You can see I'm in no shape for driving and anyway I've got no place to go

by anna at 07:27 PM on May 26, 2005

I've thought about how, or even if, to tell this tale about how my life turned out the way it did. A seminal series of events, as it were. Here goes.

I'd been dating my future wife for several blissful months. At the time I lived in a group house with a bipolar shrew who wanted to screw me, a neat freak, this huge black guy who urged us to only wash the parts that stink and some other person I don't remember. I don't remember because he or she departed soon after I moved in. Thus began an endless series of interviews for a prospective replacement. I grew so frustrated with the process that I abstained.

About the fifth prospect was a buxom little blonde, the kind with an exagerrated walk and messy makeup. The kind other girls love to hate. But somehow she won over the two girls who were kind of in charge. The black guy said okay and she was our roommate. My future wife immediately takes a disliking to this girl. She suspects we're carrying on, which we aren't. It got to a point where I didn't even speak to the girl for fear of inciting a fight. Nonetheless, future wife breaks up with me over her.

After that something did develop between us. This in turn caused rifts within the house and we were forced out. We rented another house with my best friend and his wife, who didn't like this girl one bit either. She seethed when the girl and her only female friend boasted about causing car accidents walking down the street at the beach. And told about this little game they'd play with guys at bars. One would suggest a three-way and he'd assume she meant them and him. But then she'd pick some random guy and say that the guy she was playing with could watch them go at it but no touching.

My life spiraled out of control, an endless blur of partying and excess. My guy friends seemed to like this girl and welcomed her into our fold. Maybe too much so, as she went overboard. She'd disappear for days on end, skip work and have no explanation when she returned all disheveled. I'd get reports about her slutty antics.

So one night we're riding in her two-seater car. A pal of mine is driving and she's on my lap. Out of nowhere she announces that she wants him and plants a messy kiss on his lips. He almost wrecked the car. He had something in his pocket she wanted, and it wasn't what you're thinking (weighed in grams.) I jump out of the car and stumble home, obviously distraught. It is 6:30am. My dad is up reading the paper. He looks up, notices my condition and says, "Forget her. She is just a whore. I knew it from the first time she came on to me." He was always partial to my future wife.

So here's the thing: He was right, she was a whore. Sure she eventually cleaned herself up but that is what she was at the time. But for some reason this betrayal still irks me after all these years. And it's not her, I know what motivated her. It's him. You simply can't allow something that humiliating to happen to your friends. Similar stories out there?

Soon thereafter I turned up all remorseful on wifey's doorstep. I was 5'6" and 122 pounds. I had deeply etched black circles under my eyes. My skin was blotchy and mottled. I hadn't shaved for days. My job was threatening to fire me. I was a mess, on death's door. I had no place to go. She welcomed my back, nursed me back to health and basically saved my life. See, sometimes there is a happy ending after all.