College Memory

About a year before I met my wife, I dated a young woman for a short time that herein I will call M. I quickly learned that M was all about image and look and how people perceived her/us, but she had very little substance behind her. On top of that, she was quite insecure - always asking if I really liked her or was going to break up with her and whatnot.

She was a sweet girl but I rather quickly realized the relationship wasn't going very far. On top of that, M lived with her mother, grandfather and uncle. Her mother was an odd sort, although nice when I met her. Later after we broke up I learned her mother stole M's car and credit cards and absconded to Florida wherein she rang up some rather sizable debt in short order.

Yet, that wasn't the weirdest family incident involving her.

One night we were going out. I had borrowed my dad's pickup truck and their driveway sloped away from a rather busy road. As I was backing out of the driveway and trying to make some haste, I moderately spun my wheels and kicked up some of the driveway gravel. I wasn't hot-dogging nor being "cool" or anything and I imagine this must have happened countless times in the past.

Later that evening, however, I got a stern lecture from dear old granddad about showing off and driving recklessly, etc. While I apologized I also tried to explain how it happened but he didn't want to hear of it. Since I was raised right (I suppose) I took the verbal assault from my elder, rolled my eyes and moved on. M tried to defend me as well, but it seemed she was rather afraid of her grandfather.

Perhaps two weeks later, I went to pick up M again and as I approached saw two cop cars with strobe-lights a-blazing as well as a small group of people were disbursing. I assume they were neighbors. I thought about just driving by and calling with some lame excuse but then I saw M on the lawn discretely waving to me. I stopped, she jumped in my truck, and off we went.

After ten of fifteen minutes of driving I said something along the lines of, "Since you're not going to volunteer the information, I think I have to ask: What the fuck was going on there?"

After a few beats, she replied, "I'm soooo embarrassed! My grandfather and my uncle got in a fight and my grandfather shot my uncle. Only in the arm but he went to the hospital in an ambulance and they took my grandfather to jail."

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa????? I thought. But remained silent in thinking, wow, that could've been me, huh?

This all came to light after recent thoughts of escaping from the relationship but the time was now near to do some actual planning. But I let it go that night and in a few more weeks the opportunity presented itself.

I was in college at the time and rented a small lakehouse with a group of friends. One night I had plans to go out with a buddy but as I stepped out of the shower I could see her car in the driveway. I quickly dressed thinking the door knock would come in seconds but it was actually quite some time. When it came, I let her in but explained that I was headed out and didn't have much time.

"I'm worried about our relationship" she stated. Mind you, we really only had a few dates. Maybe five. We hadn't really had intimate contact or anything of that sort. Just some dates. Movies, pizza, mini-golf and fireworks.

I was leary of where this was headed. "Ummmmmmm.....okay?" I think I responded.

"You're going to break up with me, huh?" she said.

I lied. "No. Not really. Why?" I have no idea what I meant by "not really" in that case, but that's what I said. Normally I would think she was perceptive about me not being terribly into her, but she always seemed to think I was one minute from breaking up with her. Even when I wasn't.

"I don't know. I just think you are. You know, with my grandfather and all that." I learned he was out on bond and one thing I was sure of is I wasn't going to be around that crazy bastard again. She could meet me wherever we wanted to go. Screw being a gentleman and picking a lady up at her door as far as I was concerned.

Details of our conversation after that are a bit sketchy but it went on forever! It was never a fight, just more of the same thing over and over again and it was getting annoying and frustrating. Plus, I was really feeling pressed for time. So after a while, I guess I just gave up. "Yes. Okay then. We're breaking up." There ,I said it. I guess I felt the time to seize the opportunity to finalize what I know would come eventually. Let the fireworks begin.

"Okay" she said. After a long, long pause and through teary eyes, she said "I know you need to go but can I just sit for a while?" What? No fireworks? No screaming? No crying? Just seeing her sit there made me feel horrible, but she wanted to stay?

Of course now I'm thinking she could trash the place or burn my shit or whatever. But she still seemed sweet and I really, really had to go so I said "yes". Perhaps it was a good instinct on my part, I don't know, but there was no catastrophic ending wherein she spray-painted my walls and tore up my bed or whatever. When I got home later that night (I didn't have any fun!) she was gone. That was it.

I actually had very little contact with her after that. We had a mutual friend who sort of kept me abreast of M's life but not much else.

Flash forward two years. At this point I've been dating my now wife for about a year. One day she asks me, "Do you know M?"

"Yeah" I said. "I used to know her. Haven't seen her in a long time though." I had no idea how much my wife knew about us but was curious where this was going.

"We work together in (a residence) Hall at (college). She said she dated you for a while and thought you were great".

Errrrr???? I thought. Thought I was great? I didn't think I handled things with her so great. But it was nice to know. "Yeah, she was a nice kid. It just didn't work out, you know?" I think I told her the grandfather story at that point.

The two stayed friends for a couple years in what to me appeared to be a totally non-awkward situation and later I learned M got married and was leading a reasonably productive life.

And years later, the lovely Mrs. Blogger and I got married and lead our own productive lives.

Man, if that situation doesn't make me appreciate my wife's family though.