TOOLBAG TUESDAY

When I started Toolbag Tuesday, I opened with the story of Peter, who put a dead baby shark under our apartment because he was mad at my roommate/his ex-girlfriend, Amy.

I said I’d do another post specifically about him, because life with Peter was absolutely nuts. Nuts to the point that I didn’t give any guy from his hometown a chance because I was convinced that the small South Carolina city must breed nothing but crazies.

Peter and Amy met in high school. They dated for four years, throughout his entire college career while she was still in high school. They did the long-distance thing, a 2-hour drive away, and they broke up and got back together a lot.

Peter really lost it when Amy broke up with him three months into her college career. I lived with Amy at the time, and witnessed the crazy firsthand.

I remember the returning of the stuff, which back then used to be things like CDs and VHS tapes before everything was downloadable.

Peter came over to return some clothes and a handheld back massager from Brookstone. But he also brought a stack of photos they had taken together over the past four years: homecoming pictures, prom pictures, graduation pictures.

He didn’t need to return the pictures to Amy, but he was trying to be hurtful and dramatic.

I heard them shouting outside in the driveway and peeked over the balcony to inspect. I heard him say something like, “have a good LIFE!!!” and I saw him throw all the pictures up in the air at her, so they were floating down on top of her head.

He made it rain with memories, y’all.

Then, he took her back massager and RAN IT ALONG THE SIDE OF HER CAR, making a while line appear, and dropped it on the ground and got in his car and drove off.

Fortunately, Amy was able to rub the white line out of her car. Unfortunately, they continued to hang out/get back together/break up/fight/make up for the next several months, and he wreaked havoc on our house.

I told Amy that the day he broke our door down should have been the last straw.
Yes, Peter BROKE OUR DOOR DOWN. I had a friend visiting me in South Carolina from New Orleans at the time and was very embarrassed.

Of course, we all thought that our house had been broken into and ROBBED when we got home from the bar that night and saw the wood door had a piece carved out of it, à la judo chop.

We didn’t live in too safe of a neighborhood, so it wouldn’t have been entirely surprising that our house was broken into.

As we instructed the only male with us to go in first and look around, with a crowbar, our neighbor came over looking distraught.

“Hey, the guy that broke your door was tall with dark hair and drove a pickup truck,” he said.

Peter.

“He kept screaming ‘Amy, Amy!’ and I didn’t want to call the cops because I figured he was your boyfriend or something.”

We looked at Amy, who would always say, “That couldn’t have been Peter.”

“Well,” the neighbor said. “The pick-up truck had a construction company logo on the side of it.

Peter’s dad’s company.

“YOU BEAT OUR DOOR DOWN??” Amy yelled at Peter when she called his phone.
“Noooo, I wasn’t even downtown tonight,” Peter said.

“YOU WERE ID’ed BY THE NEIGHBOR!” Amy said.

“Whatever.”

Amy had to call Peter’s mother to tell her the story so he would come over and repair the door. (The landlord was fine with that arrangement).

His mother profusely apologized and sent us an “I’m sorry” bouquet of roses, which made me think it wasn't the first time Amy had to call her.

Peter and his buddies spent the next four days replacing the door, and the four of us who lived in the apartment became increasingly infuriated having to step over them and their beer cans on our way to class.

The day the door was completed, we found a handwritten note on looseleaf paper next to the bouquet:

Dear ladies,

I’m sorry about my blatant disregard for your property and privacy.

Sincerely,
Peter

Ugh.

No one ever ID’d Peter for putting a dead baby shark under our house almost a year later (Amy dismissed the idea), but we all knew it was him because he was that crazy.

And, since we still needed to get even with him for beating our door down anyway, we decided to blatantly disregard his property and privacy.
With dog shit.

Peter had recently moved into an apartment two blocks away from us, which was absolutely intentional.

One day, as one of our roommates walked her dog, she picked up his droppings in a plastic bag and walked the few blocks to Peter's car that was always unlocked with the windows down.

She smeared the poop all over his cushioned seat and on the window.

We figured it couldn’t smell any worse than the rotting shark.

I don’t remember a backlash from Peter for that deviant act, no angry door-banging, no accusations from Amy about it.
Perhaps Peter has enough enemies with dogs that he wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint it on us.

Which is good, because I wouldn’t want him calling my mother to make me clean it up.

-Jenny