait- What?!" I said appalled. "Listen I really just don't want to do that walk back to the metro and besides I'd rather not miss the train if it's avoidable."

"I'm not having sex with you, Sasha (the fat dominatrix) and I are going to McDonalds anyways. We can hang out next week. Would you like that?" She said glancing behind her at the dance floor looking at her fat friend Sasha who was waiting impatiently.

"No, this has been a big mistake." I said looking her up and down. "I'm not being unreasonable here, I've come way out of my comfort zone to show you I'm not afraid to do anything but this has been a disaster. This place sucks. I've had an awful time."

"Then why did you even come in the first place? Why didn't you just say no?" She said throwing her hands up.

"Because I assumed you were trying to test my level of openness. Women are idiots and do shit like this all the time!" I exclaimed!

"Are you drunk?" She said looking at me like a slob.

"Of course I am? How else am I supposed to enjoy something as lame as this?" I shouted again half grinning.

"Figures," she said. "Well I'm still not giving you a ride."

"I really wanted you to turn out normal," I mumbled as she watched me walk over to grab my coat. "Enjoy all of this!" I yelled walking out while making grand motions towards the fat trannys standing by the door as if to say, "go fuck this guy!"

There was no turning back and once on the street I knew had a limited amount of time to get to the train because they would surely stop running soon. Looking at my GPS, I decided to stick with well lit main roads on my walking route to the metro station. There's absolutely no reason to end this night in a bad way if I don't have to. I got about a block away when I spotted a familiar sign. Sidewalk closed to pedestrians, detour this way."

I didn't have time to try and figure out a new route and certainly didn't want to deal with the abandoned warehouse area again if I could avoid it. So I decided to ignore the sign and hoped that I could somehow manage to make to the other side regardless of whether or not the sidewalk would allow for it. I went around the blocked sidewalk area I soon found myself stepping over used hypodermic needles on a closed poorly lit sidewalk near a highway over pass. The further I got along, the more I questioned my initial decision. Once realizing I'd have to walk into on-coming traffic to get to the New York ave metro I made the hard decision of going back the way I came. As I turned around I suddenly noticed two shadowy figures stepping onto the sidewalk ahead of me.
"Hey man, give me $5 dollars" called out a drunk crackhead. His fat bum friend followed behind him. Expecting me to pay up as I walked closer, I tried to circumvent them by using the standard line, "I don't have any money." As I went to side step around them, the crackhead and his friend mirrored my angle. "Give me five bucks," crowed the man through his missing and blackened teeth. I was fed up and drunk. I didn't need this, not now. Without much hesitation I shifted my weight and threw a hard right into his chest. A loud hollow "THUD!" echoed in the air for moment. The man fell backwards onto his butt as I squared off with my fists up and eyed his friend.
The fat bum took two big steps back both arms up in the air and said, "Hey that's ok man." I turned and hurried my pace, I knew I only had a few minutes left to catch the last train out of NE or I'd have a whole new category of problems to come.

I power-walked past all the commotion of a few ghetto clubs getting out and made it all the way to the metro station. I ran up to the booth next to the turnstiles, "Has the last train left yet?" I exclaimed.

"That's it right now, you might be able to catch it," the old man said pointing upwards. I looked up to see the train pulling away from the station as it heading into the tunnel ahead.
"Yeah thanks." I said turning to stare at a vacant street.

I would eventually chase down a cab that would bring me back to Arlington, Virginia for $45. It was one of those deep inner analysis car rides where you question how many decisions you could make that would lead you to encounter so many odd circumstances all in one night. When he dropped me off, I lit up a cigarette in disbelief of the entire experience. Then I remembered a friend had invited me bowling that night. Can you really imagine how mundane my life would be if I gave up an evening like tonight for something safe, plain, and predictable. "No thanks." I said out-loud flicking my cigarette into the street. "I'll take my chances with road less traveled."

Using a great quote in the right context

2011-05-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

This was a wallpost on facebook to a close friend in the wee hours of the morning on a Saturday night:

I had the greatest moment ever last night:
I was kissing this girl from the airforce at a bar in downtown San Diego and she says, "I can't come with you, I've gotta get back to the base."
I say, "Righhhht, kickass." I lean back smiling, I knew full well I might never get to say this within a proper context ever again in my entire life. I clear my throat and say, "I don't want to sound like a dick or nothin, but uhhh says on your chart that you're fucked up. You talk like a fag and your shits all retarded. What I do is just like, is just like, you know..."
She raised an eyebrow at me, completely lost. I just sat there in all my glory, laughing hysterically till I was crying and then I knocked over my drink onto her lap and left. It was exceptional.

Line etiquette

2011-05-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

I left Happy Hour and stopped by CVS in Ballston Mall after about 5 beers. I was in line for the self checkout behind one guy and had one person behind me. A fat older middle eastern lady ambles up with 4 pringles cans and a bar of soap and steps in front of me.

"I believe we've got a bit of a line here," I say loudly.

Stunned at first, she stutters for a moment while somewhat flustered. "Oh, uh-Yes, I was over there," she says turning halfway towards me then points to the empty checkout area where nobody is currently working at any of the registers. "You can go over there." She says turning her back to me.

I put on my best game show voice, "Well that's a rather unrealistic idea. Are you fucking kidding ?" I say cocking my head slightly to the side with a bit of raised eyebrow. "See that's not exactly how it works." She turns around and glares at me. "I understand that nobody is working those registers, but you've just managed to walk in front of me and this gentleman and we're clearly already waiting in this line." I say using very exaggerated gestures and almost dancing while pointing to the guy behind me who wants nothing to do with my argument over principal.

The lady stares at me and looks confused, "But there isn't anyone over there?"

"Indeed. And yet here we are," I say rocking back and forth from heel to toe and gesturing as though I have somehow appeared out of thin air.

She looks back and forth between the closed check out lines , the self checkout, myself, and the guy behind me with a look that says, "information overload."

"Clearly you're in a bigger hurry than everyone else in this store and perhaps this entire mall. Hell even the state!" I say with heavy sarcasm and giving a slow motion elbow towards the guy behind me.

"Yes, I am thank you." The lady said with a relieved tone that suggested I was being serious.

I start laughing, "Well fuck a duck."

"Did you really think that a woman who doesn't understand line-etiquette would have any idea how to interpret sarcasm?" the guy behind me said with a big grin.

The woman took about 5 minutes to figure out how to navigate the only working self check-out machine while I patiently waited and made idle chit chat with the guy behind me. When she was all finished she turned and thanked me.

"No, no!" I said, "Thank you! and enjoy those 4 pringles cans and bar of soap." I said with a wink and a smile.

"Oh," She said smiling- unaware of my sarcasm, "thank you."

Fat Girl + Cropped Images + Me = Terrible date

2010-11-09T09:54:00.000-08:00

In this day in age it's becoming very common for people to connect online and later meet in person. According to an article I found on Zimvi.com, over 40 million Americans were using the internet to try and find dates in 2010. The most common thing men lie about is age and as you might have guessed, women are most often lying about their weight... I can independently validate the second part of that statement.

It was the end of January and I was living in San Diego. Having only been in town for a month, I hadn't been able to branch out as much as I would have liked and quite frankly, I was getting pretty lonely. I've never been bashful or shy about the online dating thing, so it wasn't long before I had lined up a date. Her profile said she was a little shorter than me and had an "average" body type. She told me she worked as a hair dresser but was thinking about going back to school. Ascetically speaking, I really couldn't see shit from the two grainy pictures she had posted, it was fairly clear she had blond hair and what looked like huge boobs; beyond that it was a huge toss up. But given my lack of luck with women so far in that area, I was willing to chance it.

We chatted via messages on the dating site throughout the week. By Thursday, she had invited me to come with her to a friends house for a Friday night birthday bash. I didn't have plans yet as I still had very few friends and it sounded like a fun idea anyway. I've always been very well received at most house parties and besides if we hit any dull moments we could always talk to other people there. We exchanged numbers and I texted her my address and the general time for her to come by. I had my doubts of course, but Friday night came around quickly. Knowing it was too late to cancel, I texted her, "Come over and pick me up, I'm ready!"

I waited on the side walk outside my townhouse, excited for whatever the night might bring. I was sharply dressed, had two thirds handle of rum in a bag with some off brand soda as a mixer/chaser, and was ready for an eventful evening knowing that no matter what happened it was going to inevitably be new and different.

"Should I bring all this liquor with me? It's a nice gesture and nobody likes a moocher." I thought to myself.

As I waited there I realized I truly have no idea what I'm getting myself into. All of the "what if's" begin to swirl in my head. I haven't the slightest clue as to what this girl looked like beyond two small cropped blurry images on her dating site profile. What if she's fat? What if she sucks and I end up stranded at a house too far from where I live to do anything about it.
"Zero exit strategy, go for brass ring, no surrender, no retreat." I say in my head trying to psych myself up as I pretend to kick dust off the tops of my shoes like a boxer does when stepping into the ring.
My phone rings. I take a deep breath, and answer.
"Hello? This is Taylor."
"Hey, I'm on your street. Come outside so I can see you."
"I'm already out in front, I'll flag out down when I see you coming."

About a block away I could see two headlights approaching. I stand between two parallel parked cars onto the street and began to wave. I squint as the car approaches in an effort to figure out why one headlight was slightly lower than the other.

As her little Mazda Miata coasted up to me in, I could see the car was clearly slumped to the drivers side due to the drivers unproportionate weight.

"Holyshit!" I said aloud looking all around me to see if someone had set me up for some type of joke.

The window lowered as I stayed planted where I stood, "Hey boy," the girl said propping up a fat elbow out of the window in sad attempt to sound and look sexy.

Fight or Flight instinct commonly kicks in right here. I know that if I take off and don't look back I have ended my evening without giving it a chance. However I know that if I get in, there's a very good chance I'll be hanging out with a gross fat chick for the entire night. No exit strategy. I cracked my neck on both sides and stepped forward.

"Hi! How are you?" I say as if nothing is wrong.

I walked around the front of the car with a fake smile on my face and peered through the windshield. This fucking girl was fat, not fluffy, not voluptuous. Fat. She could barely fit in the car and looked uncomfortable where she sat. It reminded me of "Professor Klump" from the movie The Nutty Professor when Eddie Murphy suddenly goes from skinny to fat inside a sports-car and has to be cut out of it using the jaws of life.

After a second of deliberation I lift the door handle and get in.

"Hey you!" She says while put my liquor on the floor, "are you excited for tonight?"

Glancing over but not wanting to turn fully I can already see vast amounts of concealer and other thick make-up products flaking off this girls fat face. I imagined this girl eating powdered donuts. Peering lower I spotted a heavy-fold-defined double chin resting atop her big fat tits which were pressed up to her neck with a push up bra that was 5 sizes too small. Picture a heavier miss piggy, but with more whore make-up on.

"Yeah," I say grinning, "as excited as I'll ever be." I say knowing how fucked I was, "So where exactly is this party?"

"It's over by State," She says flipping on her turn signal and turning onto the main road towards the highway.

"Is that far?" I ask hesitantly.

"It's like 25 minutes, tops." She says turning up the pop music station on the radio.

I sink a little into my seat. "Charlie brown, you are well fucked and far from home," I think to myself. Unless I play nice, I'm not going to have a any reasonable way home. That's probably a $50 cab ride home.

Her terrible driving skills doesn't put me at ease as I watch her using her fat fingers to text while trying to work the radio and drive at the same time.

We talk about our basic backgrounds and what brought us to our current living situations. We then both shared why we were looking for people online, I explained that I had just moved to the area and hardly knew anyone. She said that she was tired of guys she met at bars. A bit of silence follows, because I kind of doubted that guys would talk to her in the bars.

Moments later Sarah starts to giggle a bit, I look over, "What are you laughing about?"

She giggles a little more then says, "It's nothing. But I told my friends that I met you online." She looks over and smiles, "They all think it's super creepy but I told them I didn't care, so you've got to be nice to them, ok?"

"Ugh." I say lowering my head as I bring my right hand to the side of my face to massage my right temple. "So everyone at this party we're going to thinks I'm creepy and they know that we found each other on a dating website."

"Yeah, they think it's really weird and didn't want you to come at all but since you're with me it's cool. And I told them craigslist because I don't want them using the site I found you on until I get my crack at the hotties." She says with a smile and turns on her blinker to take our exit off the freeway.

I clear my throat and look out the window hopelessly. Impending unavoidable embarrassment is heading my way. I know it's too late jump out of the moving car and the cab ride would be way too expensive even if I survived the fall.

We pull up to a modest middle-of-subrubia-looking house located in a quiet neighborhood. The house is a one level single family home and it has a two car garage. From the front I can also see decent sized fenced in backyard and can already hear people talking loudly in the back.

"This might now be too ruff." I say to myself.

I sluggishly grab my bag of booze from the floor of the car and trudge up to the house following my waddling date. As Sarah nears the front steps the door sudden swings open and five extremely attractive young girls press up into the doorway to get a look at me.

"Hey Sarah! Is that him?" One of them asks as they all start laughing. I roll my eyes.

I wave, "Hey girls." I walk up to the door frame make my introductions trying to act as non-creepy as possible.

Once inside, I make my way around the living room introducing myself quickly to the 10 or so people who are just standing around watching us come inside. Moments later I head straight for the kitchen to make myself a very strong drink. Taking a few deep breaths, I fill a solo cup to the brim with ice, pour rum 3/4 of the way up, and add a dash of soda on top and begin gulping it down. My rationale is "drink until this isn't weird anymore." I look up from my drink and realize my "date" is staring at me.
"Get me a drink." She damands.

"Ha!" I laugh taking another deep gulp out of my cup, "try again."

"I want a beer." She proclaimed putting her hands on her hips as if I better get to it right now.

I lean up against the counter wink at her and finish nearly the remaining content of what's in my cup, "Where I'm from, we say please. Want a shot instead?"

"No, I'm driving." She said appearing impatient.

"Wait, so you're not drinking tonight?" I ask while pouring more rum into my cup.

"Nope, I don't drink and drive." She said folding her arms, "I might have a beer but that's it."

I grab a beer out of the fridge and hand it over to her, "Sarah you are setting me up for a very interesting evening. I'm going to be drinking because it's a party and if I'm consuming alcohol and you're not it might not go as well as...."

"Want to play beerpong?" Sarah interrupts.

"Sure." I say shaking my head. I reach back over to my handle and pour more rum into my cup before hiding it in the freezer.

I followed her into the garage which where there were six stoner guys playing 10 cup beer pong and smoking weed out of a tall glass bong that sat on the floor. We wrote our name on a list and I made an effort to have a conversation with Sarah while we waited. She had never been outside of California and had no goals in life. I was starting to feel a bit more loosened up as the alcohol took effect and maybe all the weed smoke in the air gave me a slight contact high.

"Hey, it's your turn," Says one of the stoner-dudes that looks like a fat version of the any of the guys from Blink 182.

The game starts and they sink two cups straight off the bat. I hand her one of the cups and bring the other to my face and start to drink.

"Um, I'm not drinking- remember I have to drive tonight." she says while I'm halfway through gulping down my first cup. I look down and she's placed her cup on the table next to me.
"You can drink for both of us." She says matter of factly.

"You expect me to drink all of these?" I said pointing at the 10 cups in front of us which comes out to 5 beers total.

She folds her arms and shifts all her weight back and to one side while giving me a duck-face. I go into thought for a second, I know I can get hammered faster given this new development but I also need some of my wits about me. I also don't like the dynamic of being out on a "date" when one person is sober and the other is drunk. It never pans out.

We play the game and she takes every opportunity to bend over in front of me to show off the bright pink thong she's sporting hiked up above the waist line of her jeans. Eventually we lose and the two stoners send over the cups on their side that we didn't make. I end up drinking a grand total of 14 cups. Which comes out to be nearly 7 beers in a 25 minute span. I think it goes without saying I'm on the verge of throwing up but I'm holding my composure. I tell Sarah I need some air as I finish my last sip and I step outside the sliding glass door in the kitchen on the back deck. There's four other people smoking and I spark a cigarette and join the crowd.

The people weren't the brightest bunch, but they were relatively nice. I was feeling much better until the door opened and Sarah Stuck her fat face into the cool night air and exclaimed,
"Oh, gross!? You're a smoker? That is such a turn off!"

I start laughing at her, "sucks to be me!" I say as the other guys start laughing at her too and begin doing impressions of her.

I light up another cigarette and spend a good 15-20 minutes chatting with the people outside. A short time later a few guys and myself take some shots in the kitchen and before I know it, I'm actually starting to have a good time. I'm in mid conversation in the kitchen and my date strolls up to me with a negative look facial expression. "Were you going to talk to me tonight?" She asks in a bitchy tone.

"We're talking right now." I retort with a clever smile as the other guys walk away to give us some room. "What's up? How's your night going?"

"So EW,, I didn't know you were a smoker." She says in a condescendingly looking away.

"I'd say there were surprises for both us tonight." I said looking her up and down feeling a fairly heavy buzz from all the drinks.

"Huh?" She's confused.

I realized right there that if I'm still not even remotely attracted to this cow after all the alcohol I've had at this point then it's safe to assume it's not going to happen. Her shitty attitude and unreasonably high entitlement complex is just icing on the cake. The other problem is that she is, as far as I know, the only person in driving condition that lives in my area that would possibly be willing and able to get me home. It was almost Midnight and if I played my cards right I could convince her to take me back home early and still have time to do some last minute shopping at a bar near my house.

I made up a story about wanting to be back in the area because room mate lost his key and would be able to get into our house. Then I sprinkled in a fake story about how studies often show that dates are proven to be more successful if both parties are consuming alcohol and it wouldn't be fair for me to have all the fun. I got some resistance but after a little bit of charming on my part she agreed to drive under the condition that we went to a bar after we got back and I bought her a drink for all the gas money she had spent driving us up and back. If I really wanted to make a run for it and not uphold my end of the bargain once we got home, I knew I could so I agreed.

The ride home actually seemed longer than the ride there. She blasted music from the local top 40 station with the windows down, so awkward conversation wasn't even an issue.

We arrived about 30 minuets before last call and parked at her place which was really only 25 yards from the bar I wanted to go to anyway. There wasn't a line outside the bar and we got two stools at the bar, no problem. We ordered a round a drinks and as she began to talk about herself again I started watching the people around us. Every single girl that walked by was easily twice as hot as she was. What was worse was that I could actually tell I was getting looks from people in the form of eye rolls and facial expressions. By comparison I felt the girl that I had come with was so ugly inside and out. It came to a boiling point when I found myself convinced there was a group of girls pointing and laughing at me down near the other end of the bar. I felt ridiculous to be giving up so much of what little free time I had to someone so undeserving.

I interrupted her mid sentence while she was on about how under appreciated hair stylists are, "Can I get my handle out of your car?"

"Right now?" She asked surprised.

"Yeah, right now." I tossed some cash on the bar and walked outside and lit a cigarette.

"Gross you're smoking again," She said as she followed me back to her car. I started laughing to myself.

"What's so funny? Why are you walking so fast? Why do you need to get it right now?"
She machine gunned questions as me as shook my head approaching the car.

"It's been an interesting night hun, but I'm just not at all into you." I said opening her passenger door and pulling out my handle of liquor, "I'd rather just be civil about it and part ways."

"Excuse me? I was thinking about hooking up with you tonight but if you're gonna act like that, you can forget it." She said looking at me squarely in the eyes from the other side of the car.

"Yeah, so listen- I'm gonna go." I said starting to walk around the car to go home.

She stepped in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders, "Wait, just a kiss goodbye?"

"No!" I said pushing her hands off of me, "You turned out to be at least 75 lbs heavier than what I expected. You listed yourself as average. Good-day! I said walking around her.

"Well that's ridiculous," she said a bit flustered, "Yeah, maybe I've put on a little w..." She started to say.

"I said good-day!" I throw my hands up in the air and walk around her. Pulling a long drag off of my cigarette with a handle of rum in hand I walk away shaking my head while behind me stands a fat frustrated girl with a little less self esteem.

That was the creepiest guy on the metro

2010-11-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

In order to properly in enjoy this story hit play on the youtube link below when you read up to that point.

I met up with my friend Chris in Arlington, Virginia who would soon be leaving the area for a 3 month trip abroad. We took the metro (DC subway system) to Arlington from his place and vowed to get very drunk before it was all said and done.

It was one of those nights, endless drinks upon shots while catching up with old friends and making new ones at a decent little bar. It was a really good outing and as the lights came on and shouts of "last call" rang out, Chris and I settled up our tabs.

"I'm in no shape to drive at the moment. Can I crash at your house?" I said to my friend while one-eyeing my check and trying to do drunk math to figure out the tip

"Yeah, totally fine bud." Chris said while laughing and squinting at his check.

Once out of the bar we headed directly to the metro. It was a reasonably crowded evening as we passed groups of loud inebriated people and took our places on the train platform. It's sometimes comforting to know we won't be the only loud and obnoxious drunk people on the ride.

A short time later an red LED sign above the platform displays, "train arriving." It's front headlights illuminate the tunnel ahead eventually giving way to the quick moving train that flashes by us and eventually slows. The doors spring open and we quickly find seats. Standing on moving train when fairly drunk is one of the less desirable things to deal with if it can be avoided. As the trained pulled away I look around to see what kind of people would be joining us for the 15 minute or so ride. Although our car appeared to have almost all the seats filled, it wasn't exactly a lively bunch.

"Hey do remember that RA (resident director) you had freshman year?" Chris randomly pipes up half laughing, "You know; the one that got you kicked out of housing three times your first semester?"

I roll my eyes, "Gabe." I say, "Yeah I remember him. What a piece of shit."

"You know he's getting married?" Chris said grinning.

"I'm not surprised, that kid is one of those super Christians that would get married as early as possible because being a virgin at age 25 must be getting old or they just don't know shit about the world. What make you bring that up?" I say a little bitter remembering that stress he caused me years ago.

Chris sat back a bit, "Well, his fiancee is in one of my classes and I swear that girl flirts with me almost not-stop. And she's not bad looking." Chris says smirking as we pull up to one of the stations and nobody gets on or off the train.

"I think I put in some effort, I could probably get something out of it." Chris says confidently.

(PLEASE BEGIN PLAYING THE SONG BELOW TO GET BEST OUT OF YOUR READING EXPERIENCE)

"You should defiantly fuck that chick." I charge in loudly. "Chris! You don't understand, I would fuck that girl in front of her entire family!" I shout staring him dead in the eyes forgetting where I was for a moment.

"EW." Some girl in a large group in front of us says with a wrinkled up forhead half turning. I catch a few other women glaring at me as well.

"Let me paint you a picture Chris." I start raising my voice partially because I hate ease dropping girls that judge me on the metro.

"Imagine, it's a Washington Capitals hockey playoff game. The score is tied going into intermission just before the 3nd period." my voice gains some enthusiasm as I start to realize nearly all conversations around us have tapered off while people have stopped to listen in on what I'm saying.

"As all the lights in the stadium fade, the theme song to TOP GUN begins coming out of the speakers at the Verizon Center, quietly at first, but then growing louder and louder... A single spotlight hits the edge of the ice." While Chris is silently nodding, I look around to see the majority of the people all around us have turned around and are captivated by my fantasy.

"Out comes a gleaming white Zamboni onto the ice, and who's that on the hood of that beautiful ice sweeping machine? Me, completely naked fucking Gabe's fiance from behind while waving a huge American flag. And... She's got a ball gag in her mouth"

The guys around us erupt in laughter as a random person yells out, "What?!"

I spot a few of the girls in front of me grimacing in horror. "It gets better hunny," I say winking at one of them.

"As the entire stadium is cheering me on we ride the Zamboni into the first turn and a second spotlight flashes onto the crowd as the CAPS announcer echos over the packed Verizon stadium and all the cheering fans, Ladies and Gentlemen, please direct your attention to section 101. The second spot light stops on section 101 of the stands and it's Gabe along with his and her entire family. I'm talking about flying in the grandparents from both parts of Florida, cousins, uncles, sisters, brothers, nephews, watching me a-top a big Zamboni seven feet off the ice fucking this guy's fiance in front of sold out crowd and the entire family... I fucking hate that kid. Total douche."

The entire train is roaring with laughter as we pull up to our station. I give a few waves as a small round of applause had started up while we exited. As we leave, the doors of the train remain open momentarily. Over the subsiding laughter I hear one of the girls nearest our exiting door say, "Oh my god, that was the creepiest guy I've ever met on the metro."

I quickly and run up to where her back is facing the window as the doors close and pressed my face up against glass. I tap twice on the window and when she turns around I begin making loud grunts and moans while moving my arms like t-rex arms up and down against the glass. She shrieks in horror falling backward into the isle as the train pulls away from the station. Laughing hysterically Chris and I head back to his place to make some drunk food and pass out for the night. Pretty standard Saturday.

An interview is worth a Green Beer

2010-11-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

I came into the job market as a recent college grad in what was without question the worst recession our country has seen since the great depression. During this time, finding entry level work even after I had a few years of sales experience under my belt was proving to be very difficult. I got creative with my job search and ended up networking with a few alumni from my college fraternity and within a day I had a interview lined up.

The company was a smaller operation a few miles from my house and seemed to have all the ideal qualities of a place I'd want to work at. The pay looked good, opportunity for growth was there, and they even encouraged a casual dress code. I already had a man on the inside so all I needed to do was nail the interview and I had the gig.

My interview was originally going to be scheduled for the day after St. Patrick's day but the responsible alcoholic in me knew I'd never make it to an interview with a St. Patrick's day hang over so we bumped it up one day to have it on the morning of St. Patrick's day at 10:30 with a guy named "Geoff." I showed up right at 10:30 due to the lack of parking which set me in a bit of panic when I first arrived. A little glitch like that wouldn't stop me from getting job.

I was dressed to kill in a 3 piece pin-stripe suit, shined black leather shoes, face shaved, hair looked perfect, etc. Shortly after introducing myself to the receptionist I was sitting down filling out paperwork. I was two thirds the way through the packet they asked me to fill out when the secretary said, "Geoff will see you now."
I realized just at that very moment that the man I was interviewing with didn't pronounce his name "JEE-OFF" but infact he just spells it poorly. Prior to that day I had never met a person named "Jeff" that spelled it as "Geoff." A huge wave of relief had come over me as I walked into Geoff's office. It appeared I had dodged a fatal bullet or two already.

The receptionist led me to the back of the office and down a hallway to a closed door door. She knocked on the heavy wooden door and I heard a man with a deep voice say, "Send him in!" from inside.
I thanked the secretary and walked into Geoff's office confidently. Geoff was a tall serious looking man with bright orange/red hair. I smiled as I extended my hand for a handshake.

"Good to meet you sir, I said shaking his hand then grabbing a seat in the chair in front of his desk. Happy St. Patrick's day by the way."

Geoff's head cocked to the side and his eyes squinted. "I beg your pardon?"

"Today is St. Patrick's day, I had assumed by your hair and your name that you were Irish." I said explaining with a half chuckle.

"I'm married." He said looking sternly at me as if I had offended him.

"Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's day, it's a big thing in my family anyway. My last name is Ryan and we're proud of our Irish roots. I usually celebrate the day with friends and it's generally good time by all." I explained forcing a smile but noting the awkward position he's put me in.

"I'm assuming you don't have to work tomorrow then?"

"Well yes, I'm not actually working tomorrow, No." I stammer.

"Which is it, yes or no?" He says writing something on my resume in front of him then looking up at me.

"I'm not working tomorrow." I reiterate and say in puzzled fashion. This already hasn't gotten off to a good start.

Clearing his throat and shaking his head as if I had just said something majorly ignorant, Geoff looked me up and down and said "Let's move on."

As the interview continued I realized my sense of humor and personality were not going to earn me any points. I knew my best bet was to stick with using my smarts to impress this guy and maybe win him back. We talked about my work history for a bit then transitioned into what his company does.

I've always known the best way to show that you're a good listener is called reflecting. It's when someone says something, you simply take the words re-arrange them a bit, change a few, then send it right back with a few extra bits of your own flavor.
To give a simple terms, is if someone goes "I went to the beach this weekend."

Your response would be something to the effect of "So you went to where the water meets the land, how was it?"

Geoff reclined fully into his chair, "What can you tell me a little about our company?"

I pause for a moment, "I understand your company works very similar to ebay but it's for the government."

Geoff looks annoyed, "Let me tell you a little more our company here. This company works like a federal contractor version of Ebay. Essentially the government puts out projects they want to get done and in order for them to be fulfilled/contracted the government needs to show that it had more than one bidder and that it got the best deal. This company represents a website that allows companies to bid on government contracts and for the government to show it got the best deal."

I try my best to summarize what he said and then asked him if they do a rating system similar to what ebay, where you are able to say whether or not a company if it did great work for you or if they completely botched a job.

He stares at me blankly for a moment then says, "I never said anything like that. You are completely wrong. That has absolutely nothing to do with what my company does or what I'm talking to you about. Were you listening to what I said?" Then shifts his eye brows as if to say, "what's you're excuse for being a retard."

I was shocked. I rarely encounter assholes of this nature. But I do know this game. This is a game in sales when someone inserts language that makes for an awkward pause the first person who says anything loses control. I lock eyes with him and shift my eyebrows to mirror his expression. It's called the first one to speak loses and I was ready for battle. He was clearly no stranger to this game as he glared at me while shifting his eyebrow expression to an intense scowl.

I can't believe this guy has the gall to insult someone that doesn't even work for him in such a nonchalant fashion. If this is going to be the guy I'm working for, I don't want this job. Kicking it into high gear, I maintain eye contact as I shift my chin upward and tilted my head slightly back while flattening my lips and lower my eyebrows to more to of a, "you are an unbelievable piece of shit" type of look.

We were in a full on eyebrow wrestling match. His expression would change and I'd change mine as well. It could only have been 15 seconds of silence that went by, but it seemed like minutes. I realize this guy isn't going to say anything for the rest of his life if it means he loses to a arrogant little shit like me on this one. This was an ex military man with too much pride.

Finally, harden my stare while I loosen my legs and sit all the way back in the chair. I kick my right leg up and onto my left knee and then fold my hands together to rest on top of it. I give him an asshole grin and calmly say straight faced, "I don't know what you want to say." I stared at him blankly.

"Well alright," Geoff said. "We have your information and we'll let you know within a week if you've got the job."

I start laughing, "Yeah, thanks I say shaking his hand with an iron grip half laughing. Looking even more puzzled than ever I turned and exited his office. "Happy St. Patrick's day said again on my way out.

Knowing full well I would not be getting that job EVER, I found myself drinking green beer at a bar with old friends putting on a fake Irish accent a mere 15 minutes later.

MOVE THAT BUS!

2010-09-27T23:38:00.000-07:00

While out for a friend's 30th birthday party this weekend lead to an interesting moment.

One of the many high points:
While pretending to be British with one of the English guys that was in the group, I spot the party bus passing by the window of the bar. "Fuck'n 'ell Mate," I say slamming my whiskey and coke on the table to take off in a full sprint down the road.

While everyone on the bus is cheering me on from the top back window of the double-decker, people watching from the sidewalks and bar windows take notice and began to cheer for me as I gain ground on the bus. My feet pound the street in a good old fashion man vs machine footrace over the length of 2 blocks. At one point I was parallel with it and had nearly caught up to the side door as the two story bus pulled away from a stoplight. With a sudden burst of energy and a winner take all mindset, I leapt off my feet with full extension to grasp the handle by the door as the bus accelerated.

I missed by my what was later estimated (and reenacted) by "everyone" on the bus to be an inch, I hit the asphalt and rolled a few times. Looking up from the ground, flat on my stomach, arms reaching towards the bus I shout "You've forgot one!"

Red brake lights on the back of the bus suddenly jump to life. Dusting myself off, I saunter up to the bus and receive a standing ovation, a beer, and a sea of high fives as I stroll to the back of the bus. It was was of those nights.

The 8th Mile

2010-07-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

Day drinking generally leads to night drinking out in San Diego. I had spent the entire day at an event called "over the line." I was slamming shots, gulping mixed drinks, and shotgunning beers from 11:00 AM to roughly 7:00 PM. When I finally made it back home I knew I needed to get something in my stomach to suck up the alcohol and rally quickly or face a certain defeat in the form of succumbing to sleep.

Barely a block away, I spot people drinking and eating on my front lawn. It's my room mates and all of their friends. According to drunk people that were there, they had been drinking in front of the house since roughly 2:00 and were ready to go out have fun at the bars. I smashed a few bites of a hamburger and a hot dog into my face, showered, and threw on some clothes all in matter of about 10 minutes. We ended up at a roof top bar where drinks were over priced and the wasn't any talent besides the people we brought to be found in the entire place.

I made an effort to try to convince the group to have a change of scenery and get out of the lack luster atmosphere and into a place more suited to our mood. I managed to convince two guys to make moves due to the fact that their "ladies" were pre-occupied with the other girls (like they had been all day). We walked a block and a half to my favorite drinking establishment in Pacific Beach, "Millers Field." Once inside, my eyes lit up. There were all kinds of opportunities to be had and we had the entire night to make it work.

I slapped down my card and got the first few rounds. I spent the next two hours using the guys as pivots,
"Hey girls, these two are having a terrible night, how would you cheer them up?"
"Hey have you met Brian? Well you have now, what's your friends name?"
"Me and my two friends agree, you guys are definitely not from around here, try and guess where we're from and if you get it right, one of these guys will buy you a shot."

The options were endless and time was on my side. I managed to meet a lot of talent. After a bit of running around on my own, I slip towards the back of the upstairs to have a smoke and relax. I saw a blond girl with a very mediocre body standing a few feet away, not talking to anybody.
"You can talk to me if all your friends left you behind. It could be worse," I glance to my right and point using my head in a "look that way" fashion towards a fat guy with a flat brim hat who was having trouble standing up, "I could be that guy."

She comes over and we hit it off pretty quickly. Her name was Jamie, she weighed in at probably 135ish (conservative guess), around 5'4, tangled long blond hair, and rough featured face. I finish my cigarette and her and I continue to talk and laugh.

She wasn't much to look at, but she's got one hell of a sense of humor. She said that she did a lot of amateur stand up and was glad I enjoyed her jokes. I hadn't met a sharp funny female comedian ever and I was a little enthralled. She offered to take me up to a few comedy clubs she preforms at and encouraged me to try it if I had the balls to go with her.

Jamie was loud, boisterous, witty and blunt. She was very opinionated, anti-establishment, and anit-pop culture and I dug it. I'm not sure if it was the liquor or Jamie's general demeanor, but I was impressed by something. Every once in a while I'll go for something that is off the beaten path just because it's clearly different. A few drinks later we start making out. After making out turned into heavy petting in the bar I decide to leave behind the handful of pretty girls I had talked with from earlier in the night and take the funny girl with a personality/the sure thing home. It's a very rare thing that a guy will choose personality/sense of humor over aesthetics. But something in me decided to give her a shot and actually entertained the idea of going on a few dates and maybe working on a project or two with her. Leaving the bar shortly after 12:45 I said goodbye to a few disappointed groups and walked arm in arm with my "prize."

During our five block walk back to my house she described with self deprecating humor some her previous encounters with guys that were for lack of a better term "assholes." Interjecting one of the famous lines I hear all to often, "we're not having sex, just so you know."

I think women often say this so they don't feel like a slut or it allows them look back and rationalize how they have morals in the morning after the no pants dance is already over. I don't know, I always laugh when I hear that line. It's like going to a theme park and saying, "we're only going to stand in line, we're not riding any of the rides today, are we clear?" But by the time you're at the front of the line there's no chance you're going to refuse to get on. I've always overcome this line with a pretty standard:
"I'd never dream of doing such a thing." OR "Who said I was willing to have sex" OR "We can set up ground rules and do everything but sex." Any of these will suffice.

As we neared my place she shared a final story of being dicked over by a guy and it was pretty apparent she had developed a sense of humor and worked on it diligently as some type of compensation for her lowered self worth. I decided to stray from the tried and true style of using the nights momentum to slide into a precarious situation once in my room and instead go with a different angle for this girl.

"She had the makings of a great girl but had never be treated as such." I thought to myself.

I decided I was going to pull out all stops and go 100% over the top for Jamie. Mind you she was the run of the mill bar-slut but something about her made me want to give her an evening that might make up for a few pricks she had come across and of course get off in the process.

I lit candles all around my room, I set the tone with some John Mayer/Jack Johnson, and started with a few innocent lines of flattery. Soon we found ourselves intertwined making on the bed. Moments later I pulled off her shirt as she flipped her hair back, I unhinged her bra while we continued to kiss. Rather than going in for the kill, I pause.

"How do you feel about getting an amazing oil massage?" I ask her.
"I'm not sure, nobody has ever given me one." She said smiling and half laughing.

"What? Hows that even possible," jumping up from the bed and pulling out an array of massage tools and oils. "I know it's a small gesture but I'd like to give you massage and maybe not every guy out there is setting you up for a disappointment. She smiles and lays down.

While john mayer's guitar whirred in the background, I massaged her shoulders and back with swaths of oil applied here and there. I could tell she's enjoying it as she let's out sounds of pleasure and long sighs while I spend a good 20 minutes working on just her back and shoulders. Part of me felt it was a nice gesture to do something like that for a girl that doesn't usually get this type of treatment.

As I neared her lower back I paused, "Hmmm, these pants are just going to have to come off."
"No. They're staying on." She said in a sweet tone.
"Well I don't want to get oil on them" I say leaning in to kiss her neck and earlobe "and if I stop here that's only half of a massage."

She turned over and started to kiss me and as I went to unbutton her jeans she grabbed my hand, "I said no." She looked up at me giving me the people's eyebrow.

I cocked my head to the side, "I don't understand?"
"You seem like a really awesome guy and if I put out on the first night, you'll never call me again."

I start to laugh, "Well that's very sweet but we've already set up our first date so you don't have to worry about that. I brought you back here because you seem like a fun person to hang out with."
"Thanks, but I'm starting to think that you and I might have something and if I hook up with you then we won't talk again." She said.
"I'm not the other guys you've been dicked over by. If I just wanted to bang you as we got in the door there wouldn't have been any need for all of this," I say smiling while gesturing to world around us.
"We can have sex after our second date." She says rolling over.
"You're actually serious?" I ask a bit perturbed by the recent development.
"Well yeah, I just don't want our first time hooking up to be a result of drunk night feeling each other up at a bar." She says.
"Ok, well I'm not saying we should have sex but there are plenty of things we could do that might be just as fun," I say.
"I want to know that you're the right one." She says turning back over and smiling.

I pause waiting for her to interject something like "I'm just kidding! Let's fuck like otters!" But nothing, she's serious. By treating a barslut like a real woman I had in turn boosted her ego to a level beyond anything that I could reason with thus cockblocking myself in the process.
"Wow, you're fucking nuts." I say matter of factly. "I had the chance to take home a good number of really attractive women from that bar tonight. I chose you over them due to the fact that you were blunt and didn't much care for silly rules about what you should or shouldn't do with a guy you're attracted to."

"I am really attracted to you, but I just want to do it after I know you'll call me again." She says rubbing my arm.

Frustrated and on the brink of giving I up, I blurt out, "Are you on the rag or something?"
"No." She says rolling her eyes.

"Well that's absolutely nuts. I can tell you this, if I go to sleep without any further fun I'm definitely not going to call you." I say surprised by the interesting twist I've managed to pull.

"We can kiss but that's all I'm doing tonight." She says trying to sound like she's reasoning with me.

"You were rubbing my dick at the bar!? How is this any different?" I exclaim

"Well that's before I saw that you could be a caring guy." She explains. "Come on, we can kiss all night."

I get up blow out all my candles in the room and shut off the music. "I'm too tired to try to make this work. I lay back down and pass out within minutes.

In the morning I'm awoken to movement next to me.

Jamie is trying to wake me, "Ey! Ey! Yo I'm tryin' roll out. You got a ride cause I ain't tryin' to walk."

"What the fuck?" I say confused by her ebonics. For some reason Jamie was speaking in slang/ebonics and wasn't kidding.

"I gotz sum stuff I, you know, that needs to be done and all and I ain't trying to walk back."

"Oh my god, when did you start talking like this?!" I say still drunk and trying to get my bearings on what's going on. "What is this a rap video? When did you start talking ghetto?"

She's now standing by the door. "Huh? Eh come on man, I'm just tryin' to roll out. You can go back sleep'n afta' you get me back home."

I start laughing squinting at the clock, it's only 7:15 and I'm still quite drunk "Listen up 50 cent, my car is in Clarendon (which is a city in Northern Virginia and not California), perhaps you can get a ride back to the 8th Mile with Eminem."

She starts using ghetto hand gestures reserved only for Jay-Z "Nah man, that ain't even cool though. It ain't like that, I need a ride."

Laughing even more hysterically I say, "Somebody drop this girl a beat! Oh Dayum!"

"Man! You trippin' and busted anyway," Jamie shouts walking out of my room.

"I can't hear out of my left headphone!" I yell after her while laughing as I hear her rushing down the steps to leave my town house. I downed a glass of water and layed back down to sleep for another few hours. I never heard from her again.

The Brazilian Job

2010-06-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

It was a Tuesday night in San Diego and I was out at the bars celebrating moving into my new place with one of my female room mates and her friends. The night was set to be a taco Tuesday adventure.

Many of the bars in San Diego have drink and food specials(tacos obviously) on Tuesdays to get students and young professionals out and in the "spending mood." With deals like "$3 you-call-its" or "$5 endless tacos," you don't exactly have to twist anyone's arm to get out and have fun.

We started our night off at a few of the slower pace and lounge-type drinking holes, each of us gulping down a number of drinks at each bar before ending up at a place called Typhoon. Typhoon is a bar made for "the younger crowd." When I say younger I mean 16-20 year-olds with fake ID's or girls who are of age but act as though they're 16-20.

This place is tricky, most of the girls are incredibly attractive, but also incredibly unapproachable. This is a venue where girls want to have a "girls night out" where they will spend the evening dancing and drinking exclusively with each other or a select group of guys they already know. The hassle of talking with men they haven't met before is clearly a foreign concept. This is also happens to be home of the most damning, awkward, and effortless of rejection-moves. In fact it was born and named by me in this very bar.

The art of giving "the San Diego spin" is unmistakably the most awkward way to tell a guy "I'm not interested." Picture a somewhat crowded beach bar, a man spots one or more females not talking to anyone. While taking one last sip of his drink, the man conjures up a bit of courage and sets off on a approach in attempts to start a duologue. The first "line" is delivered with style and enthusiasm and normally after that it's assumed the girl with respond in one of two ways; she likes it or hates. If she likes it she responds positively and make's an effort at a retort.

In this town, if they don't like what they're hearing, they might unleash a "San Diego Spin." Imagine a brief blank stare as if to say "I don't speak english," they may even give that look at each other and without speaking a work. Then silently as if it was rehearsed and choreographed in a dance studio filled with mirrors meant for Russian ballet prodigies, they silently turn 180 degrees. Often this half spin can be seen coupled with an eye roll.

I'd like to think of it as walking up to shake someone's hand and having them turn to fart on it rather than reciprocate the gesture. I could also liken it to an ostrich burring its head in the sand. The assumption is made that the guy will leave because it appears that he is longer in sight. It makes for an especially awkward moment for the guy given the silence and lack of explanation for turning away his efforts to have a conversation. More interesting, although the girl thinks she's just asserted her "power-move," she leaves herself into a further strange situation if she turns around too soon and he's still just standing there.

Now I've tried every line to combat the "San Diego Spin":
-"do you hear better when you face that way?"
-"I normally charge $30 to braid hair, tell you what I'll braid half for free ok?"
-"I think the back of you looks great too, that's pretty much why I came over here."
-"This is an odd way of asking me to dance, I like your style."
Etc... all of which have failed to elicit a reaction. But I digress... back to Typhoon itself,

It's a relatively spacious venue with seating in the front, it even has an open area for people smoking cigarettes at booths or smaller tables. There are a total of four bars within this place, two separate bar stations in the front and two in the back. Typhoon, like any "beach-bar/club" is loud, dark, and packed especially with on the tiny dance floor. The music selection is pretty consistently euro-pop, 80's rock/dance music, and on occasion rap. Spot lights with reds and pinks swirl around the inside lending itself to a crowd that does a lot of fist pumping and high-fiving.

The group of six of us stroll is lightly buzzed around 10. We snake our way through the crowd to the back of the establishment and eventually post up on bar stools behind the bar beside the dance floor. I make an effort to continue conversing with my room mate but I start to get tired of competing with the volume of the music just be having "chit-chat." Yelling over a Micheal Jackson song, I lean into my room mate Allison, "You'll have to excuse me, I'm going wonder around for a bit." Just before leaving I turn to see the entire group not actually speaking to each other but bobbing their heads to music and sipping drinks.

I get back towards the front of bar in hopes of finding myself a cigarette but not before downing a beer, a shot, and a few sips of a mixed drink.

Fairly quickly, I manage get a cigarette as the drinks start to catch up with me. I start a few conversations and I wind up talking with random girls here and there. I spot the girls that want guys to buy them drinks all night. These girls are usually spotted by the look of annoyance on their faces that denotes the fact that they don't want to talk, they just want the drinks you're supposed to be buying for them already. "Will you buy me and my friends shots?" I laugh and move on.

A few more double jack & cokes later I'm feeling the alcohol take effect. By this point, I've made a few quality exchanges and I even ended up running into one of my wingmen and his friends. We came to an agreement that this bar was not going to produce a quality night and if we were to succeed, we would have our best chances at the bar across the street. As we set off towards the front of the bar to exit, I attempt to finish my drink while walking. Only a mere 10 steps from the front door, a gorgeous girl with long chestnut brown hair steps in my way.
With a thick Brazilian accent she drapes her hand over my neck, "Why are you leaving so soon?" she gazes deeply into my eyes then strikes a half a smirk.

I was nearly dumbfounded that anyone would decide to pick me out of a crowd, much less this girl. It was absolutely worth a minute of my time.
"I'm going to the bar across the street with some friends," I say looking at her her and turning my head towards the bar to see that my friends hadn't waited for me. "But I guess you just gave me a reason stick around."

"You have to speak a little slower," She says smiling looking me up and down, "my English is not, erm, a very good yet. You are a very cute!" She says starting to laugh and bite her lip.
I start to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, she's 5'7, maybe 110 lbs, exotic Brazilian, she's got long light brown hair with dark mysterious eyes. Her body is practically perfect, all the right curves fitting into skin tight jeans and a low cut shirt.

"Amazing," I think and may have said out loud.

"Hey here is my friend, she is from Brazil with me." The cute girl says taking me by the hand pulling me a few feet to further from the door. I glance over and see a woman that looks like a toad with red hair that might as well be ten years older. She looks rough.

Time passes as we start to talk about where we're from and how we ended up in San Diego. The cute girl's name is Stephanie and she's here studying. After another minute of chatting the two girls begin to talk in Portuguese.

"I wish I knew what you kids were saying," I say trying to smile while scratching my head. The older one seems to have an agenda and I can't tell if she's mad, wants to leave, likes me, etc.

I start to ask her about the program she's in and while in mid sentence she locks eyes with me, I lose my train of thought and she leans in closing her eyes. Time slows down like scene in the movie big fish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEeO6wli8-I&feature=related We start to kiss for a few minutes. I'm not sure how it happened but it just did.

Another minute of brief conversation separated by more kissing goes by and I am in disbelief how easy this is. As we continue to talk and kiss I start to notice an older man in his mid 60's posted up at the side of the bar watching us out of the corner of his eye. I turn us slightly to get a better angle, at first I thought he was just perving on young people at a beach bar, but it seemed like more than that.

It was also clear that he was unmistakeably out of place in this bar. There wasn't a soul there besides him that was over the age of 25. As the conversation heats up, I start to keep one of my eyes open mid kiss to watch the old man walk up to the roommate and exchange words before going back to his spot by the bar. Something isn't right.

Pulling away slowly from a very long passionate kiss, Stephanie looks into my eyes and says softly, "I want to have a sex with you, emm, for eight hours. Right now."
Alarms are going off in my head. This girl seems to be completely blown away by me and wants to get crazy right away. I'm no day at the beach, but I'd like to think I'm a reasonably good looking guy who has it in him to get into something like this every once in a while. Yet there is clearly something going on.

"I want a sex with all of your body." she says gently biting her lower lip.

I start to laugh a little, "I live less than two blocks away, we could easily walk to my house right now and maybe be back here before the bar closes." I start sliding my hands down her lower back to discover there's definitely a reason people google the term "Brazilian ass.

"Wow, you've got a nice butt," I say, "I mean that thing is nice, I want to be friends with it." I realize moments after, my Ron Burgundy reference was a million miles over her head and there is probably zero chance that she got it.

"I cannot go to your place, you must come to my house in little Italy." She says rubbing my chest, "I can't leave my friend behind, she must stay with me."

I pull her closer into me by the belt loops while tilting my head towards my left shoulder and giving her a look,"But it's just right there, we can be there in less than five minutes."

I just can't seem to figure out why she wouldn't just want to go with me to my place, it's so much closer. "I've got to be at work in the morning," I say smiling, "I can drop you off on my way to work."

She begins to rub my stomach and continues to tell me how bad she wants me. The room mate looking more irritated says something in Portuguese as we lean in to kiss again. Glancing over to see her friend eyeballing us as well as the old man appearing impatient with eyes fixed on us. By now she's rubbing my body all over, her hands graze my belt and waist. I immediately notice she's worked one of her hands into the top of my front pocket and is slowly pulling my wallet out of my jeans while the other is working the family jewels- clearly a distraction.
My hand snaps on to her wrist, I twist it while pulling it up to eye level and her facial expression changes from surprise to fear.

"What is this?" I ask throwing her wrist off to the side and stepping back. "YOU WERE TRYING TO ROB ME?!"

She puts on a big puppy dog look, "You don't want to fuck me?"

I start to laugh.

"YOU MUST BE JOKING?!" I yell angrily backing up a few more steps, "You were trying to take my wallet just now?!"

I direct both hands in a "show her what's she's won" gesture at my wallet hanging halfway out of my jeans.

She steps closer and tries to come in for an embrace as I block her, "I don't understand?" She says trying to remain in her sexy character.

I retreat back into a booth and scoot against the wall.

"You think you're real fucking clever don't you?" I say as she sits at the edge of the booth with big puppy dog eyes.

"You think you spotted a real easy target," I say glaring at her.

Stephanie shakes her head, "No-no, I promise. I want give a lot of sex with you. We can go now, to little Italy."

"You've got some nerve," I say raising my voice even louder, attracting some attention as I notice she doesn't like the attention.

"Tell that bitch room mate of yours to come over here and empty her purse and if she doesn't have more than two wallets or a weapon in there I'll go hop in a cab right now."

Her face goes pale. "We don't need to do that." she says lowering her eyes clearly guilty.

"Did you assume I was that drunk or just that stupid?" I say pissed off and starting to realize I was definitely not getting lucky tonight. Looking up, the old man now standing instead of seated at a bar stool and is staring at the two of us nearly on his tip toes to get a better look.

She slowly leans in and begins to kiss my ear. My leg starts tapping like thumper from the movie Bambi,
"If you come now, I'll let you fuck me and my room mate."

Rolling my eyes, I catch eyes with the old guy who has positioned himself even closer in an attempt to figure out what's going on.

"And who the fuck is THAT GUY?" I yell doing an exaggerated "first down" arm and hand motion in his direction.

He practically jumps seeing me scowling and pointing directly at him and quickly turns around and disappears deeper into the bar.

Without turning around she shakes her head and says, "I don't know him."

"Oh bullshit," I say with a tone of self-satisfaction having completely uncovered this con job, "Tell you what sweetheart, give me your number I'll call you for lunch before you head back to Brazil."

She nods as I take out my phone,"Ok, it's 5-5-5..."

I practically lose it, "Oh would you get fucked!" I shout pushing past her and getting up to head out. This girl actually tried to give me a 555 area code.
I pull out one of my business cards and toss it in her direction.

"If you're actually real and this has been a big misunderstanding, feel free to call." I turn around and walk out pissed off and annoyed.

A few short moments later while far enough out of sight I see Stephanie come out of the bar followed by her room mate, and the old guy.

"Bitch..." I say to myself quietly.

Just across the street are two police cruisers are parked, they're watching people come out of the bars and making sure there's no trouble in their town. I make my way up to one of the cop cars and tap on the window.

The window lowers and I take a deep breath, "Let me preface this by saying yes I've been drinking. I just had a girl try to steal my wallet out of my pocket then she tried to invite me downtown in a really shady way to a place that I might have run into some deep trouble. Do these things happen or am I just being really paranoid?"

The cop half chuckles,"That happens about half a dozen times a week. Usually they use the girl as bait and she'll lead the guy to a room somewhere and beat the guy up then take his money. They also keep the ID so they can come find you if you tell the police."

My legs almost buckle. "I can point the girl out right now, she just left the bar, we can still catch her!" I exclaim.

Shaking his head in a very matter of fact way the cops says, "We have to catch her in the act to prove anything."

A puzzled look comes over my face, "Well what happens to the next guy that doesn't figure out it's a con job and gets totally fucked?"

"Sucks to be him doesn't it?" The cop says rolling up the window.

I walked home puzzled and confused. Given the right timing or day, there's not much that saved me from finding my dick in the dirt and in a world of trouble. If this was a Friday or Saturday I may not have been so lucky.

PriAmerica

2010-05-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

It's 6:30 AM here and I am awoken to my phone vibrating on my dresser. It stops ringing and I turn it over and see an unfamiliar 571 number (northern Va area code), Could this be a friend? An emergency? Parent from work? Hospital?!

A voicemail pops up.

I listen to it, "Hey Taylor this is Matt, we haven't met but someone passed along your information to me and I'd like to talk to you about a position at our company..."

I suspect I already know what this crap is right off the bat. It sounded like the same jackoff from a company called Priamerica that called me months ago. It's multi-level marketing scam with credit card financing.

I call back.

"Hello this is Matt."
"Hey Matt, I just got your message- do you work for a company called PRE-American?"
"Actually it's PRI-America" Matt retorts in a upset tone.
"Yeah you're company is a scam, thanks buddy." CLICK. I end the call.

Seconds later the phone rings again, it's the same number, and mind you it's 6:30 AM.

"Hello, this is Taylor." I say pleasantly
"Hey, what makes you think you can call this job a scam?!" Matt yells into the speaker irately.
I start to laugh, "Matt I don't have time to explain how google searches work."

Matt even more angered by my last remark starts up one of his rants I'm sure swims around his head all day, usually these rants are filed along with other inadequacies in his life like the one about "every guy experiments with boys his age, the hangover was a good movie, size doesn't matter, etc."

However this particular rant in its various forms happens frequently and usually pops up when educated people catch wind of the shit sandwich he's asking them to take a bite of.

I decide to interrupt him a few seconds in.
"What is this? What are you mad at me? Is this our first fight?"
Stunned by the absurdity of my comment Matt pauses and questions the remote chance he may have contacted someone who is more displaced from reality than even he is.
"Listen Matt," I say in my adult businessman voice at 6:30 AM, "I'm sure in your mind, you work for a very nice place, with nice people, and do good things. I can't imagine you would want to work for a place that takes advantage of people, you seem like a nice guy."
He starts to try to interrupt," I am a nice guy. Do you think this company would be in business if it wasn't a legitimate..."
I continue to talk over him, "But Matt, I live 3,000 miles away in San Diego, California. I'm not going to work at the office in Herndon, Virginia. You woke me up, early on a Friday, to inquire about a position I've already turned down twice in the past. What do you care if someone 3,000 miles away thinks about you, your job, or your company."

Matt pauses,"Well, you do understand that my job is at a legitimate place and I do real work."
I start to laugh, "Yes Matt, I'm sure it's very nice."
As I start to laugh even louder Matt hangs up the phone. HAPPPY FRIDAY!

A Bakers Dozen

2009-11-19T09:32:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine and I had been hitting the bars in Arlington, Virginia late one night and we found ourselves at a place called Witlows. The best way to describe it would be, halfway between a restaurant and a dive bar but with the decor of a 1950s diner.

We both grab some drinks and scan the area. I see a petite cute blond sitting alone at a table. She looked like she'd drank maybe a little more than she was used to and was genuinely bored. So I shot over in a flash.

"You look like you're having fun, may I join you?" I say not waiting for an answer as I pull a chair out and sit down. We exchange the simple puppy dog and ice cream conversation and we get to talking about our careers.

"What do you do for a living?" I ask lifting my jack and coke to my lips.

"I'm a baker." She says very softly, seemingly bored with me and our conversation already.

"Like a real baker? With the cool hat and everything?" I ask having genuinely never made a baker.

"What? No?" She mumbles looking around as if the other imaginary people at the table will strike up a more interesting conversation.

"So, Do you make cookies and cup cakes for nice boys?" I ask trying to get off the topic of her work uniform.

"Sometimes I guess." She says awkwardly.

"Well that's good," I exclaim to trying to elicit some energy from this boring girl. But I'm determined to win this girl over and worst case scenario get a phone number.

I hesitate for a moment.
"Is a bakers dozen really 13 or is it off by one because most bakers can't count?" I say in a playful manner as I crack a smile.

Folding her arms and cocking her head to the side she says,"What the fuck? I have no idea what you're talking about."

This girl doesn't want to play ball.

"What about the pans you guys use? Do you guys have the fancy no stick coatings or do you keep in all natural?" I ask pleasantly surprised that I would have this many good questions for a baker.

"FUCK OFF ASSHOLE!" She yells as she gets up to rejoin her friends leaving me alone, puzzled, and frustrated at the table.

I finish my drink and as I'm standing up I spot the "mother-bird" of the group making her way over to me with some conviction. I already know she's come to pay me visit for my conversation with her friend. The mother-bird is almost always the least attractive girl of the group, often sporting longer dark brown hair with glasses. She is easily identified as the fattest and rudest one of the entourage. She appears to be the type to often bring up the idea of a late night fast food run, as it dually cockblocks and feeds her addiction to unhealthy foods. Due to her low self esteem, she will constantly put down anyone who tries to talk to her friends based on the realization that the guys would never give her the time of day... unless it was last call.

"Hey, you've got some nerve being that rude to my friend! What's your problem man?!"

"What? Me? I was nothing but nice to your friend, she claims to be a baker and doesn't know the first thing about baking." I announce with no reservations.

Shaking her head, "you are retarded. She's a BANKER. As in someone who works with money."

"Well then she should speak up when she talks to people in a bar." I say looking at her like she's the asshole.

As she turns to leave I zing her with one last verbal-jab "ANNNDD... Just because someone is a Walmart greeter, doesn't mean they work in hospitality. The only people who call themselves bankers are kids during the game of monopoly."

She turns mid stride to give me the shitty momma bird scowl that I've seen almost a million times and I step up to the bar to order another drink.

Magnums Condoms Conspiracy

2009-10-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

I encountered yet another strange incident with condoms a few days ago. I can honestly say, I didn't quite know how to handle this one because it was somewhat of paradox.

Let me provide some background and insight first. I graduated less than a year ago and due to the amount of debt I've accumulated, I've had to move back home and pay back some of my loans. I was working at my desk in my room at home when I opened my top desk drawer to retrieve a pen. To my surprise, there was a stack of about 8 magnum condoms in golden wrappers. They're not all attached in one long line of mammoth condoms. But they are held together by that perforated edge in a group of Five and three. I know I didn't put them there because I've never purchased magnums. I don't mind saying that I'm not a magnum guy, I'm just not. So therefore this strikes me as somewhat of an odd thing to be in my desk.

Then I began to wonder, who would do this and for what reason.

If it was my mom, I would have to assume that she did it because she wanted me to be "safe." But why was there no mention of this gesture to explain their sudden appearance. Why the hell did she get magnums?! What gene pool attribute did I clearly miss out on if that's what she assumes is the family standard. Furthermore, my mom and I don't have the best of communication when it comes to anything like this. And I think the thought of asking about them would be a very strange conversation to have with your mother.

If it was my dad, again I would be confronted with a very strange conversation if I asked him about it. And would this also mean I've missed out on a certain family trait? But I rather doubt it would be his style to drop something off like.

My brother had moved out only a few week prior and took the dog with him. I don't think he or the dog were suspects.

That brings me to my little sister. She had just moved back in a few weeks ago. She had just recently turned 21. Which infers that shes of a normal age to be encountering precarious situations that might require one of these condoms. However the reasoning for this "gift" is lost on me. We don't play jokes on one another and we're not exactly close. Was the assumption made that since she doesn't need them anymore, I should take them. So rather than waste them and throw them away, it would be best placed in my care? I had no desire to find out my sister was having sex with some guy that had a pringles can for a penis. This was quite the debacle because I wanted to know how they got into my possession.

A week went by and I hadn't asked anyone about them, but I still wanted to find out who put them in my room. To solve this mystery I would have to do the only reasonable thing. I decided to hide them in my sister's top desk drawer and wait for a response. If she confronted me about it and acted like she had no clue where they came from, I would know it was one of my parents.

If nothing happened, that would mean one of two things. It might mean that she would know that giving your older brother magnum condoms is very strange and I'm more clever than I look. Or it might mean that these condoms have been getting passed around to different members of the family for years. But because none of us will confront another due to the can of worms that would come out this, we all remain quiet and continue to pass these condoms to each other. Either way the more I thought about it, the more implications could be reached.

I threw them in my sisters top desk drawer and I've yet to hear anything about them. I'm just glad it's over with... for now.

Blind Date Bebacle

2009-10-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Blind dates always provide hilarious moments of awkwardness and often take you to the strangest of places based on the fact that you have very little prior knowledge of your counterpart. I've been on a hand full of blind dates based on the wonders that is the internet. But, the classic- truest form of blind date is when a friend matches you up with somebody else.

It was late fall and I had recently got employment with a home remodeling company in Northern Virginia as a Sales Rep. The previous home remodeling sales gig I had been a part of was more of an expense than a money maker. I maintained a friendship with one of the guys who worked there, his name was Mike. Mike and I weren't exactly close, but we had drank together a few times and he seemed like a nice enough kid. He was a few years older and looked like an average guy 6 feet tall short brown hair with a medium build. The type of guy who lied about the girls that he "got with," but still a fun guy nonetheless. Mike had somewhat of a dangerous past, but after getting out of federal prison, he seemed to be going in the right direction. Yeah, I know...

The story starts with my Friday night plans being shattered by a flaky girl that I had hooked up with once before. While I scrolled through old contacts in my phone, it became painfully obvious that I had nearly exhausted/alienated/pissed off all of my female contacts. It looked as if I was in for one of those "guys night out" evenings.

Let me elaborate, "Guys night out" is the "purgatory" or "groundhog day" of social functions. Nothing changes and every night ends similarly. The same conversations take place amid my circle of friends consisting of an all male group of 3-5 of us. We end up going to the same bars, drinking the same drinks, usually blacking out, and ending up at the same houses to sleep on the same couches. Usually there is nothing that you can do to change the way the evening ends... You will end up blacking out and passing out on a couch. Many of my friends fail to understand or appreciate the art of a good wingman... so it's even more rare that my friends make an effort to peruse females with me, much less on their own.

While going through the contacts in my phone a second/third time with the "if you had to, would you?" mindset, I receive a call from good old Mike.

"Hello?" I say a little confused to hearing from a guy I no longer work with.

"Taylor! Listen, I need a huge favor," Mike starts, "I have a date with this really cute blond and she won't go on a date with me unless I find her friend a date to come with us."

I start to laugh. "Sounds like a personal problem Mike, what does this friend look like."

"Alright..." I say slowly.

"I honestly don't know anything about her, but the girl I'm trying to take out tonight is totally hot and she's reassured me that her friend is too," Mike explains.

"Ok Mike, and where were you trying to go with these girls?" I say, knowing that Mike lives in an area that would be considered a hicktown, roughly 45 minutes away from me.

"We would be going to a really cool bar in Leesburg," Says Mike confidently "It's a fun place called Ned Devines in Sterling. Come on man, I'll even buy you drinks."

I didn't need any further convincing with free cocktails on the line. Mike and I made arrangements to meet up, drop off my car, and head over to pick up our dates and then flash over to a house party before going to the bar.

After driving an hour to meet Mike in Leesburg, Virignia I find myself experiencing somewhat of a interesting moment. I realize I have absolutely no information to go on this evening and I am guaranteed to find myself in multiple new situations just based on the bizarre nature of how this entire thing is beginning to come together. I flick my cigarette across a few spaces as I pull beside Mike sitting in his car in a convenient store parking. I get out, lock the doors, and get into the empty passenger seat of Mikes car and let out a big sigh.

Mike starts the car and puts it into reverse, "Ready for a fun night!?"

Half laughing I respond. "well fuck it, I'm here now, lets do this thing."

Windows down, blasting rap music, swerving in and out of traffic, Mike and I get pumped to meet up with the girls.

Within 10 minutes we're in front my date's apartment. To my surprise her place was located in a middle/upscale, reasonably new looking, gated off apartment complex. Mike's date Lauren met us at the bottom of the building to let us in. As we pulled into the parking spot, I could see what he liked about her. Lauren was 23, she had long blond hair down to her lower back. She had a cute smile and spoke with a slight southern twang. She also had a huge ass and great boobs, only downfall was the slight drinking belly. This was obviously your standard issue dumb slut redneck party girl. Those girls tend to be fun.

"See!" Mike said to me nodding in my direction while rolling up the window in an effor to re-assure me that I had made the right choice by coming out. I had to admit, if my date turned out to be half of what Mike's girl was, I'd probably be happy.

We took the stairs to her third floor apartment and walked right in. It was furnished relatively nicely, not a pig sty. There were a lot of wine bottles laying around, but that usually doesn't mean anything. I can feel my heart start to beat faster. I'm at the peak of my nervousness, I haven't the slightest clue what to expect.

"So, where is my date for the evening?" I ask Lauren while she starts to pour me and mike a glace of wine.

"I think she's just finishing up getting ready" Lauren says handing me my glass.

A small child walks into the room and says "have you seen my mommy?"

My heart starts to pound even faster and my face goes flush. I instantly lock eyes with Mike and glare at him. "DUDE!?"

He gives me a eyebrow raise and a gesture as if he's just introduced James bond to the poker table at a fancy casino.

In disbelief, I start looking at the girl running around the apparent and then back at Mike, back at the girl, "You didn't say she had a Ki.."

"Hey GUYS!" announces a girl standing behind the counter. "I'm Kristen!"

Let me preface this by saying, Kristen was nothing like Mike's date Lauren. Kristen was 29 years old and looked it. She was a brunette over 6 ft tall, she had to weigh somewhere in the range of 180. She wasn't "fat," I'd just call it "thick." She had on black high heels, skin tight jeans that showed off her huge legs... they were as thick as telephone poles. And to top it off she wore a black low cut shirt that pushed her fat tits together that seemed to overstate the word "cleavage." The shirt itself was a trip with lots of strange designs and sparkling shit all over it. It looked like a clown had ingested sparkles and threw up all over her torso and then whipped off its face as well. All of this this topped off with a redneck "wavy dark hair" perm.

Mike looks her up and down and begins to laugh and looks at me. "This is your date, his name is Taylor!"

While still staring at Mike, I naturally extend my hand to shake hers in an automatic motion still in disbelief and shock at the trick that has been played on me. Kristen grabs a glass of wine and starts chatting with Lauren.

"Dude?! What the fuck?!" I grab mike firmly by the shoulder and pull him towards the door, "she's too old for me, she has a kid, and shes gross."

Mike just keeps laughing, "Taylor, I had no idea man. Lauren said she was cute! I'll be damned we both got lied to."

"This isn't cool shit hea..." The child- a girl around six years old is tugging on my shirt.

"Yes?" I say looking down at the little girl. "Are you my mom's new boyfriend?"

My face goes red. I laugh, "no me and your mother just met tonight." As she scampers off, I fiercely glare once again at Mike who is almost crying because he's laughing so hard.

"Are you guys ready to go?!" Kristen (my date) asks while trying to strike a sexy pose with the wine glass in her hand.

"Yeah I'm ready when ever you are" I say holding my empty wine glass up in a cheersing motion in her direction.

She leaves the room with Lauren and her daughter for a moment, "DUDE!?" I lean into Mike, "This is bullshit man, I can't do this. I didn't sign up for this shit."

Mike remains confident, "No, you can do it man. I really need this, I promise it's going to get better."

Mike steps outside while pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and I follow.

We all go down to the bottom of the building and approach a compact car. Kristen's daughter has a miniature suitcase on wheels with her because she's going to be dropped off at a baby sitters house while we go out. Mike's date is driving, he's sitting shotgun, and I open door to the back passenger seat.

"Oh hunny," Kristen says to her daughter, "Why don't you sit next to Mr. Taylor in the middle seat so mommy can have more room."

So there we are, driving down the road with my blind date's child between myself and her. I can do nothing but stare out the window and try to press most of my body against the door and try to put myself in my happy place.

After a 15 minute drive, we arrive at the baby sitters house. Instead of going directly to the bar, we hang out for drinks. Imagine naked small children being chased by larger screaming children around a very small the kitchen and living room of a one room apartment. All the while, I'm trying to act "normal."

Kristen finds me outside on the balcony and I begin to make the mistake of learning more about her. She dropped out of high school and got a GED. Later she managed to obtain a prestigious two year associates degree from a community college. She works in construction, has a crazy ex-husband who was abusive, and claims to give the best blow jobs ever. Shortly after this, Kristen and another woman who had come to visit us outside start to swap stories about the less than attractive details of the "afterbirth" and "remnants" of pregnancy. Imagine my awkwardness.

We decide the time has finally come to venture out into the nightlife that is Leesburg/Sterling. We arrive at the bar around ten and it's relatively empty. It's arrangement is quite simplistic, one large bar area and one large dance floor just below the bar. I step up to the bar and ask for a jack and coke.

"I'll take Johnny Walker double on the rocks." Kristen says sitting down next to me.

"I'll take a beach house in Mexico." I say laughing at the absurdity of her boldness and assumptions.

"You're not going to buy my drink?!" Kristen shouts stunned at my gesture.

"The moment you assumed I was going to, you lost it." I say calmly as I pick up my drink and hand off my credit card to the bartender.

I have no problem paying for drinks when the situation warrants the gesture. But given the fact that I wanted nothing to do with this girl, she assumed I would just take orders from her, and not to mention her first of many beverages was going to run me somewhere around $20... (mind you I was 22 and still in college) I felt compelled to decline.

She stood there for a moment; confused. maybe she'd never encountered this situation before or maybe she assumed I was going to be a pushover simply based on the my quiet demeanor due to lack of interest.

I followed her with my eyes. She approached Mike in a very direct manor and was clearly yelling about our situation. Mike comes slowly walking over to me a few moments later. I sit still stiring my drink.

"Dude, just buy her a drink. I told her you're kind of broke, she says she understands. So use this twenty and just buy her what she wants." Mike says handing me the bill while angling himself so the girls can see he is giving me money.

"Mike. What the Fuck!?" I say lowering my head. "I don't like to buy strange women drinks especially the ugly ones with kids"

"She's only got one kid." Mike calmly says in her defense.

"You know what I mean." I finish my jack and coke while shaking my head with a half grin.

"Well I just thought you were broke" Mike says laughing.

"You have yourself a good time with the hotter one of the two buddy, I guess I'll just go fuck myself." I turn back to bar and proceed to order another drink.

As the bar fills out, the general demographic was a bit out of my usual spots. I don't know if they were giving flat brim hats out at the door, but everyone had one of those on and a XXL tee-shirt that went nearly down to their knees. This would have been more entertaining if the guys had came with girls. Unfortunately, the girl to guy ratio was nearly 1 to 6. And the girls that were there were fat short Spanish chicks that had no business wearing tight white pants. This also meant that Kristen was now fast becoming a hot commodity and was also on a personal mission to prove to me how many drinks she could have bought for her by random guys in one night.

She kept looking in my direction while holding up drinks that different guys were buying her. Somehow trying to make me jealous of her conquests over every group of 50 cent impersonators.

Every once in a while Kristen would even stop by to brag about me how many drinks and phone numbers she had received. I would then make jokes as to the quality of of the gentleman she was referring to, then she would run off in frustration to find more guys.

Eventually I was drunk enough to decide I'd had enough of this debacle. I told Mike I was ready to go. Within 40 minutes we had rounded up the entire crew and were on our way outside. It had begun to rain slightly and I let Kristen borrow my jacket. It was shortly after 12:45 and the night was still young. Mike knew of a house party that was rumored to have a keg or two and be decent. So we set off for said house party, it was fifteen minutes away.

Upon arrival it was clear that the "house party" was yet another disappointment in my long chain of failures this evening. What was thought to be a "house" was actually a condo. What was thought to be a "party" was three stoned guys sitting around a bong on one couch watching cartoon network. And what was thought to be a keg was actually three beers left in the fridge.

"Are you just fucking with me now to see what else I'll go along with?" I ask Mike with an element of frustration.

Mike starts to laugh, "I didn't know man, they're the ones that called it a party. Where's your date?"

I looked around the small living room and realized that she wasn't in the condo. I stepped outside into the rain to find her on her hands and knees atop a muddy patch of grass puking her brains out. I walk over and pull some her hair back, she's still got my sports jacket on and it's now full of mud and drenched with rain.

"So what did we learn?" I asked pretending Kristen was as old her own kid.

Kristen bows her head while spitting spindles of vomit and saliva onto the grass, "Men are assholes."

Rather than delve into her problems, I helped her to her feet and threw her in the back of Laurens car and left the door open so she could continue to vomit. I managed to cajole Mike and Lauren back out of the "house party," and we set off to pick up the kid and drop this chick and her kid off where she would forever be out of my life.

We picked up her daughter who was wide awake at nearly 2:00 AM. She sat beside me in car telling me stories about her evening. I used one word responses and glared out the window. We were nearly five minutes away from ending the night.

"Shoot! We have to turn around!" Kristen shouts.

Mike, who was sitting in the drivers seat whips his head around, "WHY?!"

"I left my purse with the keys at the baby sitters house, I'm sorry guys." Kristen utters closing her eyes.

Flash forward ten minutes and we've gotten the purse and we're nearly home. Kristen is bobbing back and forth.
"Mommy, what's wrong?" Her daughter asks.

"Mommy had a little too much kool-aid tonight hunny." Says Kristen pressing her face against the window.

I cringe and crack a smile.

As we start to pull into Kristen apartment complex I hear mike say, "Oh Shit, I'm fucked."

Behind us and fast approaching are blue flashing lights shortly followed thereafter by a short siren. Mike pulls over. "Lauren, Do you have pennies?!"

Mike pulls open her ashtray and finds tons of pennies inside. Without a moment of hesitation, Mike shoves a handful into his mouth.

"I'm on prow-bation" Mike mumbles as a penny falls out of his mouth onto his lap.

I glance beside to me see a frightened seven year old gripping my arm for dear life. "I thought police are good?!" she says clearly frightened by everyone's handling of the situation.

"They are hun, they are." I say reassuring her because mom doesn't know how to respond.

The cops shines the light on all of our faces and we all react and squint when it hits our eyes. The cops asks Mike to step out of the car and we all watch him fail every sobriety test the cop throws at him. Eventually this leads to his being cuffed and put in the back of the squad car.

"Fuck, I'm too drunk to drive" says Lauren from the front seat. "I think we're screwed."

The cop comes up to the passenger side of the car and asks Lauren to step out.

"Well, this isn't going well." I say leaning over and looking at Kristen who has been silent mostly up until then. "Well, Kristen you've only had kool-aid, you should be alright to drive right?"

Her daughter appears to get excited for a moment as She glares at me in very serious manor.

Lauren comes back a few seconds later.

"Drive safe now" we hear the cop say as she gets into the drivers seat and starts the car.

"I don't know how I passed, but somehow I was under the legal limit," Lauren says half excited laughing nervously, "I really need a cigarette."

We get into the apartment, Lauren and I smoke a few cigarettes on the porch, while Kristen puts her daughter to bed. Shortly after, Lauren cleverly disappears into a guestroom, leaving me and Kristen alone in the kitchen.

"Would you like to sleep in my room," says Kristen.

"I just want to sleep hun." I say leaving the kitchen sitting down on the couch in the living room, "It's been a very long night and I really just want to sleep alone."

Meanwhile the last thing I want to do is ruin my night further by hooking up with a this joker. She starts to explain her daughters need for a father figure and I pretend to be asleep until she leaves.

Mike didn't get out of jail for few days. And when he finally did, it only took him a week to invite me out to Leesburg again. To which I responded, "Not on your fucking life."

Drunkest date ever.

2009-06-26T00:39:00.000-07:00

I hadn’t made any plans for my Saturday night one weekend. I got a text from a girl that I had met at a party (Let’s call her Kelsey), followed shortly thereafter by text from a girl I had gotten a blowjob from a while back during a Halloween adventure (I’ll call her Wendy).

I was thinking about attempting a date with the more attractive girl; Kelsey. Kelsey was around the age of 19, I was 23, clearly had a better figure, she was only in town for the weekend, and we really hit it off the night we met.

But Wendy, was tried and true. She was 22 and she’s been known to drunk dial me many weekends in the past. And her intentions were “pretty clear.” Wendy was a slutty ultra-Christian/bible thumper and that alone makes the experiences that much more hilarious/worth it, as if I’m delivering sin directly to the angels or something. She’s the type that goes to church regularly and is still a member of a Christian organization on campus. Very Christian.

As I spent my time getting ready for my date with Kelsey I mentally rehearsed my brief phone call to Wendy explaining that I was going to be “busy.” I was about to head out the door to meet Kelsey when I called her to firm up the deal. She didn’t answer. In that instant, Wendy became my shinning little silver medal.

I called her back after having not responded to her text for almost an hour. She was meeting some friends in Arlington, Virginia and would be taking a shuttle from George Mason University's campus in the next 10 minutes. I told her I would race over to meet her inside the campus bus terminal, and if the bus came before I got there we could simply take the next one. She agreed and I set off knowing we would probably be waiting for the next bus.

Sure enough I got there around 9:35, just missing the first bus by five minutes. I walked inside the bus terminal area (which was heated) and surprised Wendy from behind. Wendy was looking as good as any four out of ten could in a simple dark purple dress and heavy coat on to battle the February chill of northern Virginia. She was alone, sitting at a small table with about four chairs around it with a deer park water bottle filled with Brunettes Vodka and a sprite bottle containing a mixture of 50% sprite and 50% vodka.

“Wanna take shots?” Wendy said shifting her weight in the chair and settling slightly to the side in a hunched position while unscrewing the deer park bottle.

“Sure,” I said cracking a smile. “Just don’t expect to keep up with me.”

Wendy laughed and tipped the bottle back taking a large swill from the bootle, made a pucker face, exhaled loudly with an open mouth, followed by a maniacal grin shot into my direction.

So we sat there, going back and forth taking swigs and sometimes chasing it with the sprite bottle until the buss arrived about ten minutes later. We brought the booze onto the shuttle and continued taking mouthfuls and chasing every once in a while our mixer.

As the bus puttered along I looked at Wendy, “Are you really trying to keep up with me?” I asked with some amusement in my voice.

“Yeah.” She said raising an eyebrow, “this is nothing for me.”

I laughed for moment and reassured her she didn’t have to prove anything because I was clearly a more “seasoned” drinker.

Wendy sat up in a concerned manner and suddenly asked, “Where are you staying tonight if you’re coming out with me?”

I was slightly caught off guard. That question normally surfaces around the end of night. “Well,” I said clearly my throat and throwing on a smile that only comes with a few shots of cheap vodka, “I already parked on campus, I was imagining that we would probably make it back to your room. Does that work for you?” I bring the vodka slowly to my lips.

“Well here’s the thing, my boyfriend is passed out in my room.”

“Wait, what?!” I cough vodka back into the bottle and clear my throat while wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, “What boyfriend?”

Wendy explained that her boyfriend had come in town for the weekend but he had managed to get so drunk prior to going out that evening that he passed out around 7:00 PM and was in no shape to be out that night. She could tell I was a bit confused by the whole situation.

“One of my friends that we’re going to meet has a house with an extra room in Arlington.” She said putting her hand on my upper thigh, “We both can stay there tonight.” She grabbed the bottle out of my hands and took a large swig of the vodka.

“That sounds like a plan.” I said half smiling while sinking back into my seat.

The shuttle bus dumped us off at the Metro around 10:15. We bought our fare cards, walked through the turnstiles, and made it to the platform just in to time to catch the train. Most of our car was filled with younger people dressed up and heading out to Arlington or DC. I exchanged a few conversations with Wendy and others around us while we finished off both of the bottles.

As the train came to our stop I began to realize Wendy wasn’t... "all there." As we made our way to the doors I could tell something was up. It was as if the moment we stepped off the train and onto the platform Wendy had decided to go from zero to drunk. When that train left our platform, it took with it Wendy's sobriety and my chances of having a normal night.

Imagine for moment, the sound a deer might make trying to walk on freshly waxed floor.

“CLICKY CRRRRUUUUAAA CLICK CLACK CLLLLUUUUA”

Wendy's high heels were skidding out from underneath her as she was gripping onto my arm for dear life. It's as if she were ice skating for the first time... while extremely drunk. Meanwhile, I have only the slightest buzz and realize I’ve been dealt the babysitter card for this evening.

We skidded our way to the escalator and she starts to sway in all directions while mumbling, “Just, don’t fucking... I need... You have to take me to the bar?”

Now fully regretting the fact that I let her go shot for shot with me, it was clear this evening was going to be a challenge.

“Ok Wendy,”

I say holding her shoulders trying to get her attention,

“first we’re going to get you to the first bar we see. Then we’ll get you some water. Then once you’ve sobered up a little we can meet up with your friends.”

Wendy nodded and made a noise that I would be doing comedy an injustice to spell it out.

Once at the street level I spotted the first bar which happened to be an Irish pub, and we marched right up to.

We got in, had our IDs checked, and even managed to make it to a corner table to sit at. It’s an interesting set up, the way we were seated, as if this corner spot somehow exposed us to the maximum amount of people in the restaurant at one time. There was a long booth that everyone on one side would sit on and that went half the length of the restaurant. So people would be seated on the same cushion/booth-like seat but at a different table. Wendy went for the very corner spot and I was opposite of her with my back to the door. On one side was a table of four guys, possibly gay, and on the other side was a group of 2 guys and two girls a bit further away.

Wendy decided to lay down and kick her shoes off on the cushion she was sitting on, putting her head right next to a guys lap at the table of four next to us. She posted up on her elbow and began to mumble something into the guy’s chest at the table next to us. The guys all looked pretty gay so I wasn’t worried that I would have an issue here.

“You want to do what?” the guy said grinning down at her then looking at me starting to laugh.

“Your girlfriend says she wants to give me a blow job under the table?” The guy says while laughing and elbowing his friends.

“Wendy, Sit up!” I said grabbing her hand that was migrating from his shin to his knee.

Trying to control the situation I look at her as if I’m supposed to be the adult figure here, “You have to act a little more sober for me dear, we’re getting water soon.” I said.

She laughed and managed to push herself up to a seated position while almost pulling the table on top of her. Our waiter chooses this opportune moment to show up from behind me to take our drink order,

“What can I get y...”

At that point, Wendy could only be categorized by the term, “quite, visibly drunk.” She slumped over again while propping one leg up on the booth while still trying to mumble something to the guy sitting next to her. She is completely unaware of the waiter.

“You’ve got to be kidding” the waiter says angrily, looking at me as if this is my production

“There’s no way I’m serving you guys, both of you need to get out of this bar, you have two minutes to get out before I find someone to throw you out.”

“No problem.” I say in a casual almost jovial manner while looking at Wendy.

The waiter turns to go find a manager. I slowly stand and reach for my date’s arms, “Wendy, they’re kicking us out lets just get up and go.”

Wendy has just caught on to me standing up and grabs the scarf hanging around my neck yanks my head towards her in an attempt to pull me on top of her in some type of drunk take me now type fashion.

By this point, everyone in the bar is watching the spectacle that is me and my sideshow freak of a date. I'm glancing up every few seconds to be sure that I am in fact the center of attention at a bar I will likely never come back to.

“Put your shoes back on and we’ll go to a better bar.” I say in a lower voice knowing that everyone in the bar is watching me. I ease back into my chair so as not to draw even more attention. Wendy pushes our table slightly to the side and for a moment I thought she was getting up to put on her shoes back on.

She looks around in slow motion, takes half a step forward, turns, and drops her weight onto my lap. She throws and arm over my head and leans back, in broken drunk talk she says,

“No. Taylor, no- we... we can stay. Why is... if you... you want me to leave?”

This perfect sentence was followed by a drunk puppy dog face.

I roll my eyes and I turn a away a moment to see guys at the bar watching and actually cheering for me. A cute hostess- small, cute, Asian girl; spots our mess and walks over.

She leans in and puts her face about a foot away from Wendy’s, “Oh hunny, do you need some help? Maybe I get take you to the bathroom to throw up? If not, we just called you a cab; it’ll be here real soon.”

Wendy still staring at me makes a half pissed off glance at this girl. Imagine a mix of a cringe and "are you serious" face. Wendy turns her head slightly to look her up and down. She pauses for a minute as if she’s going to say something, something insightful maybe.

She raises her hand and places her palm lightly on the girls face as if she’s going to maybe whisper something, then suddenly she follows through with a shot-put motion nearly knocking the little Asian hostess right on her ass. It was the first face shove I had seen from girl in many years.

“What the fuck girl!” the hostess yells while still trying to control the volume of her voice yet keeping a little distance, “You do not touch me. I am trying to help you.”

I’m half shocked and half amused at this point. I believe I might have uttered something like “wow, that just happened.”

I see a manager walking in our direction and this time I’m really ready to leave. I stand up forcing Wendy who is still on my lap to her feet. “Put your shoes on Wendy because I’m walking outside.”

Wendy fumbles for her heels and eventually gets her feet into them. I take her by the arm and lead her outside while I exchange shitty looks with a few people from the bar staff on the way out. Right outside the bar is a red-top Arlington Cab. I open the door and let Wendy into the cab first and get her to slide all the way behind the driver.

“Go to George Mason University.” I say to the cabbie getting into the passenger side back seat.

The cabbie acknowledges and starts moving.

She pushes herself closer to me and rests her head on my shoulder as I look around me in amazement of how I've managed to find myself where I am.

“I’m... not fuck... I’m, I’m not fucking... going back yet”

I roll my eyes again. “Either you’re going back with me right now or this guy is going to let me out and you can tell him where to go.” Mind you, my night has now been ruined. It started out as a long night of foreplay eventually leading to her friends house and sex. Now, I have been demoted to babysitter or momma goose. This girl has completely hijacked my Saturday night and what’s worse, I’m now not even remotely buzzed.

“My... I mean, I have. I have my parent’s credit card...”

"Ok."

Wendy is slurring more than ever now, “My parents will pay for our hotel room and we can do anything you want. I don’t care. let’s just go. Let... Lets go to the hotel.”

I laugh and have accepted the fact that I will have to be a good guy, drop this slob back off, accepting defeat, and be done with her, “It’s ok. Another time Wendy, I’m getting you home.”

“NO!” She screams, “I’m not going back to Mason (GMU).”

“Pull over! NOW!” She yells.

I raise an eyebrow and put my hand on her thigh in a calming motion. “No, she’s just being dramatic” I tell the cabbie, while looking at her, “just go to George Mason University.”

“NO! PULL OVER!” She opens her door while we're flying through traffic and I have to grab her and pull the door the shut.

The cabbie begins freaking out. Just yelling “hey! Hey! HEY!”

The cabbie jerks the wheel to the curb and stomps on the breaks. He turns around to glare at us and yells out, “You pay me and then get out of my cab!”

I throw him five bucks and me and Wendy step out into the chilly evening. We’ve made it all of four blocks and we’re in the middle of Clarendon (which is where most people are going to be out drinking).

“Ok, here’s the deal hun,” I say in a frustrated manor, “Wendy we’re going back to Mason. You have managed to ruin my Saturday night. Either I’m coming with you back to Mason or you’re going in a cab alone.”

“But I love you,” she says in slurred fashion trying to get me with a drunk puppy dog look.

“Thanks,” I say half laughing, “I can appreciate that but, I don’t want to continue discussing this. Am I coming with you back to George Mason University or are you going to be able to do it alone? You just got too drunk tonight and we can’t fix that.”

She spaces out for a moment then gives me a look of disgust.

“Fuck you, just leave. Leave me alone! I don’t want to fhh-fh-fucking see you again.” She throws her torso forward and spits at me. I see it coming and luckily this loogie with an alcohol content of probably .350 lands just off to my right side.

I look at her in shock and somewhat amazement. It’s ultimatum time. Usually drunks can handle simple ultimatums with two choices and where one is heavily weighted and usually involves the choice... "or you can go to jail."

“Ok, I’m going to give you the count of ten to tell me right now that you want me to come with back to GMU with me or I’m going to leave you alone right here and let you figure it out.”

I start the countdown “1…2…3…4… I’m gonna leave, 5... 6…7… 8… 9…”

“Fuck off already!” Wendy screams.

I smile, and as if I just picked up an imaginary white cane and top hat. I turn around dramatically and start to walk... neh, prance about 10 yards down the sidewalk without looking back. I cross the street and walked another few 10 feet knowing that she won't be able to see me. I lean against a wall and light up a cigarette. I wasn’t really out of view, but far enough away that she won’t be able to figure out it’s me.

She slumps over against a wall and starts cry. It was like watching bad TV but you can change the channel.

It was allo part of a plan to get her home. I was about to walk back over and convince her to get into a cab with me, noting that she had gotten a taste of the alternative.

But there was a unforeseen development. Suddenly some random girl walks up to her. The random girl was clearly trying to console and even help her. I couldn't exactly tell, but it looked like she was asking her what was wrong. I sat back finishing my cigarette and watch the two girls interact for another moment then all of the sudden they cross the street and start walking in my direction up the sidewalk.

"Interesting" I say to myself. I start to walk toward the girls.

As the girls got to within about five feet of me, I clear my throat and put on my on my smile, “Wendy, can I take you home now?”

The random girl has Wendy under one arm and they both look at me,

I think the other girl thought I was some kind of creep, “Do you know this guy?” The random girl asks slowing as they approach me.

“I don’t fuckin, know that asshole” She slurs as they step to the side and pass me.

I smile and watch them round corner. I pause for a moment. A curious feeling of relief and regret looms over me for just a moment. I look to my right and see the corner they just rounded and look to my left and see the bar that I’ve been meaning to go to for a few weeks. I turn to the left and laughed to myself as ordered my first beer.

An old e-mail I put out to the boys: Girl pees my bed

2009-05-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

Preface:
I used to send e-mails out pretty regularly to the fraternity and this was just one of many e-mails that touched upon one of my crazy evenings and also on the fact that I was ready to move into our new fraternity house. Enjoy.
----------------------------------------

Brothers,

Today I wake up after some good drunken sex. Luckily, I decided to not to sleep next to her. I did this because she took up the whole bed passing out after I gave her some Kama Sutra Massaging. I was somewhat disappointed that she had decided not to stay awake for another session but it was late. So I crashed on my couch. I woke up in the morning to see her standing over me naked, offering a morning blow job. I thought wow, This day couldn't start any better if I had planned it. After we finished up, I bid her goodbye along with blooms girl and we both reminisced about the past evenings events.

Upon starting to make my bed I first came to notice my hat was slightly damp in a few places. Perhaps the massage oil had leaked?

I picked the hat up for a quick smell to insure that this was the case. I mmediately recognized an all too familiar scent. It wasn't beer, water, or yellow coolaid... it was urine. She had pissed in my bed and neglected to mention it to myself or her friend before leaving. This urine was no ordinary urine. The sheer amount was shocking. It had managed to form a 3 foot in diameter yellow circle in the center of my bed. It actually soaked three blankets, my comforter, and the mattress. I suppose she had straddled my favorite pillow later in the night because it too was saoked with the less than magical substance.

Now this could have been enough to ruin a day here at the house. However, upon calling her to leave a message that was too funny to recall, bloom and I hear a sudden rush of water. We both looked around bewildered and in a moment we realized our water pipe here at the house had burst...For the fourth time.

Water was spraying all over the beer pong room.

This means bloom nor I can shower, wash our sheets stained with urine, or flush the toilet. I am tired of living in a place like this. Brothers I send this e-mail in hope to show two things. One, brothers that live in the house make many sacrifices and two, this girl Kathleen is a joke. I want to move into this new house like you wouldn't believe.

In my disappointment last night I took a picture of the joker known as Kaitlin. I decided it would be funny to the picture in this email for brothers to enjoy... I am only one man, but sometimes I can only take so much.

(shes the brown hair one in both pix)

Lumberjack #526

I need to shit and will use the outside facilities today at my own house, do u know what that's like?

"Dude you slept with my grandma"

2008-12-28T15:05:00.000-08:00

One of my old friends was back in town visiting his mom and brother for Christmas, he and I are drinking buddies. We can pace with each others level of boozing pretty well, and that can be tough to do. When we decide to embark on a drinking night, we go hard. It being the Night after Christmas, we knew we would be in for some heavy drinking… How much of an alcoholic statement is that?!

We set off at 8:00 PM for a $0.25 happy hour. This means for a quarter you can get a tall glass of whiskey and coke... for $0.25. However, this price only lasts for one solid hour. Still feeling somewhat rough from the previous night, we began to order drinks at a rapid pace. We managed to rack up a bar tab of $4.00 and that was after people were buying us drinks. The night was spent jumping from bar to bar within a four mile radius.

I blacked out sometime after 11:00 PM. We managed to get a ride back to my buddy’s place and then continued to pound beers and play beer pong well into the wee hours of the morning. The plan was to wake up early the next day and do some Frisbee golf. Something I’ve never actually done, but it seemed like it would be interesting.

He told me I could crash in his mom’s spare bedroom on the second level. I awoke fully clothed to my phone vibrating on my leg. As I managed to bring it to my face I start trying to get my bearings. I have no recollection of coming back to my friends place. “Taylor,” he shouts into the phone. “Where are you?! I’ve searched the house and I’m about to go play Frisbee golf.”

I clear my throat, “What? I think I'm at your place, I’m upstairs, what time is…”

Then to my left I hear in an old raspy voice, “What?! Who are you!” As I turn my head I see my buddy’s grandma startled and wide eyed staring at me from mere inches away.

From the phone I hear my friend saying in broken laughter “No way dude, did you sleep in my grandmas room?”

“Hello,” I say looking just as puzzled as she is. More laughing comes from the phone. As I sit up my friend bursts into the room while still laughing and holding the phone to his ear. “Dude,” he shouts, “you slept next to my grandma?!”

Still drunk and not sure what to make out of the situation I say, “Well, Merry Christmas.”

The things I wish I knew before going to England

2008-04-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

The following is an e-mail I sent to a fellow student who was about to embark on his trip abroad to the same school I visited the previous semester. This is my response to the question; "what is Leicester like?"

-------------------------------

Did you watch my video?
I mean what type of information were you looking to gain?
I'll give you the advice I wish I had recieved before I went.

My biggest piece of advice is to watch how you blow your money. It's pretty much like pretend money your first few weeks and you blow it like crazy everywhere. It sounds simple enough but keep in mind that everything is essentially twice the price. It's not until the last 3-4 weeks that you realize you are in trouble.

Customer service sucks big time. If you want to find out anything, look it up on your own. These people take pride in being able to answer your question without giving you any information. I felt mind raped every time I went to the study abroad office. Common sense seems to be on the decline there in some parts too.

You don't have to tip bartenders. I tipped this one bitch 20 pents on a 1 pound drink and she looks at me like I just called her mom a whore. Nobody tips... therefore it takes far longer for you to get a drink. It's totally noraml to wait 45 mins at the Uni for damn pint of Beer.

Pregame every time you go out! And Drink scrumpy it's kickass. Fuck beer dude, they have hard cider that comes in 2 and 3 liter bottles. I wish the states had more. Amazing stuff. Bulmers, snakebites, and scrumpy.

ASDA is their version of walmart and is just up the street. Do your shopping there. Sheets, blankets, food, beer, whatever.

Get a pay as you go phone. Bring an extra phone however, you might be able to switch out the sim card... that way you wont buy a brand new phone.

The novelty of being an american is lost on them. So getting laid based on the fact that you from the states will not happen. Bummer right?

The food blows and be ready for it to suck big time. Not kidding. I lost weight because I refused to eat their shit for the first few weeks.

The way they say "what's up" or "How are you" is "You alright?" So don't assume they actually want a response... just say "you alright" in response and your straight.

Don't buy a student railcard... it's a waste of money. The bus pass is a real good idea tho.

You'll probably get there a week before the rest of the british kids do, that's supposed to help get you ready for the semester. I'll tell you this, most of the abroad people I met are either trust fund babies or they're lame and annoying. Although many of the girls are decent, those people turn clingy and you don't want to find yourself hanging around in the "excahnge student" crowd the entire time. I don't know about you, but I didn't come half way around the world to hang out with people that live an hour from me back at home.

Book a flight to Amsterdam using a cheap airline like "BMI BABY" or "RYAN AIR." Google it and do it. Nobody will take you through it. Take the bus from St. Margretts square and go to Birmingham airport. Get a cheap hostil that is close to the city center. BUY A MAP (This I never did... and we remained lost the entire time). Look up the coffee shops before you go.It makes it more interesting and gratifying when you find the coffee shop you've been waiting to see. Make sure you actually have activities planned because it's very easy to walk around high and on shrooms hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop and essentially blow your day. Try shrooms. But don't take too many and you'll be straight. We went into "caveman mode" after the first few hours of each day (me need food, me need smoke, me need sleep). Bring funny things to do. Bring a maxim or national geographic because that shit will trip you the fuck out and spawn conversations. And check out the red light district! I'm not saying get a whore, but it's not unclean or scary... so live it up. ( see my video here)

Fuck barcelona spain. That shit is wack. And the girls are not hot.

The school organized trips to other places in England is totally gay and really a big waste of money. I hear the London orientation is fun... but it's like $2000... That's a week long cruise in the bahamas or a ballerass time anywhere else in Europe. I'd say skip it if you don't have a lot of money.

Check out Europe while your there - Prague, Greece, Malta, Poland. Shit is right there and it's cheap when you book it in advance.

Picking fights with chavs doesn't work out well. They travel in large numbers. And they fight dirty. I tried to take on 7 and I got my nose broken, two black eyes, and my ass handed to me. I can usually handle myself pretty well in those situations, but I was piss drunk and totally outnumbered.

Fuck cab drivers. Scheming fuckers, establish the price before you leave anywhere. It should never cost more than 7 Pounds to get close to the Uni.

English girls don't dance the way we dance. When you dance at parties, bars, or clubs in USA; you approach a girl, ask her to dance, and begin rubbing genitals in a sexual fashion. In England, if a girl agrees to dance with a "stranger" (that's you), they do so expecting you to dance in somewhat of a group with their friends at a distance of about 3 feet. Get ready to do the Carlton dance from the fresh prince of bel air because that's how they do it. Or just whip your body around in a spaz looking way and you'll fit right in. And the music sucks balls... so enjoy.

If you do become good friends with english dudes they tend to have a more "touchy feely" expression of their friendship. They're probably not gay... It tripped me out a little when I first got there. I don't sling my arms around my boys like they do.

What dorms are you living in?
-Digby was pretty tight
-Beaumont has more "slags"
-I never really hung around John Foster...

Bring a digital camera and a device that lets you transfer stuff off the memory card. Take pictures of everything and nothing.

Go to McDonalds in the city center and laugh at all the underage girls with kids. Hilarious.

Be prepared for Mondays and Wednesdays being the biggest nights out. The bars are too expensive on the weekends and the townies aren't a big fan on the Uni kids.

They're not big into drama, so the whole talking shit thing isn't really big there at all... so if you're into "he said, she said gossip" you're out of luck.

There are not fraternities or sororities... So no house parties. The rugby team comes about as close as your gonna get over there... but it's not relaly the same.

Lastly, be open and friendly when you get there... You've got nothing to lose by being nice.

How was that? Essentially what your looking for?

My Blue-ish Gray Pants

2008-04-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

Preface:
On Thursday I had come to my parent’s house to do laundry because my machine wasn't working. I had put a bunch of clothes in the wash and had not been back to my parents home since. It was now Sunday and I was on my way to my parent’s house

As I was turn onto my street I receive a call from my dad who he seemed somewhat frantic, "Where are you?" he asked.
"I'm about two minutes from you, I'm driving." I said, trying to sound more rushed than I actually was. I was assuming my father was going to rant about having not seen me for ages.
"Dad, Can I just talk to you when I get there?"
"Fine, get here quick, your mother is upset." My dad says hanging up leaving me puzzled.

I pull up to the curb and walk into the house. As I step into the kitchen, I open the fridge and turn towards my mother. Shes making spaghetti holding a wooden spoon. She whips around, shoots me a serious look, while half pointing the spoon in my direction.
"Do you own a pair blue-ish gray pants?" she asks glancing quickly at my father then back at me.

"I mean I'd have to see them, but I'm pretty sure I do own a pair by that description." I said half laughing at the pointlessness of the question being asked in such a serious manner. I knew which pair she was talking about but I held out for a minute because I wanted to see where she was going with this.

"Since when do you wear pants like that?" my mom says stepping towards me.
"I don't think you're 36 waist." she says glancing down at my midsection.

"Sometimes a 36inch waist on a pair of pants in one make is much smaller in another," my dad adds.

My mom raises her eyebrows at my dad and I shrug.

"I used to buy pants larger back in the day Mom, I think they're mine."
"Are you sure?" My mom asked looking at me in a very serious manner.

"What the hell is going on?" I say raising my voice and steping out of the kitchen , “What’s with all these questions?"

"I found a condom in the pocket and those pants. The pants looked like something your father would wear." My mom said sitting down with a mixed expression.

"Thought you caught him, didn't you?" I said jokingly.

Both my parents gave me serious looks as I strolled out of the kitchen to grab my laundry and get out of that house before more questions arose.

Prologue:
I guess if my dad were to be trolling the town in any pants containing condoms I'd say that was the pair to do it in.

I almost made a joke about how they should be proud I was at least carrying one. Then I almost made a joke about not using condoms because "those things are soooo high school." Then I decided it was probably best to “let sleeping dogs lie.”

3 Strike Outs and a Criagslist Date

2008-04-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

The weekend got off to a poor start on Thursday.
I arranged a date for Thursday evening with a girl who I hung out with once every four weeks or so. Let's call her "Sharon." Sharon was tall with dark brown hair and a smile like an orthodontist's daughter. Recently I had told Sharon that the real reason I avoided her at a party the week before was because I was starting to feel interested in someone new.

I told her, "Sharon, had I spent the night talking to you, I would end up ignoring this new girl probably for the span of the entire party. Thus making this new girl awfully jealous over someone I was never too serious about."

This line made it appear as if I was more interested than I actually was and it gave her a reason to want to see me. As Thursday night rolled around my phone calls to Sharon went unanswered. The evening was supposed to be a wine night at her house with a few close friends. I was a little upset, but I later found out that this girl had invited out another guy in my stead.

It actually worked in my favor. This gentleman ended up getting black-out drunk and went from being obnoxious to violent. After the sloppy drunk started to outstay his welcome, the girls took his keys away and asked him to call a friend or a cab. This only escalated the situation. As he grew more violent, Sharon opened the door and hurled his keys into the rainy night and simply told him, "There! Now go home."

My inebriated replacement stumbled outside, half slumped over, as the door slammed behind him. A few minutes into his search the keys remained missing and I'm sure his frustration was palpable. So he did the next most logical thing. He picked up a bright orange plastic snow shovel by the wooden handle and began to assault the locked door. Sitting just on the other side of the door, one of girls was on her cell phone with the police. After tearing some of the paint off the front door and frame, the police arrived and arrested the young man. Should have called me instead. I probably would have just peed on her door.

Friday had been slotted as a special occasion to hit the bar with a girl who I had some previous experience with. Let's call her Maureen. Maureen looked like a classic blonde bombshell, short/petite figure with large boobs, nice butt, and a very attractive face. She and I had met during St. Patrick’s day after I had been drinking for 10 hours and I managed to put her number in my phone and remember that we had talked about me not remembering meeting her previously. I don't know, I wasn't really listening. After a few unsuccessful dates, (unsuccessful meaning she would say she would be at a place and never show up or stay only a moment and move on). I had all but given up on this girl. Against my better judgment I set a time and place. By 11:00, there was no answer. I made alternative plans, but I was still pissed.

Saturday was the day I had been waiting for all week, it was my date with a sweet girl, (a rare quality these days) I had only known her for few weeks. She was a dance major and had a body unlike anything I'd ever seen. Let's call her "Caity." Caity had been a gymnast for most of her life as well as a dancer. She had the adorable type face with light skin, blue eyes, and long auburn hair. I found out relatively early on that she could place both legs behind her head with the slightest of ease. Although our conversation never ranged much outside of dance, I still found myself infatuated with this girl because of her relative positive attitude and her genuinely endearing nature.

It was 5:00 PM and I was sitting in front of my computer surfing the free listings on http://www.craigslist.org/ having just coming back from the gym. My phone rings, it's Caity. "Hello?!" I say in my best TV game-show announcer voice.

"Hey..." she says in a monotone, sounding disappointed, "I can't make it, I'm exhausted from a performance and busy week of rehersals, I don't think going to be coming out tonight."

I told her it was fine and hung up. I was crushed. I had been stood up three times in three days. Yet I was determined to salvage my weekend. There was no way I would accept this big of a failure.

Still looking at craigslist.org I thought to myself, "Nows is as good as any!" I clicked on the "Women Seeking Men" section of Criaglist. This section, in my opinion, is the only section that the average man in the Washington DC area realistically stands a chance at picking up a real chick of reasonable attractiveness online. Don't believe me? Check for yourself. I clicked on a few ads until I came across an add for a 22 year old girl looking for a guy who could hold a simple conversation.

I replied to a total of two ads that night and one of them got back to me almost instantly.

After I saw her picture I was a relatively relieved and thought there might be some potential. We spoke on AIM for about half an hour and we decided to meet up at a Bar in Fairfax. That night I showed up to meet her at a little bar called "Bridges." Her name was "Jannice," she had a cute face with curious dark eyes. She was half Spanish and her large butt and chest make that quite clear if there was any question. However her teeth were a little jacked up which explained why she did closed mouth smiles in the pictures she sent me. She was almost my height and it appeared that she had put on about 15 to 20 lbs since her pictures were taken.

We drank a few cocktails. She had a really good wit and personality, the conversation never went dry. We started talking about physical fitness and I found out she hadn't worked out in almost five years. That would explain the weight that she had put on. She then explained that she was an ex drug attic, but had a good job, had got her life on track, and was even going to attempt an associate’s degree starting in the summer. The evening went well with flirtations back in forth all the way past last call. I walked her to her car, got a kiss with some tongue, and told her I would call her.

On Monday my buddy offered me some free tickets to a show at a local hardcore rock club called
"Jaxx." This normally isn't my scene, my genre of music, or my idea of good night out; but as a date and a chance to do something different, I said "sure." Think really heavy metal, black leather, crazy long hair, and lots of weirdness.

Jannice and I pre-gamed for a bit at her place. She acted awkward as she let me in and rushed me down to her room. We sat and drank some rum and coke while watching old episodes of some lifetime-like show for about an hour. At ten we rushed out of her house to arrive relatively early and realized as we entered the narrow doors, we were in for quite an interesting evening. As we climbed the first few stepsinside the entrace, we were caught by the stale smell of cigarettes, bad perfume, and sweat . The ringing of drums could be heard just outside the front doors and they were magnified by a low octave wailing into a microphone being elicited by some long haired shirtless wanna-be rock and roll god... who probably lived with his parents. Our tickets were already reserved and we had no problem getting in. As I located my friend and headed for the bar I gave Janice a shrug as if to say, "I guess this is happening."

Since jagermeister was promoting at this fine establishment that night we began to pound red bull vodkas like they were going out of style. Janice and I set ourselves up at a spot in the back near the door to watch the people who had come to this bar with the serious intentions of being entertained by the performers. We took note that we were seemingly the only members of crowd who did not have black leather biker clothing, strange piercings, own hardcore rock and roll tee-shirts, or know the joys of growing up with a sexually abusive step father.

Clearly we stood out in this bar. But the alcohol was helping. I was yelling at the end of songs and pointing at the singer, as if his choice of music had just given me something to identify with that had been missing from my soul for all my life. Jannice soon played along with me. Before long we were making out right in the staging area. And calling some attention to ourselves. At one point, Jannice whispered to me, "I'm so wet right now."
Shortly thereafter we were in the car headed to her place, "There's something I should tell you about my room mates. " She started, "I didn't want to say anything earlier and freak you out. But, I was engaged to one of my room mates and he lives on the other side of my wall. So we can't do anything real loud."
"Wait, What?!" I shouted, "You live with the guy you're going to marry?!"
"No" she said, I broke it off, and now we just live together.

We pulled up to her house and all was quite and the lights were off. As we got into the door of her home a short portly Asian guy stood at the bottom of the stairs with the dimmed light of the television reflecting off his bulbus stomach and fat cheeks. She was stunned to see him and it was really weird. "Fuck it," I thought, I started my manly walk down the stairs, Jannice following me, as I led the way towards her room, "What's up man, the names' Taylor."

He acted stunned as I reached out and shook his hand which looked to have been raised almost involuntarily. I knew that unless I acted with the utmost amount of confidence I could muster, she would back out of any type of shenanigans that would go down that night in consideration of his feelings. I wasn't ready for that and plus my bar tab was $80!

He tried to mumble his name but I cut him off, "Well, good meeting you." I turn the corner and walked into her room and she followed right after me. I lay on her bed and kicked off my shoes as she locked her down and bent down in front of her stereo to put on some music. As she leaned further over, I spotted her black thong in plain view. If this wasn't an obvious attempt to get me to notice her underwear I don't know what was. I reclined further into her comforter on her unmade bed. I glanced around the room as she lit a candle and kicked off her shoes. There was a wedding dress in dry cleaners plastic hanging in the closet.

"Is that what it looks like?" I asked.
She smiled a devilish smile and said, "I'm not taking it back, it was expensive."

She stepped onto the bed and laid partially on my side and she began to deeply kiss me. I knew that it would be important to take my time and slowly work from top to bottom. This was my tried and true form of foreplay. Running my fingers through her hair, caressing the back of her neck, pressing harder on Jannice's shoulders as my mouth drifter from hers. She began to moan quietly after deep breaths as I went to work on her neck with soft kisses and nibbles later transfering to her right earlobe. I went from rubbing her shoulders with my hands to gently but slowly running my fingers past the areas just under her ribs.

"There's a muffin top here." I thought to myself as my hands neared the belt where just a slight part of her stomach hung over it. Think of slightly exagerated love handles. As I continued to glaze over her soft skin with my fingertips, I hit some friction that could only be a mild patch of stretch marks. At that point most men, including myself have a moment of internal conflict.

It may last only an instant or it can last up to five minutes; this conflict is an epic mental battle between our inner conscience representing self respect and selfish needs. Having realized that I was already there, had put in some work, and had a rare opportunity to embarrass her fiancé just mere inches away, listening on the other side of the wall... You better believe I went for it.

I eventually got her shirt off and was working on her pants before I gave her what is know as "the last minute resistance." The last minute resistance is what most women do just before the deed is done. They want to make sure you don't think of them as a slut and if it's turned around on them before they can deliver it, it makes you look like the one who's being taken advantage of and makes them feel like you're being sensitive to the entire situation.

"Wait," I said, "I think we should have some ground rules." She sat back a little surprised.
"I think if we do anything tonight, we should keep to fooling around and not sex." I said.
"I was just thinking the same thing." She said smiling.
"Ok, well I think that means we can have some fun." I say as I'm undoing her belt to take her jeans off.

I get her jeans off and she takes my pants off and things begin to get interesting. I climb on top and she has come to the point where she refuses to take off her bra and her underwear. This puts me in a weird position, I'm naked and she’s not. I know that when a girl refuses to take something off, it is usually strictly a matter of insecurities. Now, sometimes it's better to let those insecurities go unchecked... because you never know what you'll find.

I take the activity back a notch and offer her a massage. Everyone (on earth) needs to learn how to give a good massage. Luckily I had thought to bring my "special bag," containing among other things an extra pair of clothes, massage oil, and massage tools.

Eventually I massage her outside of the underwear because she doesn't want me touch anything underneath. I found this very strange, I asked her if everything was ok and she said, "Absolutely.... yes."

We rolled over and fooled around for a bit more. She eventually gave me a blowjob claiming that she doesn't ordinarily do that. I acted like it was the first grade and I had just been handed a gold star. After that we managed to straighten up the bed and fall asleep around 5:30 AM. Or at least I did. Jannice woke me up every half hour to tell me,
"I'm used to sleeping in my bed (a queen size) diagonally," and then "Could you sleep on my couch."

I neglected her rants and eventually she had left to go sleep on the couches outside her room in the basement. She woke me up for the last time at 9:15 AM. I was still in a drunk stupor.

"Why are you awake right now?" I stammered.
"I'm a morning person, I normally get up way earlier." She said with a little more pep than I was ready for at that hour as she wriggled closer into me and hit play on her DVD of the lifetime-channel show we had watched earlier.

"Just give me half an hour." I said as my eyes rolled back into my head.
I attempted to sleep for another half hour as she began texting furiously in-between giggles while watching her show.

There was no way I could continue to sleep, she would not allow it. So we started with regular morning chat until I had remembered her problem with me touching her under the panties.
"Hey," I said with a partial smirk, "What was the deal with you not taking off that underwear?"

"Does it really matter?" She said with some concern.
"I just want to know," I said in a curios tone.
"Well it's kind of embarrassing." said Jannice.
"Come on just tell me." I prodded further, "I'm sure it's no big deal."

"Ok," she said, "I had a boyfriend in high school who took advantage of me when I was passed out in his bed during a party."
"Well I would never do that." I said.

"I know, let me finish." She said straightening up and getting more serious, "We were at a party at his house and we fooled around pretty early on in the night and I ended up getting wasted so I passed out in his bed and awoke to him jack-hammering his penis into my vagina."
"Wow, I'm sorry you had to go through that," I said slightly surprised.

"That's not the worst part," Jannice said rolling her eyes. "When he turned on the lights there was a ton of blood on the bed. So we hopped in a car and went to the ER and the doctors said told me he had torn part of the lining of my vagina out. So..... I have what looks like a tail hanging out of my vagina."

I sat there stunned, I almost laughed a little, "Wait, you have a tail?"

Jannice cringed a little, "I didn't have insurance at the time, so I didn't get the surgery to repair to lining of my vagina. So I kind of still have what looks like part of a tail hanging down from there."

"So you're telling me you have a tail?" I said a little unsure if it was ok to laugh. "Can i see it?"

"No!" she shouted pulling the covers over her.

"I'm sure it's not that bad," I said laughing a little. Realizing it was about that time for me to check out of Jannice's place, her text message ring tone rang again for what seemed like the twentieth time.
"Who keeps texting you?" I asked.

"My ex fiancé has been texting me all morning, his room in on the other side of that wall," She said pointing at the wall that was right next to my head.
"He heard us fooling around last night and he told me he cried himself to sleep, then I saw him leave like an emotional wreck earlier this morning. Now he's sending me messages saying he wants to kill himself." She laughed as she began texting him back.

I slid my left foot into my shoe while laughing nervously. "Well this was quite a trip, I'll talk to you later," I said gathering the last of my things and heading for the door. "It's been fun."

She walked with me upstairs to her front door. I hugged her goodbye and walked out of her house making sure no one was hiding in any bushes and knowing full well I would never see her again.