TOOLBAG TUESDAY

*This is a repost after my dad made me delete it the first time. But I’m too lazy today to write a new one, and it’s also an amazing toolbag story. Probably the most toolbag of the toolbags to date.*

*earmuffs mom*

Two years ago, my twin sister, Joy, and I were at my grandmother’s 100th birthday party in New York, when I got a call from my roommate in South Carolina.

A call from her was odd, since we had more of a texting relationship. (Why call when you can text, really?)

“What’s up?” I said, getting dressed for the birthday party, in the small upstairs bathroom.

“OK, well last night, I caught Ben…pleasuring himself on the couch,” she said.

“Um.. What.”

I didn’t have much time; I had to go fan out napkins and set up all the tiny finger sandwiches.

The story was that Liz had asked Ben to come over after he got off work at 2 a.m. He worked at a bar downtown. He’d be over by 3 a.m., he said.

Liz woke up at 3, and Ben wasn’t there.
“Where are you?” she asked, groggy, after calling his cell phone.

“I’m about to walk in the front door,” Ben said. He stupidly had a copy of the key to our house. “I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

Liz heard the door open and had fallen back asleep, waiting for Ben to get into bed. When she woke up a half hour later, alone, she decided to look around.

She heard noises from the living room, and tiptoed in to see what was going on. We have two entrances into the living room, and she chose the right entrance — the one where Ben’s back was to her.

As such, she was able to take in the ENTIRE SCENE of Ben WITH HIS PANTS DOWN, a laptop on his lap, pleasuring himself to a pornographic website.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” Liz had asked Ben, who jumped off the couch and quickly pulled his pants up.
“Uh, nothing.”
She told him to leave and he did, unapologetic.

“So, now what am I supposed to do?” Liz asked me on the phone, as I was about to walk downstairs for the birthday party.
She sounded stressed out.

I didn’t know what to say, so I called Joy into the room, and gave her the rundown.

"Who's computer was he using?" Joy asked immediately, knowing full well that Liz didn't have a laptop, and I had brought mine to New York.

“GROSS!" Joy shouted when she realized it was hers. “Now I’m going to get a virus!!”

I told Liz that Ben was rude and vile, and Joy and I never liked him and said she needed to break up with him immediately.

The sad part was, we weren’t surprised by his behavior. Ben had long thought our house (Joy and my house that is) was his house, and this was the last straw.

He had spent every single night at our place, done his laundry repeatedly, took showers and ate our food.
And he did this when Liz wasn’t even there. This is why you must not hand out copies of your key to just anyone.

I remember Joy and I were in my bed watching TV one night (we sleep in the same bed sometimes, like puppies) and Ben had used his key to waltz in the house when Liz was at work, stuck just his hand in the slightly ajar room where we were and waved, then walked in the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Horrible.

Liz, in her distressed state, agreed that Ben was a shit, and even admitted that he came over so much because THE ELECTRICY AT HIS APARTMENT WAS SHUT OFF.

“Um. What.”

“Yea, it was totally shut off because he didn't pay the bill,” Liz said. “He said, ‘I’m not too concerned about it, it's not really a high priority right now."

And why should it be? He had our entire house to live in and not pay a cent! Jenny and Joy have electricity! They have water!
THEY HAVE WI-FI!

I told Liz that Ben needed to get his electricity in his own apartment turned on again, like NOW, because clearly, he had made himself TOO comfortable in our house and we were effing tired of it.

She did — and he did — but unfortunately, they had NOT broken up by the time we returned from New York.

Ben continued to come over, even though he knew that WE knew what he had done with Joy’s computer. He wasn’t embarrassed at all.

In fact, a week or two after the um, couch situation, he saw me flipping through a Victoria’s Secret catalog (they just bombard you with those things don’t they??) and he made a joke about how the only thing good about the magazine is for men to pleasure themselves.

I glared at him.

“Really, Ben?” I said. “Really?”

“Oh, they’re not my type,” Ben responded.

(Liz described the online porn he was watching in great detail. It was certainly was not lady-like enough for the Victoria’s Secret models.)

Ben and Liz broke up a short time later, thank GOD, and she has since gotten a new boyfriend and actually moved in with him. They split the electric bill.

Ben is long gone, but one thing remains: Joy's password on her laptop:
“Don’t jack off.”

It's case sensitive.

-Jenny