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.

Bumper Skiing Part II

On another occasion and during college, my then-girlfriend and future wife and my best friend J and I were out partying. J and I had quite a bit to drink so Mrs. B. agreed to drive us home in his car. Of course, drunks can never make it easy on the sober, so we made her take some diversion from the bar to go eat at D'Angelo's. This represented a major upgrade from our normal dirty-water-dog cuisine from a trailer parked outside the bar. Plus, it was snowing.

After chowing down, we got the bright idea of her driving us around the Stop-N-Shop parking lot so we could bumper ski behind his BMW 530es. Who in college drives a BMW? Well, not him for long. The bank kindly asked for it back. Anyway, after 4 or 5 journey's around the parking lot, my peripheral vision picked up a cop car coming at us.

We quickly plopped ourselves in the car as if nothing was amiss but his lights were on in seconds. He came over to talk to Mrs. B but we barely rolled down the windows so as to avoid any implication there might be alcohol. I'm not sure he was fooled at all, but Mrs. B. was rather sober so we had that going for us.

After he explained the dangers of what we were doing (duh!), it became obvious he was going to let us off the hook and did so in telling us to go home. As he trudged back to his car, my buddy, in the spirit of the holidays and perhaps due to the fact we weren't being ticketed or cuffed, told him, "Merry Christmas, officer." J has always had a kiss-ass way about him.

Without turning his head, the officer said back, "Yeah. Ho ho ho".

Druken College Tale

Isn't it always the nights you plan to go out for a "couple" that turn out to be the most wicked? Yet, the ones you plan to really tie one on end up falling short and have you home in bed in time for Carson? Yeah, Carson. This is a college story and I'm getting old, ok?

So, my friend "B" and I decided to meet my then girlfriend and eventual Mrs. B and some of her friends at a local college pub to celebrate the end of the school year. The evening started out nice enough and we were having a pleasant time with laughs and fun conversation. However, things progressed to the point of many, many drinks complete with swilling straight from the pitcher, jaeger shots and a bunch of us climbing on the back of Mrs. B's shitty car bumper as we bounced up and down and sang "this old car she ain't what she used to be". At some point, the police kindly requested we stop so we then trudged about 2 miles back to the dorm because none of us were anywhere near all right to drive. Hell, we could barely walk.

Along the way, one of my many great ideas was to "hedge swim" or "bush dive". This involves climbing on the top of neatly trimmed hedges and swimming along them, parallel to the sidewalk. Oh, it be possible. If you can ignore the assorted puncture wounds and the occasional collapse of the shrub edges leaving the fledgling Mark Spitz prone on the sidewalk with new assorted injuries that do nothing to abate the hysterical laughter then, you too, can be a professional bush diver.

None of the above, however, is my tale. It merely sets the mood.

Our particular university was and is a huge baseball school with multiple national championships in their division. The running joke at the school was the board of trustees always had a dilemma about whether to get more books for the library or cool new landscaping to jazz up the baseball field. Inevitably, the field won and we did research in 1920's texts. "Wow! The periodic table sure has grown".

So, B and I and another guy whom I didn't know before, nor have I've seen since, decided to break into the field and play some baseball. I don't want to sound haughty when I say this was my idea too but, hell, it was. I'm full of them. Just see my strip trouble post a few months ago. It wasn't difficult to get onto the field and we played phantom baseball reminiscent of the Bull Durham rain out scene, complete with base-running and diving into home. I'm pretty sure I hit the game-winning home run.

Needless to say, Mrs. B and the rest of her friends didn't quite find the humor in our activities that we did. So they left.

We stayed and stayed. Of course, drunks sliding on baseball fields for 30 plus minutes are apt to get a tad dirty. After our victory celebration, B and I were somehow able to get back into the women's floor at such a late hour and in direct violation of the parietal hours. Oh, did I mention Mrs. B was a Resident Assistant? The one responsible for rules enforcement of the dorm inhabitants? Mmmmm....yeaah!

Anyway, I guess she went to bed and was none-too-pleased when B and I came a-knocking on her door. For some reason she saw fit to NOT let us in. We had ourselves a bit of a quandary, so, what's a couple guys to do? We went to rinse off in the ladies' showers. The idea was to clean up our arms and legs but my staggering eventually caused most of my clothing to get wet so, unbeknownst to B, I stripped nude and was taking a regular shower. When I eventually stepped into the common area, clean and strategically covering my "bits" and clutching my dirty and wet clothes, he was laughing hysterically at my audaciousness.

Of course, I did not have a towel but that did nothing to deter me from trudging completely nude the 100 or so feet down the common hallway to Mrs. B's door and knocked again as I called her name in the sweetest way possible. I knocked and knocked and knocked and I called her and I called her and I called her.

It took awhile, but eventually I was informed, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be welcome in her room. While I was still confused as to why she was so mad, I was also disgruntled and proceeded to the lobby area where I promptly sat my naked ass on a chair and turned on the TV. B thought this was all so funny and I guess that's all I need; an audience. Intermittently, I had other audience members as well. I was a hit for a while there.

I guess at some point, the Headmaster, whom I was good friend with, got word of my antics and went to Mrs. B's room to inform her of my antics and ask her to take care of it. While she was no doubt horrified when she turned to corner to see me sitting in a comfy chair, bare naked, remote in one hand and junk covered in the other, she allowed me back in her room. I even caught her laughing as she shook her head. She never seems to be able to stay mad at me for long. Main show was over and since B lived close by so he took off. I promptly fell asleep.

The next day was moving day. That was the primary reason I had gone up and Mrs. B's mom came up to help as well. One particular resident took that as the opportunity to mimic my prior nights actions complete with sweetly singing out Mrs. B's name and covering his privates. Yeah! Funny stuff.

Good thing my future mother in law had as good a sense of humor as my future wife.

Tutor

My first two years of college I was a Biology major. It was incredibly hard and after my fourth semester of it, I realized there were simply too many, much smarter kids for me to compete with so I switched over the Psychology. Shit came much easier for them then me. I guess I wasn't cut out for it.

Part of being a Bio major, however, is intensive math courses since it factors in so much for all the Chemistry.

After Trig for Calc, advanced Algebra and Calculus comes Calculus II. I found Calc II difficult insomuch as I wasn't remembering all the Trigonometry functions as well as I should have. If you've never taken Calculus II its one of those classes where you have to prove 2+2=4 and why. One problem could easily take up two or three sheets of paper. Anyway, after getting a 33 on the first of my 3 tests (1 answer correct out of 3 - oh brother) I decided I needed to take action. I saw a tutor.

Well, I showed up for the appointment and the friggin' kid was 16!!!!! My college Calculus II (300 level course) tutor was 16!!!! I was 20. He was smart as a whip, but not a very good tutor probably because everything came so damn easy to him. While I was off working on some problems he had given to me, I heard him talking to another young tutor about his driver's test coming up! The kid couldn't even drive legally to the appointment. His mom must have taken him.

How humiliating.

So, at the end of the session, I told him I would gladly take his driver's test and promise to pass it if he would take my next exam and promise the same.

He smirked.

I guess he was an adequate tutor. I rallied in the class and passed with a B or something since the teacher was reasonable in assuming if one could ace the final, then they had learned the material from the first test and skewed my final grade likewise. Phew!!!

Thank God! And I didn't have to take his driver's test although I think it would have been funny if I showed up in a racing helmet, fire suit and driving gloves to take it.