TOOLBAG TUESDAY

The best way to find out a guy’s true feelings about your personality? 

Deny him sex. 

Because THAT’S when a certain breed of shitheads show their true colors and start spitting out reasons why you suck. 

In what…in an attempt to make you change your mind?? 

Oh, baby, tell me more about how selfish I am! It makes me so HOT. 

This is sadly what happened to my friend Julia, who wasted an entire month of her life dating this guy Eric. 

After being nothing but a super doting, super complimentary perfect gentleman, he freaked out on her one night because she was too tired/drunk to have sex with him. 

At 2 a.m. 

On a school night. 

After a month of dating.

Sounds silly, right? Like, WHO IS THIS GUY???

Unfortunately, Eric’s not the only one. I’ve heard countless other versions of this situation from friends. (ummm…like this one. FML). 

It’s annoyingly common. Bottom line: Guys hate it when they don’t get what they want in bed, and in turn, they make you cry. 

The thing that was so brutal about this particular situation was that up until that point, every single thing that came out of Eric’s mouth was perfect (Ugh. Typical). 

The entire MONTH they hung out/emailed/texted daily, Julia said it was all about how amazing she was, how smart she was, how it was FATE that they met. Eric would even joke to her, “don’t screw this up” because he was so into her. 

Ironic. She didn’t screw (it up) 

Eric dropped books and music off at her apartment, “things that reminded him of her,” leaving them on the porch with notes about how happy he was that he met her. 

SWOON. 

Oh but there’s more.

He cooked her dinner and emailed her job openings. HE MET HER EVERY DAY IN HER OFFICE PARKING LOT TO BRING HER A COFFEE. (He worked nearby).

Never before had Julia heard such sweet things, and they sounded genuine.

Before Eric’s freak out, they had plans to go to a wedding, and he showed her the bottle of champagne he bought for them to drink beforehand, as a celebration of what fun they’d have.

Right. He would have fooled me, too.

As the icing on the cake, Julia said Eric actually said aloud that he didn’t mind or care if they never slept together because he liked her so much he’d be happy to have her around in ANY capacity. 

She was drunk with compliments. 

But then he turned psycho. 

(Or maybe he always was psycho, and she was just drunk.) 

One night after going out dancing (SWOON TWICE) and having a great time, she spent the night and he tried to make a move. 

No, she said, she was too tired and had to be at work in, oh, five hours.

“Are you mad?” Julia asked.

“No,” he said, visibly mad. 

“You’re mad.” 

Eric had stopped cuddling her and rolled over and was staring at the ceiling.

(He was mad.)

Now, since Eric and Julia only hung out for a month, and hadn’t done anything other than go on cute dates, he couldn’t really turn out a legitimate insult. 

God knows he tried. 

“NO, you know why I’m MAD????” Eric said. “I’m MAD…at that TONE you used earlier, when you said you didn’t want to walk in the rain.” 

?????????? 

“Um, what??” Julia asked. 

“I MEAN, WHO TALKS TO SOMEONE LIKE THAT???” he yelled.

Um. What.

Julia didn’t remember saying anything like that at all, and Eric certainly didn’t bring it up before that moment. 

(He didn't bring it up before they went to bed. Or when they were dancing in the kitchen.)

“Wait, since when are you mad about my ‘tone?’” 

“SINCE EARLIER!!!” he growled. “AND…I DIDN’T LIKE IT WHEN YOU TOLD ME THERE WAS A PUDDLE AND YOU DIDN’T WANT TO WALK IN IT!” 

Hahahahaha. 

That was his biggest problem with her. 

Julia said Eric’s entire persona changed. He was angry and mean. Fidgety even. 

“AND YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT OUR DATE TO THE WEDDING!” he said, and then turned away.

Hahahahahahaha 

I mean, even if her “tone” was indeed pissy, did that punishment fit the “crime?” 

Heaven forbid someone uses a “tone” he doesn’t like. YOU CAN JUST FORGET ABOUT THE WEDDING!

(I asked Julia if she was positive this guy was really in his 30s.)

“Since when do you have all these terrible things to say about me?” she asked. “What is going on right now??”

Julia began to cry. Eric was unaffected. He was sexually frustrated, and it brought out his true colors. 

Still crying, mostly with disappointment at how her Prince Charming had turned into an effing troll, Julia went to the couch, because it was late and she was drunk and driving home wasn’t safe. 

Eric came into the living room and coaxed her back to bed, but she was still terribly sad.

Three hours of bad sleep later, Julia’s phone alarm went off and she noticed with shock that Eric was actually trying to HOOK UP WITH HER. 

Um. What.

“You’re kidding,” she said. “I went to bed crying last night because of you."

Cue Psycho round 2: 

“DON’T WAKE UP IN MY HOUSE WITH THAT ATTITUDE!” he yelled. 

“What?” 

“You can LEAVE,” he said, turning away. 

Julia had never been so disrespected in her entire life. 

…And from someone who had made her feel nothing less than a goddess on a pedestal for the past month.
It was heartbreaking.

Julia collected her things in a record 20 seconds and left his apartment.

Later that day, Eric sent her an EMAIL “apologizing,” although he only apologized for what he said she had interpreted incorrectly. (Typical.)

He then told her he’d still like to take her to the wedding, in which she LOL’d at the computer screen.

She called him after work to talk about what happened, but Eric wasn’t apologetic on the phone. He wasn’t even nice. 

In his response to her, “what happened last night??" he replied, "I THINK YOU’RE RUDE AND SELFISH AND SELF-CENTERED.” 

DUDE. Selfish how exactly??? SELFISH WITH HER…LADY PARTS?

Julia did nothing to deserve this treatment.

She cried again. What happened to how effing amazing she was?? 

How could someone who said such wonderful things be such a monster?

“Look, you’re the one who got all pissy because I wouldn’t sleep with you,” she said, standing up for herself. 

“Look, I’m not really interested in re-hashing anything,” Eric said. “Now, do you have anything NEW you’d like to say to me?” 

(Uhhh…my fist and your mouth??)

“Well…” Julia said. “You put on a really good front. You really had me fooled that you were a decent person.” 

It was totally an honest thing to say, and she was looking forward to his response. But he had none. 

Zero reply. 

He hung up. 

And that’s the last she ever heard from him. Done. Cold turkey. 

The same guy who told her repeatedly how much he was into her, how he can’t stop thinking about her, how he did “backflips down the street” at how happy he was that he met her...hung up on her and never, ever contacted her again. 

What an effing joke. 

May he step in rain puddles for the rest of his life. 

Or drown. Whatever.

-Jenny

Face plant

People are getting arrested for poisoning trees, y’all.

(AMERICA!!! EFF YEA!!!)

Did you know about this??? An Alabama football fan poisoned a bunch of trees on Auburn University’s campus because Auburn’s football team beat Alabama.

Um…Tit for Tat ??

What????

That guy could have saved a whole bunch of time and money had he just convinced Auburn to hire ME as its groundskeeper, because I would totally have killed those trees in a week.

Not on purpose, of course.
But still…
I would have put money on the foregone conclusion.

The problem is, I have a black thumb.
(Figuratively. Ew)

In my defense, I didn’t grow up with a garden or surround myself with potted plants very much.

I was always more of a plant destroyer – picking the flowers that grow among the clovers and making interlocking headbands with them, blowing on those puffy things and making a wish and throwing pine cones as far as I could (LOVE throwing pine cones.)

I was also a plant experimenter, and for a science project in school, I grew a whole bunch of soy beans, although I don’t really remember what the hypothesis was. Or the conclusion.

I do remember being grossed out as I unfolded wet Bounty paper towels every day to see if any of the beans SPROUTED and the ones that did looked like a spider's legs.

Maybe the experiment was to make the plants listen to different types of music to see if they grew better than others…

Or maybe I threw some acid rain water on them.

Either way, none of the beans survived.

College is when I really developed my anti-permaculture ways.

When I moved into my first real apartment out of the dorm, I bought a corn plant from Lowe’s. The ones that have bright green leaves attached to a large stump that looks like bamboo.

It should have been a perfect plant for me, since you don’t need to do anything to care for it.

It’s a "desert" plant, which means it needs little to no water.

And it’s an indoor plant, which means it’s perfectly fine sitting there like an end table.

Of course, I didn’t read the instructions on the proper care for the corn plant and made a point to WATER it every day.
A LOT.

I watered it so much that the water filled up the pot and turned into a standing puddle on top of the dirt around the base of the plant.

"Drink up my friend," I’d say (creepily.)

Three weeks later, the plant developed "Root Rot" and started to turn brown. I frowned.

Then I decided that the plant must just need more water....which is about the time all the leaves started to fall off.

In a desperate attempt to quench its thirst (Idiot. I was literally drowning my plant) I actually turned on the shower and STUCK THE PLANT IN THE TUB to mimic nature. It’s raining!!!

That poor plant sat in the shower for at least ten minutes. Specks of dirt got everywhere.

It died completely a few days later.

After college, when I moved into an apartment near the beach in South Carolina, I was in charge of taking care of my mom’s avocado plant, which was an evacuee from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

The first night, bugs ate all the leaves, as I lay sleeping.

I brought the holey plant to Lowe's the next day to acquire some bug poison, but was turned down by the lady behind the counter.

"You don’t want to kill the plant," she said. "Just keep it inside and try to move it by different windows throughout the day that get the most light."

I ended up forgetting to do that, and forgetting to water it, and a few months later when my mom came to visit, it was barely alive.

Strike eleven came in the form of an azalea plant. I was writing an article for a newspaper about this guy who would win the South Carolina azalea plant competition every year, held at the local mall.

(COMMUNITY NEWS!!! EFF YEA!!!)

This guy’s entire backyard was a maze of potted azalea plants with delicate flowers of every color variety: white ones, pink ones, purple ones. He even showed me how he GRAFTED some to cross-breed, making gorgeous petal color combinations.

"Would you like one of the plants to take home?" he asked me.

"Oh, I kill plants," I said honestly. "That wouldn’t be very nice to your crop here."

"No, you’ll be fine," he said. "Here, take this one. Keep it outside by your front door."

"Well…OK," I said.

The plant was almost as tall as I was, with a beautiful single pink flower.

After some confusion about how I was going to transport the plant to my house (I suggested it be shoved in the trunk...he told me the back seat was fine), I brought it home and showed it off to my roommates.

I envisioned wearing the flower in my hair when it got big and pink enough.

Yet, even though I WATERED it and TALKED to it every morning on my way out the door, the one single flower began to droop.

And the five or so more flowers that the guy promised did not bloom.

The plant was sent to the curb when it became nothing but twigs.

Despite my shoddy plant background, I tried again late last year.

I tried to grow my own avocado from a pit.

I did everything I was supposed to do. I put toothpicks in the sides, balanced it halfway in a cup filled with water and put it on the ledge by the sink. IT’S HOW MY MOM DOES IT!!!

Yet, a month later, even with me regularly changing out the water, it was clear that there would be no sprouting.

The pit had gathered a large amount of mold and started to smell.

My roommate was grateful when I finally gave up and chucked it into the trash. Even today, I still don’t know what the problem was. Black thumb strikes again.

Maybe I should have played classical music for it.

Or put it in the shower.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I totally get having trust issues when you’re in a long-distance relationship, but there’s no need to get the cops involved.

Wait. Sorry. Fake cops.

No need to get the fake cops involved.

But that was just the icing on the PROBLEM CAKE between my friend Tara and this guy Mike. 

They were in a long-distance relationship and he had massive trust issues. And he made it her problem.

Tara said Mike constantly and dramatically accused her of cheating on him for no reason. And he made her do ridiculous things to prove she was being faithful.

Like, he made her WALK around her apartment as they talked on the phone to PROVE that she wasn’t really “in another dude’s bathroom sneaking this call.”

What!!!!!

BANG ON A POT!!! he would say. TURN ON THE TV!!!!

DANCE MONKEY DANCE!

Hahahahaha

(The only time this is acceptable is if your habitually late girlfriend says she’s on the way and you want her to prove it, make her honk the horn.)

In addition to Mike making Tara do all these ridiculous things and making her spend 50 percent of their conversations convincing him that she was ALONE, ALL ALONE, he would also surprise-visit her, and almost be disappointed that she wasn’t cheating on him.

One particular surprise trip, while out with her friends, Tara says, “As he got drunker and drunker, he got meaner and meaner.”

He started pulling her friends aside insisting they tell him exactly WHO she was cheating on him with, and didn’t take no (one)  for an answer.

Fed up and embarrassed by his behavior, Tara said she was ready to go home and called a cab.

The two didn’t speak the whole ride home and Tara held out hope that when they got back to her house and Mike saw there were no guys, uh, waiting on her porch, he’d relax and apologize.

No. No apology.

Mike started yelling at her at the top of his lungs and getting in her face. Ugh. 

She started to cry and told him he was scaring her.

“Oh, I’m scaring you? You’re scared of me?” Mike said. “Fine, I’ll call the cops if you’re so scared!”

That’s when, NO JOKE, he picked up his phone and dialed 3 numbers and reported “someone scared for their life” at her address.

(Is it wrong to laugh?? Hahahahahaha)

Tara then called her roommate who came home with her boyfriend and the three of them successfully threw Mike out.

He said he was going to sleep in his car.

Tara stayed up late waiting for the cops, wondering what she was going to say to them, but they never showed up.

The next morning Mike’s car was gone, and Tara assumed he had driven back over state lines, and out of her life.

Yet, later that day, he called to tell her that he was indeed still in town and very angry with her and wanted to hear “her side” of the story.

(Uh, what story.)

“He denied all of what happened,” Tara recalls.

She then asked him if he remembered calling 9-1-1.

No.

She took his phone and scrolled through his call log. 

Then laughed. 

He had dialed 2-1-3

Hahahahahaha

Where are the fake handcuffs when you need them

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I don’t mean to knock a legitimate mental illness, but Greg had the relationship equivalent of bi-polar disorder.

Which was thoughtfully triggered right as my friend Sarah was moving her CAT into his apartment. (Um. Hiss.)

The thing about that, though, was Greg had INSISTED that Mr. Biggles move into his apartment. It was HIS idea.

He had proposed this by saying, "I know you miss him like crazy because you’re here every night."

It was true. Sarah barely saw Mr. Biggles anymore.

Sarah and Greg had dated for a year and were so infatuated with one another that they overcame workplace taboo (he was her boss), an age difference, and they each broke it off with other people so they could be together.

While there wasn’t a specific conversation about living together, Greg had been dropping hints for a while, and proposing her CAT move in was pretty bold.

Now she really didn’t have a reason to go back to her place.

She already had clothes and things in drawers at his apartment.
Bathroom products. TAMPONS.

One night, they even stayed up late talking logistics about how much she could rent out her house for if she moved in with him.

So, by all accounts, Greg’s right brain was saying, GREEN MEANS GO!!!! LET’S MOVE IN!!! 

He was totally driving the train on this one.

But his left brain woke up two weeks later and decided that he didn’t want to live together anymore.

No, in fact, it was quite the opposite.

"I actually only want to date you on the weekends," he said matter-of-factly.

!!!

ONLY on weekends!!!

Sarah was  completely confused. Within weeks he goes from full-on co-habitation to a glorified booty call??

WHY ASK HER TO MOVE IN HER CAT???
Now what was going to happen to Mr. Biggles?

She told him to F off and waited a few days before she started coming over to get her things from his apartment.

Yet, every time she'd go over there he would tell her not to take her things – BABE, NO, PUT THE BIKE DOWN –  and insist she stay and he’d cook dinner and she'd sleep over, violating his "weekends only" policy.

The (several) dinners and sleepovers were good short-term band-aids and made Sarah feel better, but after a while, the situation began to wear her down.

Like, what are we?? What aren’t we?

Why did you act like you liked me so much and push me to move in and then say nevermind? And then sort of take THAT back since we're spending every night together again??

Sarah had to call the question.
"Either we be together like we were, or nothing at all," Sarah said.

"You know what your PROBLEM is?" Greg said. "You always knew when to come around, but you never knew when to leave."

!!!!!!

(I guess the same goes for Mr. Biggles.)

Um. Hiss.

-Jenny

Role models

One of the most pathetic things I’ve ever done to be closer to a cute guy was to sign up for “lunch buddies” — a program where professionals (Loose term. See: “people with jobs”) ate lunch once a week with students at a failing elementary school.

My cute co-worker was a lunch buddy and I followed suit, with my 25-year-old brain thinking that this somehow counted as a weekly lunch date. 

It was to be one of my best ideas ever.

We were supposed to be good role models for these kids, talking to them about their hopes and dreams, but I was too busy trying to get a seat in the cafeteria next to my co-worker.

Unfortunately, my assigned lunch buddy didn’t cooperate with my plan.

“Hey, Angel, let’s sit over here,” I said leading the way to where the other lunch buddies, including my cute crush, were sitting.

“No, I don’t LIKE him,” Angel said, pointing directly at my crush’s lunch buddy.

My face fell. Of all the kids in the lunch buddy program, she happened to NOT like the EXACT ONE that was assigned to my dreamboat?? 

Ugh. What luck.

“Well, maybe you can give him a second chance?” I said, looking longingly at my cute co-worker eating his cute sandwich.

She didn’t budge. I frowned as we sat two tables over, near the teacher.

“Can I have a dollar to buy buffalo wings?” Angel then asked.

“No.”

I didn’t impact Angel’s life at all during the month I was a lunch buddy. Really. I'm pretty sure she didn't even know my name. (Neither did my crush for that matter.)

As such, when I QUIT due to my plan backfiring “busy schedule,” I didn’t feel bad at all.

Sure, in between asking me for dollars, Angel and I had nice conversations about what she did that previous weekend, what she saw at the circus, etc. But as far as us making a meaningful connection and me inspiring her to achieve greatness?

“No.”

We both had other intentions.

I wanted a date. She wanted a dollar.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

On average, I’d say girls have way prettier things in their apartments than guys.

Decorative bowls for the mail. Fake flowers for the bathroom.
Purple towels.
Things other than bacon in the fridge.

Also, we normally have a thoughtful variety of products in the shower.

Tom, this guy who dated my friend Melanie’s roommate, wasn’t interested in shampoo.

He was interested in jewelry.

Aaaand...he was interested in stealing it.
And re-selling it.

GAW!!!!

The only good thing I can say about Tom is that when he was confronted about STEALING HIS GIRLFRIEND’S ROOMMATE’S JEWERLY AND RE-SELLING IT, he didn’t try and deny it.

But, then again, when the owner of a pawn shop I.D.’s you as the douchebag who sold him the jewelry in question, there’s very little you can argue.

"Yea, he was about this tall, with a beard and dark hair," the owner described to Melanie.

"Oh, yea, and his name was Tom."

Tom had sold the jewelry at a pawn shop three miles from their apartment.

He probably also stole things from his girlfriend that we don’t know about yet. And the girlfriend said she’s pretty sure he stole jewelry from her mother’s house, too.

(May the female gods rain PMS-fueled rage on him for the rest of his life.)

Melanie’s roommate was her best friend, someone she knew for years and years who she thought was a good judge of character.

Melanie now remembers things were fishy when she came home one night late, at 5 a.m., and saw Tom wandering in the hallway near her bedroom door.

"Oh, I was just trying to find the bathroom," Tom said, although he was very familiar with the layout of the apartment by that point.

Melanie, sleepy and half drunk, didn’t think anything of it then, but now says, "Right. He was probably going through my shit when he heard me at the front door."

Exactly when Tom took Melanie's jewelry is unclear. She noticed it missing one day, yet nothing else in the house was taken. No broken doors or windows. Nothing else out of place.

It was the ring she noticed missing first.

It was a special ring given to her by her first boyfriend, a guy who has since passed away.

GAW!!!

(Eh, theives don't care.)

"Where is it??!!!!??" Melanie screamed, dumping out her jewelry box looking for it. It was a unique-looking ring, and irreplaceable.

That’s when she noticed the other jewelry missing from her jewelry box. Diamond earrings. A pearl necklace.

"Someone stole my things!!" she screamed to her roommate, who looked concerned.

Melanie was livid. She then remembered Tom’s late-night bathroom break and suggested to her roommate that he was responsible.

"No, Tom would NEVER!" her roommate said.

Melanie wasn’t convinced. That dude was a late-night bedroom-door creeper.

(Ok, so that isn't exactly "beyond a shadow of a doubt" but what other explanation was there??)

She certainly didn’t misplace half of her jewelry collection, especially not that ring.

She was determined to get it back.

The idea that someone could have been rifling through her things was nauseating (I know the feeling. I've personally been been robbed). 
Melanie looked everywhere in her room, all over the house, her purse, her car, at work. 

WAS SHE TAKING CRAZY PILLS???

After a few days and nothing turning up, Melanie began a swoop of pawn shops as a final desperate attempt.
And BINGO. There was her ring, and all her other jewelry in the glass case.
She cried.

Thankfully, the pawn shop owner was understanding, and gave her back her ring when she described details that you could only know if you saw it up close or, uh, owned it.

"WHO SOLD THESE TO YOU???" she demanded.

"A guy named Tom."

Rather than call the cops (I wish) she called her rooommate and insisted she come to the shop right then to confirm that she was, in fact, dating a winner.

Then it was time to confront Tom.

"What, baby?" he said on the phone. "We needed the money."

!!!!

WE?????? WE???????

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘WE!!??’" her roommate screamed as Tom tried to explain that "those dinners didn't just come out of thin air."

WHAT!!!!!!

GAW TWICE!!!!

She broke up with him immediately and apologized profusely to Melanie, who was just relieved to get her ring back.

But, just as things were getting back to normal, her roommate annouced that she had started dating the pawn shop owner.

!!!!!!

Coincidentally, that was the same time Melanie moved herself, and all her pretty things, out.

-Jenny

Un-News Week

Y'all...
I have no idea what's going on. With the world, that is.

I know NO current events. I don't even know where Suri Cruise is hiding.

I problem is, I've been on vacation at the beach for the past week. And I checked out.

Serioulsy, the only thing I read was an US Weekly on the plane.

It was quite a change from my normal routine of reading newspapers, blogs, newswires and columns, watching headline news and listening to The Howard Stern Show everyday.

This past week, I absorbed no knowledge.

No TV news, no newspapers. I didn't even check my EMAIL for the whole week, and therefore, didn't get to skim over Yahoo!'s hilighted story of the day about babies sleeping in odd positions.

But today, I'm back to reality, behind a desk wearing both a shirt AND shoes, and really need to get a run-down of what I missed.

Because someone in the elevator just said, "Don't you just feel so BAD for those people in Colorado?" and I had no idea what she was talking about.

Another Columbine?
Landmines??

Ah. Fires.

Speaking of nature, I don't even know if there are any tropical storms brewing.
I don't know who won the election in Libya. I don't even know if they HAD an election in Libya. (Yes, I care.)

I don't know if anyone accidentally blew off a finger lighting fireworks this July 4.
I don't know if the family of the girl with the flesh-eating bacteria was able to save the fig tree outside their house!!

THESE ARE THINGS I NEED TO KNOW!!!

Yes, I am aware that most people go on vacation specifically to cut themselves off from Trayvon Martin and pink slime and THE TIMES PICAYUNE MOVING TO THREE DAYS A WEEK, but I'm not used to it. I felt lost.

Maybe it's because I've never, in my adult life, been on a vacation where I could fully unplug and relax.

As a former journalist, even on vacation I would check my work email daily (What if the mayor got a DWI??? What if the town bird broke out of its cage???)

I would nervoulsy look at the online comments on each of my articles, in case I needed to report one as rude spam.

Little known fact: On vacations, I've written more articles on planes than any other activity.

But NOT THIS TRIP!!! This trip was a straight-up VACAY— pure, unaduldterated, "nobody needs me to do sh*t" trip.

(It really is the only way to travel.)

Today, though, I'm reading emails from my THREE email accounts, trying not to get annoyed by the high-pitched PING! PING! whenever a new message comes in.

I've spent the whole morning perusing all my trusted news websites to catch up on what I missed this past week.
(FYI: The new FBI director in New Orleans is HOT. So are forest fires.)

I've also been looking at Yahoo!'s home page...photos of babies sleeping in odd positions.

Now will someone please tell me where Suri Cruise is hiding???

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Something that’s an even bigger waste of time than going on a terrible online date??

Getting messages from a chick you don’t know about how he’s a cheater.

Hahahahahaha

I have to admit I was intrigued by the drama at first.

Among my other boring emails and Groupon offers was an OKStupid message that said,

“I just wanted you to know that ‘superman123’ uses okcupid to cheat on girls, don't talk to him unless you like to help cheaters, beware.”

Hahahahaha.

(And you are…??)

It was laughable to think that our one 2-hour date would be considered cheating on anyone, what with the bored look on my face the whole time and his incessant bitching about everything New Orleans.

“Ugh, you can’t rely on the streetcars at ALL.”

“Parking SUCKS in this city.”

(Loudly, on a crowded ferry) “I HATE when people walk RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME and then just STOP.” (people turn around, I got beet red).

Then, in the middle of a riveting story I was telling once we disembarked, “Superman” stopped me in the middle of a sentence to point out that a car was going the wrong way down a street.

“CanYouBelieveThat???” he asked, throwing his hands up. “UNBELIEVEABLE!”

“OH MY GOD CALL THE COPS,” I said loudly and sarcastically.

“Superman” didn’t know how to interpret my tone and then awkward silence sank in.

After one beer on the other side of the river, we rode the ferry back, and he waxed on about how ugly and dirty the Mississippi River was.

“Ok, see you later,” I said beelining for my car.

He didn’t pick up on me being overly eager to leave, and he continued to text message me over the next three days.

“Doing anything fun?” he’d ask, which I found terribly ironic since he didn’t seem to have any fun doing anything other than pointing out traffic violations.

I got stressed after text message number five, because I realized I’d have to tell him that I didn’t want to go out on any more dates. My non-responses were not doing the trick.

But then I got the message about how he’s a cheater.

Hahahahaha

“Some chick on OK Stupid just sent me a message about you…odd.” I wrote to him, the first text I had sent since our “date.”

“Apparently that person hacked into my account. I deleted my account. Did I tell you I found a new place to live??”

I noted the change in topic.

“She said you were a cheater,” I wrote.

“Yea, she told me that too along with a lot of other harassing messages,” he said.

I put on my sleuth hat.

So this person you don’t know is sending YOU harassing messages? After hacking into your account??

Doesn’t a hacker normally blast out a fake web page??? How many hackers do you know who send out warning messages??

Obviously, “Superman” knew who this person was.

And I had nothing better to do.

“Why do you think that girl messaged me?” I wrote.

“It’s not a real account,” he said.

“Then how did she know that we went out?” I responded.

“Pretty sure she hacked my account, messaged everyone I’ve ever had contact with on there, slightly creepy.”

I didn’t write back.

“Oh and I think I know who’s behind it, a girl I was talking to, but it didn’t work out.”

That’s more like it.

I was glad he at least admitted to knowing who this chick was. It was probably his girlfriend.

Still, that type of interaction, even with a "hacker" doesn’t make a guy look very good.

I mean, she knew him well enough to figure out his password, or she was using his computer.

She was pissed enough to message girls he went out with…and, oh, if he deleted his account, then how would she be able to see which girls he had been messaging??

Shit didn’t add up.

“So, doing anything fun this weekend?” he asked.

Hahahahahahahaha

-Jenny