TOOLBAG TUESDAY

This week’s post is dedicated to confusing toolbag behavior.

In past posts, the toolbags’ behavior has been clear and obvious.

For instance: asking out the friend of a girl you’re dating means your head’s too big and you’re pretending to be a pimp.

Desperately creating a MySpace page as an ex-girlfriend to get information from her friends means you’re sad and bored and maybe still in high school.

Getting “something”-whipped by a girl friend who you’re not even dating means that you’re living in la la land. And also, easily whip-able.

Yet, some toolbags' actions are so bizarre they can’t even be analyzed.
(Which, for the record, doesn’t make them any less of toolbags.)

Sarah and Jake had been going out for a month, and, like most toolbags, he seemed totally normal.

He played on an adult soccer league, he drove an SUV and he was very romantic.
He sent flowers and candy and he even booked them a PENTHOUSE SUITE at a fancy hotel downtown for no reason at all, complete with strawberries and champagne.

It was that very night, however, when Jake started turning… confusing.
(Getting sloppy drunk at dinner wasn’t the confusing part.)

After dinner and more drinks, Jake and Sarah got back to the hotel and Jake decided that he needed more food. He left Sarah in the room while he went to the lobby restaurant.

And he didn’t come back for two hours.

When he finally did, Sarah asked him what took him so long, and he said he didn’t remember.

She reasoned that he was super drunk and was probably just wandering around, and she noted that this was the first time he’s been less than perfect. So, he was off the hook.

Not too long after that, Jake met up with Sarah at happy hour so he could meet her guy friend, Joseph, who was visiting from out of town.

Sarah was chatting with other people at the table and didn’t pay much attention to Jake, who was happily chatting with Joseph.

But soon everyone noticed that Jake didn’t return to the table after a bathroom run, after a very long time.

“Where is he?” Sarah said. “Ugh, is he, like, GOING to the bathroom?” she asked, turning up her nose.

Joseph shrugged his shoulders, but after 20 minutes of looking irritated, he got up to go look for him, and came back to the table alone, fuming mad.

“He’s not in there,” Joseph said. “And I just loaned him $60.”
“What??” Sarah said. “You loaned him money? Just now?”

“Yea,” Joseph said. “He told me that he didn’t get paid until tomorrow and that he wanted to take you out tonight and was embarrassed about not having money, so I loaned him some.”

(This was not even a week after he had booked the penthouse suite. With champagne and strawberries. Overlooking the water.)

“He said he’d pay me back tomorrow,” Joseph said.

“WHAT!!?" Sarah screamed.

She called Jake's phone, but it was off. Then, at that moment, the server came back and gave Sarah the tab for both their drinks and food, which ironically was very close to $60.

Two days later, Sarah called me with an update.

“I told him that he was a sketchy piece of crap and I never wanted to see him again,” she said.

Jake didn’t have a good reason for leaving the bar without saying goodbye, but he did say that Joseph was a liar and he never borrowed any money.

“WHAT?” I asked. “Joseph would never lie about that! You've know him for five years! WHAT THE HELL?”

We never did figure out where Jake went or what he did with the alleged money, although Sarah ended up paying Joseph back the $60.

Perhaps Jake though Sarah wouldn’t have noticed that he left?

Or not minded paying the bar tab in his absence?

Did he consider that she’d spend the next 20 minutes apologizing to Joseph and everyone else at the table for her “sketchball” date?

No he didn’t. And no penthouse suite that can make up for that.

-Jenny