In Which I Relearn a Valuable Lesson

I am a slow learner.

I get a call from a friend of mine, saying that she thinks her relationship is ending. Lady is sad and upset, convinced that this relationship is leading nowhere. It's typical reasons that boil down to the fact that neither party is happy and that they are not compatible. No arguing that - you can't force something that isn't there. Sad and hard for those involved, but not an unheard of situation.

This is when I make my mistake. I join Lady in a tremendous bitch-fest about the Boy. Because there is nothing I love more than bitchfests. I know this is a mistake when it's happening, but I can't help it, the bitch just does itself. Not only is the bitching wrong and. . .bitchy, but its like McDonald's - satisfying at the time, but afterwards I feel sullied and greasy and hungry for more like 5 minutes later.

The thing is, I learned this lesson in high school. Here is a sample:

HS Girl: sobbing, "I hate him! He's so evil! We are breaking up!"
HS Me: supportive yet also gleefully abitching "Totally! He's a dumbass. He totally cheated on you and gets drunk with all his friends and pukes on people and I hate his stupid hair! He looks like an ape! Do it!"
HS Girl: "I will, he's so dumb. It's over! Totally! His hair is totally awful."
Two Weeks Later. . .
HS Girl: starry-eyed "I love him! He's so amazing! Doesn't he have the best hair? We will be together FOREVER!"
HS Me: stupidly sighs "Er. . . totally awesome. But. .. didn't he get drunk/puke on your mom/hook up with your sister/shoplift you gifts from Sears?"
HS Girl: slit-eyed "You are just jealous of us because we are so in love! Why did you try to break us up?"
HS Me: sighing and sarcastic, "Yes, you're right. I am jealous that my Prince hasn't come and that I, too, can't have sex in the back of his mom's Previa and get stolen items from Sears."
HS Girl: annoyingly, smugly "True love is unconditional - you'll find out someday*"
HS Me: apparently not learning valuable lesson

*let me point out here that my boyfriend in high school? Made a mix tape for me of all Mariah Carey songs and wrote me a poem using all the song lyrics. I started calling him GayBoyfriend after that. So maybe I didn't know from high school lurve.

So I know that agreeing with HS Girl is a bad idea, but I did it anyway. And took it to the next level. So when Lady came to me, I thought "we aren't in high school, she's committed to breaking up!"

Lady and Boy got back together. Of course. And the bitching? Bit me in the ass. This is the place where I could enumerate the 10,000 reasons why I was complaining, but I am learning my lesson. Though my brain is screaming at me to write these things down and am having a multiple personality bitchfest in my head, and now they are calling each other names. Anyway, she wrote me an e-mail about how I didn't understand love and she copied my husband. Appropriate.

In a fit of awesome, though, Husband wrote back and was all "My wife is not the only who thinks these things." Got my back, that one.

I do understand that by blogging about this, I am the one creating more drama. Because apparently I roll Blair Waldorf style, but without the awesome clothes.

So if you come to me with the fact that you are breaking up with your significant other, you will only hear murmurs and cliches from me.

Epilogue:

Lady wrote me back and apologized (but didn't copy Husband on that e-mail). She also let drop that I was right. I would say that I told you so, but I lost two crazies masquerading as friends, so it's a little bittersweet.

Street Meat

This has been a very frustrating day- problems with my internet connection, the continuing inability of our HVAC company to keep our system working properly, and that flouride goo the dentist gives you had all put me in a bit of a mood. But all of that frustration has been lifted, due to the arrival at my doorstep of a guy trying to sell me meat out of a truck.

I had the front door open, as I'm watering a patch of hopefully soon-to-be grass on my front lawn, so I couldn't ignore the tap on the door. There was a guy standing there, and parked behind him on the street was a van that said "Capital Meats" on it and was fully covered in pictures of meat. This is approximately how this conversation went (with my snarky asides in parentheses):

Guy: Hi, I'm with Capital Meats. We've just sold some meat to one of your neighbors (my ass you did), and we have some left over that we're trying to get rid of. Do you and your family eat steak and seafood?

Me: We don't cook much meat ourselves, so I don't think we'd be interested.

Guy: (Looks at my t-shirt) Are you a Redskins fan? (No- I hate them, but I wear the t-shirt to confuse people)

Me: Yes.

Guy: We just signed Sellers (semi-obscure fullback for the Redskins) to endorse us. And one other player. (Calls to other guy walking up the street)- JIMBO! (I swear) This guy's a Redskins fan!

JIMBO: Awwww yeeeeeaaahhhh. Aren't we all?

Guy: Who's the other Redskin that endorsed us. Sellers and.... ?

JIMBO: Jason Campbell (nationally known quarterback)

Guy: Right, Jason Cambell (my thought- you remember the obscure fullback but not the QB?)

Guy: Anyway, if you buy the steak, we'll throw in the seafood and chicken for FREE. (Wow- that must be top quality meat!- it's free!)

Me: Look, we just don't cook that much, so I'm not interested. Thanks though.

Guy: OK.

The guy walked away, and I took some pleasure in the fact that he had to walk through my sprinkler.

So that was an amusing enough interaction, but it only gets better. I called my wife, and while telling her about the street meat, I looked up Capital Meats on the web. The second listing on Google is a headline that says "don't buy from these people!" Here are a couple of excerpts from the complaint. I can't be nearly as funny as this person- and the emphases are mine:

"The men were in very baggy pants (enough that I could see their underwear) and they had gotten out of an old pick up truck with a freezer strapped to the back.

There is no way I would even buy meat from that shady looking pick-up truck- even if I did eat meat. The men proceeded to lay meat all over my porch (ew!!) and then he even tried to come in my house (even put his hand on the door and tried to open it) so he could see what kind of freezer I had. ...

I called their Baltimore office (where these salesman are from) to make a formal complaint. The lady who answered said she was the office manager... I asked about a policy of not ringing the bell of people who had a No Soliciting sign and she said she could not enforce that either because those signs are mostly for religious people.

What??? My sign is to deter annoying, relentless salesman! I told her if they stood outside of my door ringing and ringing again, that I would call the cops. She proceeded to just talk over me, telling me she wouldn't let me speak bad about a great company (Everyone on my street hates to see that nasty truck pull up!!) that she has worked for for 6 years and she told me I must have a miserable life and hung up on me...

If this is such a great company, then the least they could do is update their POS trucks with coolers strapped to the back..."

Laying meat on the porch? If I didn't want street meat, I certainly don't want porch meat. I'm taking suggestions for how to mess with them if they ever come around again.