TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I can’t decide which part of this week’s Toolbag Tuesday is the worst.

I’ve re-told this story countless times, and while it’s agreed that Greg is AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL, everyone has their own opinion about what his biggest crime was.

Not to worry, there’s no WRONG answer.

Is it the fact that Greg, 26, cheated on my friend Eva, 28, with a 52-year-old woman?

Is it the fact that he picked up this 52-year-old woman at bar and bought shots for her and her 17-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTERS all night???

Is it the fact that he DROVE this 52-year-old woman’s car that night and disappeared for an hour, just the two of them?

Is it the fact that he MADE OUT WITH the 52-year-old woman outside of a popular bar, in front of Eva’s male friend?

Or is it the fact that Greg LIED HIS ASS OFF for three days following said cheating, each lie more absurd than the next?

No, wait. I got it.

Maybe it's the fact that AS HE WAS CAUGHT KISSING the 52-year-old woman by one of Eva’s male friends, Greg looked over at him and said, “Bro code.”

BRO code??

Really?

Guys are using this word seriously? Like Craig Kilborn in the movie Old School?

“What are you gonna do? Tell on me? You know you can't buddy. It's guy code. That's something chicks do.”

I never knew guys actually said that to each other in real life.

But you never can tell with seemingly perfect boyfriends.

Because by all accounts, Greg was madly in love with Eva. He doted on her, told her he wanted to marry her (VOMIT) and they were about to celebrate their one-year anniversary.

That is, until Greg went out for “guy’s night” the ONE weekend Eva was out of town.
Within an hour, he had wooed a 52-year-old woman and her 17-year-old daughters.

Before sunset.

Of course, that’s not the story Greg told Eva when she called him the next morning.

Greg said "guy's night" was “super fun” with pool and darts and that he and the guys got really drunk.

Seven of us girls were with Eva that day, on an annual girl’s beach vacation, two hours up the South Carolina coast.
At that moment, we were about to go and lay out on the beach.

But we were stopped in our tracks by a phone call from Thomas, Eva’s friend, the one who Greg had instructed to follow “bro code."
(Turns out, it wasn’t a contractual agreement.)

Thomas told Eva all about the 52-year-old woman, her 17-year-old daughters, the fact that Greg LEFT with the 52-year-old woman in her car for an hour, and that he physically saw them making out in front of a bar.

“And he said, ‘bro code,’” Thomas added.

Eva was dizzy with shock.

“I talked to Greg this morning and he told me that he was playing darts and pool,” she said.

“Yea, he called me this morning at 7 a.m. too...to go over his ‘story’ for you,” Thomas said, incriminating the asshole even more. "He was NEVER at the bar playing pool."

“HE CALLED YOU SPECIFICALLY TO COME UP WITH A ‘STORY’ TO TELL ME??” Eva screamed.

We all stopped getting our beach towels together and stood there, frozen.
Eva called Greg immediately.

“YOU MADE OUT WITH A 52-YEAR-OLD WOMAN LAST NIGHT? YOU CHEATED ON ME WITH A 52-YEAR-OLD WOMAN?” Eva demanded. “YOU REALIZE WE’RE BROKEN UP, RIGHT?”

Greg (for his benefit, hopefully still drunk) laughed.

LAUGHED.

Our jaws dropped.

“What woman??” We heard Greg say through the phone. “Thomas is a liar. He’s just out to GET me. He HATES me.”

Eva was incensed.

“WERE YOU, OR WERE YOU NOT, WITH A 52-YEAR-OLD WOMAN LAST NIGHT?” Eva screamed. “THOMAS SAID YOU WERE NEVER AT THE BAR PLAYING POOL! AND YOU GOT INTO HER CAR?”

“Ok, so, yes, there was an older woman hitting on me, but all I did was give her a hug,” Greg said. “I was playing pool and darts!” he insisted.

(Still laughing.)

“Yea? Where are the pool tables located in the bar?” Eva asked, knowing Greg had never been to that bar before and the tables were, oddly, on the third floor.

“I don’t remember where the pool tables were,” Greg said. “What kind of question is that?”

Ha.

“AND YOU TOLD HIM ‘BRO CODE?’ WHO THE F*CK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE??!!?" Eva demanded.

We gulped.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Greg said.

“Oh, what you did WRONG is that you went out with the WRONG DUDE last night,” Eva yelled at him into the phone.
“You went out with the one dude that didn’t keep your little ‘bro code’ a secret.”

The concerning part was that Eva said nothing was wrong in their relationship when the cheating occurred.

Not that it would have made a difference, but they weren’t fighting, they hadn’t been drifting apart. He had even sent her text messages all that day.

It unfolded like a nightmare — Greg, the seemingly perfect boyfriend turning more and more into a Mr. Hyde monster with every passing hour. (or is that Dr. Jekyl…I never remember which one is the asshole).

Over the next 24 hours, Greg — who wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with — tried to lie his way out of the situation.

Greg wasn’t a very good liar, but not because of something cute like having a conscious.

It was because he’s an idiot.

See, Greg was one of those people that continued to tell lie after lie despite the fact that there was overwhelming evidence against him, and that his lies stopped making sense.

I’ll skip to the good part right now: He told Eva that the 52-year-old woman was a job recruiter.

WHAT!!

(P.S. Bad karma, Greg. I hope you get no interviews. Ever.)

See, Greg had to come up with SOMETHING, since he refused to admit that there was even a 52-year-old woman to begin with.

Eva tried really hard to get him on it.

She made Greg check his bank statement to see how much he spent at the bar, since eyewitness reports (Thomas) said he was buying the 52-year-old woman and her underage daughters shots. (Things Greg denied.)

His bar tab was $60.

“That’s a lot for one person, considering you only spent an hour there,” Eva said.

“What??” Greg said. “I drank six doubles!!!! $10 a piece!!!”

“So you had the equivalent of 12 drinks?” Eva asked. “In an hour?”

She considered all the evidence.

The inflated bar tab was concerning, also the fact that Greg still couldn’t answer the question of where the pool tables were in the bar he was supposedly at all night.

Also, Greg had not called Thomas since the news broke.

Eva put herself into his situation.

If a friend had told her boyfriend that she cheated and it was a lie, you better believe she’d be calling that friend — if not drive over to that friend’s house immediately to clear things up.

Greg remained silent. To this day, he still hasn’t called Thomas since "guys" night.

And since Eva ISN'T an idiot, she told Greg they were completely over and told him to meet her at a neutral place so they could exchange the stuff that they had collected in the YEAR they dated.

Greg, still insisting that he did nothing wrong, was instructed to bring his cell phone so Eva could look through his text messages.

“No probem,” he said.
After all, he had NOTHING to hide.

Not surprisingly, Greg showed up with an empty inbox.

“ALL MY MEMORY WAS FULL AND I HAD TO DELETE MY INBOX!” He said.
How convenient.

In an uncharacteristic move, Eva took his phone and scrolled through his call log.

She said it was beyond frustrating fighting with someone who refused to admit they did anything wrong, and she needed to see the evidence she already knew was there.

It didn’t take long for her to find it.

“Who did you call this morning after you hung up with me?” Eva asked, peering at his screen.

“Who? What?” Greg asked.

“This out-of-state number,” Eva said. “The person who you talked to for FIVE minutes?”

“Oh, I think that was a job recruiter.”

“You THINK you talked to a job recruiter this morning?” Eva asked. “Are you applying to out-of-state jobs now?”

“No. Yea, it was a job recruiter.”

“Oh, so you don’t mind if I call the number back then? It’s after work hours."

Greg turned red and looked fidgety.


Eva hit send and waited for an “agency” to pick up.

“FINE! WHATEVER!” Greg said. Then he started to cry.

>>>RING RING<<<

“Hello?” Eva heard an (older) female voice.

“Hi, who is this?” Eva asked.

“Ummm…may I help you?” the voice on the other line asked.

“Well, I just found this number in my friend’s phone, I was wondering who it was.”

>CLICK.<

Eva threw the phone back at Greg, in tears.

“THAT’S HER, ISN’T IT?!” Eva said. “YOU’VE BEEN CALLING THE 52-YEAR-OLD WOMAN?? WHAT THE F*CK???!?!?!”

“NO!!!!” Greg screamed. “THAT WAS A JOB RECRUITER!!!!”

Tisk, tisk.
Only the sad and desperate go down swinging like that.

Eva, FURIOUS that she wasted a year dating such a loser, looked at him and said, "You're a real piece of work, you know that?"

Then she began to walk away.

Oh but Greg wasn’t done.
He had one more punch left in him.

Seriously, he screamed at her:
“EVA!!!!! YOU JUST BLEW MY CHANCES OF GETTING A JOB INTERVIEW!”

Hahaha OMG SERIOUSLY.

Of course, over the next several weeks, Greg changed his tune and admitted that he did kiss the 52-year-old woman, and that it was her on the phone.

But none of this was his fault because he was drunk when it happened, and he merely called the woman to get a recap of what they did that night.

And then he told Eva to "try and see the bigger picture of their relationship" and work through it.

Um.

WHAT WAS THAT, TOOLBAG???
"BIGGER PICTURE??"

The bigger picture is that lying and cheating is completely unforgivable.

That’s "girl code."

Enjoy your early bird special.

-Jenny