TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Sometimes you can use the fact that people think you're attractive to your advantage. 

Like directions. I've had a number of people go clear out of their way to show me how to get places before. 

Or at Auto Zone, when I need to fix my car. (eyelash bat)

But that type of using people really only applies to strangers, not to take advantage of your friend who likes you. 

James, this guy my friend Julie dated, did just that. He used her when he felt like it, then tossed her aside.

Public Service Annoucement for all the dumbasses in the room: Don't sleep with someone if you don't want them to get the "wrong idea." 

James was a pro at this, as well as setting up super-romantic situations with Julie and then screaming at her when she assumed it was romantic.

They met at a party when he was in the midst of breaking up with his girlfriend. 

James started hanging out with Julie's group of friends and when he and his girlfriend broke up for good, he initiated hookups with Julie, which she didn't mind one bit. 

He seemed great at first. He was funny and they had similar interests and similar jobs.

For the next month, in between hooking up, they spent a lot of time together doing relationshipy things like celebrating birthdays and meeting each other's friends and co-workers, but weren't "committed" since he was fresh off a breakup.

After one hookup, James started acting all relationshipy and said he was going to "miss her" when she went out of town for a week. 

They discussed (while in bed) grabbing dinner and a movie the night before her trip as a proper goodbye. Julie was excited.

DINNER AND A MOVIE!!!!

Yet the day before her trip, James didn't call her back until 20 minutes before the movie was supposed to start.

"What's up?" he said.

Julie then told him that there's only 20 minutes until the movie was supposed to start and did he want to do to a later movie, and still get dinner?

That's when James blew up.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, A DATE?" he yelled at her, completely out of left field. 

????

(Uhhhhh of course she thought it was a date. Retard.)

Julie remained silent, completely shocked.

"OH, NEXT THING YOU'RE GOING TO SAY IS YOU HAVE FEELINGS FOR ME!" James screamed.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(Uhhhh maybe not now, James.)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

But Julie did have feelings for him. 

She told him that yes, she did have feelings for him, that she wouldn't be hooking up with someone who she didn't have feelings for, but James continued to flip out for no reason. 

Julie told him to get his stuff off her front porch and hung up on him.

She was devastated for weeks, until he wrote her a note saying how awful he felt and how he "lost his best friend." 

They started hanging out again and soon found themselves right back to where they used to be...in bed. 

(I know…forehead slap).

But this time, it seemed different. He started calling her his "girl," in public.  Julie helped him get a new job by pulling some strings in her biology department and he was chosen to do a fellowship abroad. 

Even though Julie was going to miss him when he left for a whole semester, she was so happy for him and even agreed to look after his fish (haha), forward his mail to her place and keep some other things at her apartment.

They exchanged emails back and forth for several weeks after he left, when one day, Julie was feeling frisky and sent him a flirty picture text message halfway across the world.

"DON'T DO THAT" he wrote back, in all caps not even 30 seconds later. "IT'S INAPPROPRIATE!"

?????
Inappropriate???

Oh, no, was he at work???

"Inappropriate?" Julie wrote.

"MY GIRLFRIEND WOULD THINK IT'S INAPPROPRIATE!" James replied.

????????????

Girlfriend?!!!?!?

Way to not mention that at ALL in any email exchanges.

He had a girlfriend?? 

Then what the EFF was SHE??? His personal storage unit? His fish's babysitter????

Ugh.

Flush this relationship down the toilet. 

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I still remember (and still laugh about) a Blind Date episode…Blind Date best show ever…where the guy got really drunk and made fun of the girl he was set up with for no good reason. 

I guess he knew there was no love connection, so he figured it didn't matter if he turned into a complete asshole.

"YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU’RE AVERAGE," he told his date in the cab, slurring. "You're average-looking; you're average intelligence. You're just average!" 

When she tried to respond, he got angry and cut her off: "Whatever, AVERAGE!" 

hahahahahahaha

What a tool. 

I didn't think people like that existed in real life - people that turned into complete d-bags when they realized they weren't interested in someone they've been set up with - but then I heard this story about Jason.

Jason is this guy my friend Shannon set up with her friend Michelle. 

Shannon is married, and therefore not interested in Jason even though he's good-looking and normally very pleasant. She thought he and Michelle would get along well. 

It was Shannon's birthday party coming up at a cute tapas restaurant, and she invited both Jason and Michelle to the party and strategically sat them next to each other. 

It didn't take long for Jason to become bored.

Apparently, he was uninterested in Michelle's recent yoga instructor certification or the practice at all. 

But instead of smiling and nodding on the outside while rolling his eyes on the inside like everyone else who goes on a bad date, he started making fun of her in front of everyone.

"Yoga is so BORING," Jason said loudly. "I'm so bored with hearing about yoga, I can't even stand it."  

Michelle had been talking about yoga for a total of four minutes. 

Everyone at the table got really uncomfortable with Jason now making fun of someone's career and passion, especially someone he was supposed to be set up with.

Didn't his mamma teach him any manners??!?!?!?! 

Shannon tried to make light of it and pass Jason’s comments off as a joke (“Jason, stop being retarded”) but that made everyone even more uncomfortable. 

It didn't matter; Michelle, a practitioner of patience, meditation and mind over matter, ignored him and started talking to someone else. 

F.Y.I. Jason wasn't her type either, but she wasn't about to make a scene at someone else's birthday party about it.  

But then Jason took it into overdrive. 

He got so wasted that he forgot where he was…and who was sitting next to him.

"HEY SHANNON!" he yelled loudly across the table an HOUR later. "Remember that BORING girl you tried to set me up with who talked about nothing but YOGA?!?!?!" 

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA

Uh. Yea. She was still there. 

She was still sitting right next to him.

Dude. 

Everyone at the table just shook their heads.

BELOW average.

-Jenny

Long-distance twins

It’s my 30^th birthday tomorrow, which means it’s also my twin sister Joy's 30^th birthday tomorrow.

I know...GET OUTTA TOWN!!!

Do you remember how people used to ask us all the time if we had the same birthday??

“Ya’ll are twins?? For real?? You got the same birthday???”

Really, that was the number one question, followed by “do you have the same mom?” and “do you have the same dad?”

("Yes, we're just like regular sisters, only we were born at the same time.")

For the past three years, however, we’re asked a new question: how can you and your twin live so far apart? 

They mean New Orleans to South Carolina.

And I don’t really have an answer. It sucks. It sucks about as much as it would if you lived away from your sibling and best friend at the same time. 

And…your therapist. 

And your personal comedian. 

But when you plan your life in a particular place, you sacrifice things.

Joy and I talk on the phone every single day. Seriously, and on the proper phone.

We Facetime sometimes, but I don’t want to see her face because it makes me miss her too much, and I don’t want to see my face because Facetime makes it look like my forehead is running away from my body.

Joy and I talk like a couple in a long-distance relationship. 

We scold each other when one of us doesn't call the other back in a timely manner, or scold the one responsible for us not talking daily. 

Ha.

“Ummm…excuse me, I did call you back, yes I did, I’m going to check my outgoing calls!” 

I remember when we separated time zones for college, when I went to South Carolina and she went to Baton Rouge. (How the tables have turned…)

It was hard then, too, and I kept for a long time a hilarious note she wrote to me saying, “Our official call day is Sunday!”

Hahahahahahahahahaha

Yea, Sunday and every other day of the week.

And this was years before we had cell phones.

Joy actually missed class one day talking me out of a freakout because she couldn’t leave the landline/dorm room. Haha. Dorms.

When I studied abroad in Spain, I bought a cell phone and paid $1 euro per minute…PER MINUTE…to call Joy in Baton Rouge.

Sure, it was cheaper using a calling card at a pay phone which I did, but drunk Jenny thought euros were really Monopoly money and I blew a lot of (pre-paid) cash on long-distance calls to Joy. Worth it.

When we got our first cell phones as sophomores in college, our mom signed us up for unlimited calling to each other’s phone, and for good reason. We checked the settings on our phones one day to see how many hours we spent talking to each other and it was literally thousands. 

Thousands of hours.

Joy and I don’t text, though. That’s one quirky thing, since in general I text more than I talk on my phone. But, for us, texting would just be a lesser version of talking.   

We only text each other when we’re at work and/or in a pinch –“What’s your address I need it for 401k shit” or “Your SSN ends in XXXX right???”

(For those that are curious, we have the same social security number except for the last four digits. But that’s probably not that weird.)

Also NOT weird?? That our birthdays are on the same day.

AND THAT DAY IS TOMORROW!!!!!! AHHHHH!!

Joy told me on the phone this week that she’s feeling "uneasy" about being 30 years old, to which I responded, “Oh, so you think I’M old??"

This is the same script as anything else we say to each other that is self-loathing.

"It's so annoying trying to find jeans. My body is so awkward."

"Oh, so you think MY body is awkward???"

"I have crow’s feet around my eyes in that picture.”

“Oh, you think I have crow’s feet?”

Hahahaha (ca-caw ca-caw)

But guess what??? 

We don’t have to be long-distance twins for our birthday this year because JOY IS FLYING TO NEW ORLEANS TODAY!!! I haven’t seen her since January!

I hope she brought some new clothes with her. Ha. (Yes, twins share clothes, duh.)

In college, we didn’t always spend our birthdays side by side, but that’s because there are spring exams and your birthday doesn’t always land on a weekend.

But for the better part of the last decade when we lived together in South Carolina and since I've moved back home, there was never any question that we would spend our birthday together. 

Delta Airlines loves us. 

And I’m dying with excitement to pick her up from the airport tonight. Best. present. ever.!!! 

Best of all, we won’t be talking to each other on the phone at all this weekend! 

No more missed calls, no more speaker phone while one of us brushes our teeth – “I AM listening! IM brushingmyteefyoureonspeakerffffone”

NO! This weekend, we’ll get to talk to each other face to face!!! The way it was supposed to be!!! The way God intended!!

I hope someone asks us if we have the same birthday. 

Or the same social security number.

:)

Love you, Joy.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Today's Toolbag Tuesday is dedicated to whoever set off the bombings at the Boston City Marathon yesterday.

Whoever that is, is Toolbag number one in my heart.

But today, let's talk about Bob. 

When I was dabbling in online dating (shudder), one of the first messages I got was from a fairly unattractive guy talking about how he'd already planned a date for the two of us for Valentine's Day.

"Good news, I have a limo (ED note: hahahahhahaha) and we're going to Fondouely Yours! (hahahahaha) What time should I pick you up?"

I was so new to online dating that I thought he was serious and envisioned this poor guy on Valentine's Day checking his OKStupid messages for my response, while Jeeves stood nearby. 

"Oh…I'm sorry, I have plans." I wrote. Then I felt bad. This poor guy really wanted to take me out! Now what's he going to do with that limo??!!!

...That is, until I found out another friend of mine got the exact same message. (She didn't write him back.)

Hahahahaha. HE WAS FISHING!!!! 

Just throwing messages to, what, 20 girls? 50 girls??? 

Incencerity will get you nowhere, guy.

Anyway.

Bob, this guy my friend Tess went out with, did the same thing…only he didn't attempt anything cute like a planned date. No. 

He and Tess went out TWICE and did nothing romantic, they just both happened to be at the beach two weeks earlier and talked for awhile, but he MASS TEXTED her one Saturday morning with this message: 

Hey, I dreamt I was watching porn and woke up with my pants around my ankles. Wanna see??

!!!!!!!!!!

?????

A MASS TEXT!!!!!  To, like, 10 numbers!!!!

Dude. 

(In related news, the iPhone doesn't "blind carbon copy" multiple recipients. This isn't Yahoo.)

Somehow Bob thought it was an appropriate message to send to 10 people, including someone who hadn't so much as held hands with him. 

HE WAS FISHING!!!!  

What, whoever wrote back was the 'lucky lady????' He didn't matter who it was, anyone will do??

Gross. 

Tess wrote back all right.

"NO. I DON'T WANT TO SEE" she wrote.

Nine other females got the message.

But what did Bob do?? HE SENT HER A PICTURE ANYWAY! 

Yes, it was a picture of his penis. in bed. making a tent out of his sheets.

(GUYS. STOP DOING THIS.) I can't find one female that wants to see that, let alone ten at the same time.

Tess looked at the phone, disgusted. She hadn't seen Bob in over two weeks, and said she gave him no indication that she was at all interested in seeing him naked.

And that fact that she flat out told him no, which he ignored.

WHEN SOMEONE SAYS NO THAT DOESN'T MEAN YES.

Tess didn't write back, and neither did any of the other mystery numbers in the mass text (MASS TEXT!!) haha.

A week later, Bob texted her - and only her - saying he was sorry, which Tess appreciated. 

Maybe he was still drunk from the night before and was just super horny, she thought. Maybe he wasn't that super disgusting and this was just a minor slip-up.

Yet, hilariously, she was pumping gas one day soon after when she saw Bob drive by. Tess almost waved at him until he cat-called, "Heeeey, pump it! Yea baby!" And drove off. (Ed note: HHAHAHAHAHA)

It was then that Tess looked around and saw that there were three females pumping gas at that moment. He probably didn't even recognize her.

Effing fishermen.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

My friend Julie walked into living room of her boyfriend's dad's house, more scared than she'd ever been in her life. 

She was a senior in high school and had just taken a pregnancy test. 

Her boyfriend Henry's dad didn't get home until late, so they wouldn't be interrupted while they used the bathroom and learned the truth. 

Julie had just peed on the pregnancy stick, her first time taking such a test, placed it on the bathroom counter and walked into the kitchen to wait. 

Henry, also a senior, was nervous as hell even though he told her that NO, it couldn't be real, this is all going to work out fine. 

Julie shook. 

"I can't look!" she said when the five minutes was up. 

"I can't go in there and see that I'm pregnant, I just can't!"

"I'll do it," Henry said stoically, walking to the bathroom. 

That's when, without thinking, Julie ran UPSTAIRS, as far away from the pee stick as possible, hoping to outrun her fate.

She listened for a reaction from Henry downstairs but didn't hear anything.

After five minutes of silence, shallow-breathed and panicky, she slowly walked back downstairs. 

Her heart fell when she saw Henry sitting on the couch, crying. 

"Oh my God," Julie said when she saw him rocking, actual boy tears coming down his face. It was clear what the results were.

She walked over to him carefully, a million thoughts going through her head and sat down next to him on the couch.

"I'm pregnant aren't I?" she asked, tears now forming in her own eyes. 

Henry sniffled and kept looking down, red-faced. 

Julie then bent down to meet his eyes with hers, when a huge smile crept on his face.

"NO YOU'RE NOT!!!! JUST KIDDING!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA I GOT YOU GOOD, DIDN'T I???" he said, wiping fake tears from his face. 

"HAHAHAHAHA YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE!"

Henry hasn't been heard from since.

-Jenny

The weekend my grass was blue, part deux

Do you, children of the 80s, remember those choose-your-own-adventure books?

Where you read up to a certain point and then they'd be like, "If you want Tarzan to stay in this part of the jungle turn to page 40? 

Or, “If you want Tarzan to look for the golden coconut somewhere else turn to page 63?”

Well allow me write my OWN choose-your-own-adventure book set at the bluegrass festival my friend Meredith and I went to last weekend!!

Yes, technically this adventure started when we decided to drive seven hours again to Florida for the Suwanee Bluegrass Festival.

(It turns out people haven't gotten tired of bluegrass music and are still holding festivals.)

This trip was just as magically rustic as last year’s inagural trip was – camping, eating food from a cooler, swimming in lieu of taking a shower, etc.

But the rain. Oh, man the rain. The stupid rain that comes every time I plan to do something outdoors in Florida (see here. And here.)

But this rain turned out to be the catalyst for our PICK-(IN') YOUR OWN ADVENTURE ADVENTURE (ha), so I’m not going to boycott Florida...yet. 

After a music-filled Friday evening where I met a nice guy (you always meet nice guys at this festival!) 

Meredith and I woke up Saturday morning, bluegrass-hungover, and nervously looked at the top of the tent as rain poured down. 

We crossed our fingers and looked at a radar app on my phone.

Hmmm. A big, colorful splotch was slowly moving over the entire Florida panhandle extending well into Georgia and South Carolina. This was no spring shower.

We ate peanut butter breakfast bars in the tent and contemplated this information.

But we didn’t have to sit long, because the people who camp at bluegrass festivals are the most awesome people in the world, and our campsite-mates had already collected underneath a large tarp, playing music (pickin’), laughing, telling stories and chopping wood. We happily joined them.

It was like a scene from Huck Finn (maybe…if he had a troupe…and a horse head costume...and boxed wine), where 15 of us gathered under the shelter near a river miraculously staying dry while the rain poured down, playing games and toe-tapping.

PROPER PICKIN’!!!!!

And Yahtzee! I played Yahtzee for the first time...AND GOT YAHTZEE!!!

YAHTZEE!!!!

And this is what we did pretty much all day Saturday. Awesome.

I made a ton of new friends and a mental note to dust off my fiddle and learn some chords when I got back home so I, too, could provide entertainment to a group of people in a pinch. 

I also learned a new use for the bag of wine that comes inside the boxed wine.

Box wine pillow!! Perfect for napping!

That evening, during a break in the clouds, the group wandered over to the main stage to hear Old Crow Medicine Show, the headlining bluegrass band, and they were fantastic. 

BONUS: Since the crowd was light due to the rain, we wiggled up to front row with no problem.

We woke up waterlogged on Sunday to the most gorgeous spring day, swam in the coldest river ever, changed clothes and thought about our options.

There were bands still playing the festival that day, but the only stage that was open was the indoor stage. 

Did we want to be indoors?

Did we want to wait at the campsite until the outdoor stages opened again??

Or…did we want to drive to the BEACH????

……

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to stay in Live Oak, Florida and hear bluegrass indoors, go to page X (at the top right or left of this screen)

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to drive to a Florida beach, scroll down.

……

BEACH!!! 

We both decided this with very little debate. 

So early Sunday afternoon we packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our new friends (“see you next year!”) and off to the beach we went.

It wasn’t just any beach. It was Grayton Beach, a special beach to Meredith and one I had already been to in a former rain-cation.

Grayton Beach was on the way back to New Orleans, so we figured that since we’d have to drive that distance anyway, why not cut the festival short and catch the sunset on a proper seashore.

And we realized that a bluegrass band we saw at the festival Friday was playing at a bar in Grayton Beach Sunday night.

BLUEGRASS ENCORE!!!!

Two girls on the open road – cheesy but true - we continued our music theme with a Paul Simon CD, windows down, and made it to Grayton in record time, pausing to take in the shore once we saw the endless horizon.

Then we sat on the beach and drank wine and cheers-ed to no rain.

We walked down the street and heard the catchy first set of the band Dread Clampitt (haha) and I could feel the sweet fiddle in my bones when we hit another fork in the road.

We looked at the clock. 

We’d either have to leave the beach at that moment to get to Panama City to spend the night with a friend….or stay the night with a new friend who lived near Grayton, meaning we could catch the second half of the show but had to leave an extra hour-and-a-half early the next morning to get back to New Orleans by 9 a.m. for work.

….

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to leave now and go to Panama City, go to page X (at the top right or left of this page.)

If you’d like Jenny and Meredith to stay and hear more music, scroll down.

…..

Bonus: the moon sure does look pretty at 4 a.m.

:)

Here’s to next year.

-Jenny