I Get Even
This was in Germany, right after we got back from Desert Storm. If you read the story of the French girl, you’ll remember that she was my girlfriend up until we deployed and I pretended I was dead, so when I got back, I was high and dry. I hadn’t had sex in almost 6 months and was ready for pretty much anything. The bars were flooded with returning service members, so the girls there had their choice of guys, and damn, they leveraged it well. At this point I had 3 choices.
- You join the line for one of the hot chicks – Fuck that. I have zero interest in standing in line with my tongue hanging out just hoping that when I finally get to the front of the line I’m going to hit the right combination and she’ll go home with me. It’s just … well, undignified and humiliating. Not just no, but hell no.
- Give up – Fuck that. Also not my speed. I was blessed/cursed with arrogance and surety that no matter what’s going on, I’m going to succeed. And I was really horny. I mean sure, I could go get a German hooker, but my competitive spirit was already aroused.
- Compromise – Now there’s no shame in lowering your expectations in the interest of success. Let the haters hate, but at the end of the evening when I’m hip deep in some horny hound and you’re pulling out your bottle of Jergens, you can finish and cry yourself to sleep. I’ll probably get breakfast.
Ok, so I make the decision to cut my losses and score, then scan the room for someone acceptable. In a dark corner I saw her. Holy sweet mother of god. Smoking ass. Long brown hair. Slender. She was with two girls and I know that can be a pain, but nothing someone of my caliber couldn’t surmount. Remember, horny + confident + just came back from a war = success. I grabbed my Beam and Coke and headed over. I don’t remember what line I used to broach their defenses, but they laughed, and I turned to see the object of my desire.
Did you know there’s a steak in Texas that’s 72oz? Yep. Four and a half pounds. The Great Texan Steak House in Amarillo, TX will give it to you for free if you can eat the whole thing, that’s how big it is. It puts other steaks to shame. If you finish it, your name is put up on the wall with others who have accomplished the herculean feat. Anyone attempting it eats on a raised table in the center of the restaurant, where everyone there can see someone crazy enough to try to eat a 72oz steak. That’s how ridiculously large it is and it’s the largest piece of meat I’ve ever seen.
With the exception of this girl’s nose. Holy fuck. Think of a keel on a sailboat. You know, that thing that keeps a sailboat from tipping over? Pretend some evil genius fused it to this poor girl’s face. I felt the wind when she turned to me. It all became clear. Yes, she had a killer body, but there was no way under normal circumstances I could have ignored the nose. Fortunately, these weren’t normal circumstances. I kept the shock off my face and continued to charm the three of them, slowly but surely focusing my attention on her. Her response was gratifying. She was surprised at first, probably because her friends were better looking, albeit chunkier, and I was clearly warming up to her. I did my normal routine of funny and self-deprecating humor and when she snorted in laughter I felt twin blasts of warm air on my cheek. But I didn’t care. She was mine and that night she was going help me back into the groove.
Enter my buddy Ron. Good guy, although a tad boring. Girls liked him for about the first couple weeks, then they took off, mostly because while he was tall, dark, and handsome, he just had nothing to say to them. So things would start off hot and heavy, then things would become strained and slowly taper off to nothing. I’d seen it happen many times. Anyway, Ron stumbles up, half-lit and irritated that he’d struck out all night. He came up to find out how I was doing and if I’d had any success. He knew my reputation, so when he saw the three girls and me, he arrived at the natural and accurate conclusion. So, he leaned over and in what to him was a stage whisper, bellowed:
“WAR! YOU GONNA BANG THE BITCH WITH THE BEAK?”
I watched her face turn beet red. Her friends looked at Ron in shock. My face fell. In that moment I knew there was no recovery. Her hands flew up to her nose as if to cover it, but that wasn’t possible, so she rushed off, her friends in tow.
“No, Ron, I’m not.” I said.
By now it was late, too late to try and start over. The hotties were already gone, the drunks were sloppy, and goddamit, I wasn’t getting laid. Thanks Ron, you fuck. I vowed to get even.
My chance came less than a month later. Ron had managed to find a really cute girl a few weeks after the incident but she’d already gotten bored of him. I had talked to her a few times and played the clever card, so she already liked me. I can’t remember her name so let’s call her something good and German. How about Helga? Fuck it, that works for me. Anyway, one night a bunch of us were at the Irish Pub in Sachsenhausen (Frankfurt, Germany). Ron lumbered around getting her drinks while I made her laugh. A few minutes later, he said he had to get up early and was heading out. She told him she was going to stick around for a bit but she’d catch up with him later. Hot Damn I was in! Not long after Ron left, I asked Helga if she’d mind giving me a ride home. Of course she was glad to help. We got back to my apartment building and I asked if she wanted to come up for a bit.
Now here’s the deal. If you come up, we’re going to fuck. You know it, I know it. It’s late and you’re not there to chat or have coffee. So when we got up there, I don’t think she waited more than 15 seconds before attacking me. We’re making out like crazy, clothes are flying everywhere, and I told her my standard line: “I don’t have any boundaries. Tell me what you want me to do to you. Anything your sick little mind can think up, I’ll do. Just tell me.”
It’s always funny what girls consider sick and twisted, but in this case, she wanted to be tied up and slapped around a bit. Hey, I’m here to please.
I looked around for something to tie her wrists with and all I could find was the belt on my bathrobe. It was standard terrycloth and wouldn’t rip, so I tied her up and went to town on her. She was fun as hell, writhing around like crazy, trying to get loose and when she came I’m pretty sure she woke the evil cleaning lady who lived beneath me. All in all, I was pretty proud of the performance. I untied her and as we were sitting there naked having a drink she noticed her wrists. In all the excitement, my robe had pretty much taken the skin off her wrists. She wasn’t bleeding, but she looked like a hostage recently rescued. It was bad. The worst part of the whole thing was there is really only one way to get those burns and everyone who saw them would know exactly how. She took off and I went to bed.
I saw her a few days later at a party and she was there with Ron. Her wrists were bandaged. I managed to get her alone and asked her what the hell had happened. She told Ron she’d fallen down the stairs. He believed her and that was that. I think they lasted another week or so, but it was all downhill from there. I only saw her once again but that’s another story.
I repeated this until I left Germany a few months later. I slept with every single one of his girlfriends. And then I’d tell him. He had no real emotional investment in them, so it was just funny. If he had actually liked them I wouldn’t have done it, but he was just pissed that he’d wasted all that time priming them and I’d come in and pump them. Several of his “girlfriends” he hadn’t actually slept with. So he did all the legwork and I’d get laid.
He got out of the Army and I didn’t hear from him for a few years. When I did, I heard he was in the building across the street from the one that was blown up in Oklahoma. He was cut up pretty badly from flying shards of glass and really hasn’t been right in the head since. I think he went back into the military, although I’m not entirely sure. I do know he ended up working for Blackwater for a few years and has turned into a badass. Somehow, I’ve haven’t run into him since, although my friends have.
I’m still kinda irritated at him for cockblocking me. Some things you just can’t forgive.
TL;DR – I get back from the Desert, meet a special girl, buddy destroys my chance. I get even.
The Kissing Contest
Ok, so this was back in 1997. I had just moved up to a little town called Saugerties in NY about 5 miles from Woodstock. Yeah, that Woodstock. My friend (the Army buddy I let Betty fuck) told me I could crash at his place for a while until I got settled, so I said what the hell and headed up. It’s a sleepy little town and there’s almost nothing to do there, but about a week after I arrived, the town was all excited because the big event was happening! The Garlic Festival was coming to town! Every year, about 40,000 people show up to eat everything garlic. Garlic chocolate, garlic bread, garlic jam, etc. Anyway, my buddy, his wife, and her family (to be described later) went every year, so they were all excited. Hey, I said the town was sleepy. Anyway, the big day arrives and everyone troops down to help get set up, etc. This festival is a big money-maker for Saugerties, so everyone who actually lives there helps out. I went down because I had nothing better to do, plus it’s fun getting lit and watching people eat food best described as an unholy alliance. Who the hell would expect garlic peanut butter? So I was there with my army buddy and his wife’s family. Bear with me while I go through this, but it’s important and you have to know who everyone is to fully appreciate how badly I fucked up.
My buddy’s wife’s sister lived across the street. The sister was married and had 5 kids. In addition, they lived next door to my buddy’s wife’s parents. So basically, you have the grandpa, grandma, 3 daughters, 1 son, 2 sons-in-law, 9 grandchildren, living within 200′ of each other. Every weekend they’d get together and BBQ, they watched each other’s kids, they went shopping together, etc. Very tight clan.
Back to the Garlic Festival. So we’re sitting there drinking with Grandma, Grandpa, and a few others when this super hot chick walks up. Everyone greeted her and introduced me. Turns out she’s the girlfriend of my buddy’s wife’s nephew and she just turned 18. Well ain’t that sweet. So we’re hanging out, watching the tourists gorge themselves on garlicky goodness when we hear there’s a kissing contest later that day. Yeah, I get the irony of a kissing contest at a garlic festival, and it was put on by “Sweet Breath”, the bad breath drops people. The prize was $500 bucks, and who doesn’t want that? In my half-lit state, an idea started to crystallize and after it formed, I started chuckling. I knew how to win. I said as much to the clan and they all wanted to know how. I told them and said that I knew I could win, but the only problem was I didn’t have a girl to do it with, since I’d only been there a week or so. Hot, newly-turned-18-year-old says, “I’ll do it with you. I can use the money. It will be fun.” I would like to point out that at this time NO ONE OBJECTED! No one said, “War, that’s a stupid idea, and you can’t possibly think this will end well.” Nope, everyone was all for it. No one seemed to think that the nephew would have any objection to my making out with his 18-year-old girlfriend. In fact, his mother gave me the props I needed to win.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I was about to make out with a Hottie, win 250 bucks, and my newly adopted family would think I was the coolest guy ever! What could go wrong?
So Hottie and I decided we should probably practice, just so we didn’t look awkward. I’m not gonna lie. It was my idea to practice. We “practiced” for about an hour, and then we went to sign up. People gave us all sorts of strange looks, since I was in my late 20′s and this chick looked pretty young, but we were holding hands and smiling at each other so it had to be legit, right? RIGHT? We signed up and all that was left to do was wait. There were only about 10 entries, which kind of surprised me, since 500 bucks is 500 bucks, but it just made my odds better. First couple up was a pair of geezers. Well, fuck me. Old people get the awwwwwww votes every time. Next couple up was a pair of really good looking people. Hot chick, stud-dog guy, and they really went to town. Looked like a movie kiss. Bastards. Couple non-descript people then us. We stepped up in front of the judges and began to kiss, slowly at first, then more passionately until all of a sudden, Hottie pulls back in shock. You could see the judges trying to figure out WTF. She reached up into her mouth and pulls out an engagement ring. Yep. Genius. She looked at me, then the ring, then back at me, then her eyes lit up and I said, “From the moment I met you, I knew there was something special about you and I want to be with you forever. Will you marry me?” Well, she was supposed to say yes and then kiss me, but she improvised and just devoured me. The judges lost their shit. The crowd lost their shit. People were cheering and for a second I forgot it was all a lie. She pulled back and one of the judges said, “Well? What did she say?” Hottie said, “YES!!!!” Everyone cheered a bit more, patted me on the back, hugged her, and we walked away. We had a few hours to wait until the kiss-off (the judges had to select 3 finalists) and decided the best thing to do was to stay in character. Yep. More “practicing”. I would like to point out that the ring that we used was donated by the NEPHEW’S MOM! So no one had any reason to be mad at me. They were all in on it.
We went back for the kiss-off, but it was a done deal. The judges told everyone what had happened and everyone cheered us again, then they presented us with the check for $500 and told us that if we wanted to, we could get married in 1 year at the next Garlic Festival! I felt a little guilty that they were so nice, so we smiled, said thanks, and bolted.
You know how you’re watching a movie and then they start playing some minor chords to let you know that everything isn’t really ok, that something bad is about to happen, and that the world as you know it is about to change? Yeah, I didn’t hear any of those, but I should have.
That night, we all trooped over to the nephew’s mom’s house (my Army buddy’s wife’s sister) and we were eating when the nephew’s Dad came home. Now he had been absent throughout the day and was a bit uptight, but tonight he was bouncing off the walls. “Guys, you won’t believe what happened at the Festival today! This guy proposed at the kissing contest by passing an engagement ring to the girl with his mouth!”
Silence. No one said a word.
He looked at all of us, then at his wife, who wouldn’t meet his gaze, at her parents, who were examining the ceiling, then at me. Oh fuck. There was this look of understanding that dawned and then he said, “War?” We all continued to exercise the our 5th amendment rights and finally he said, “Who was the girl?” His wife said softly, “Hottie.”
So now, all the people who had cheered me on, provided me the props, and watched the whole thing go down threw me under the bus. See, there were a few things I didn’t know.
- The nephew was this guy’s pride and joy. My making out with his girlfriend wasn’t cool with the father.
- He was one of the main organizers of the garlic festival and they had already promoted this with the local paper. Hey, human interest story, right? Now he knows it’s bullshit, it happened with his son’s girlfriend, and some fucking asshole who just came to town.
- No one told the boyfriend prior to this going down. I just assumed Hottie would have mentioned it to him, just to give him a heads-up, out of respect. Nope. I brought this up to her later when we were fucking and she just said she didn’t know why she never called him.
So now I’m the bad guy. Everyone started to backpeddle and say how they’d always thought it was a bad idea, how they’d had misgivings, and they were SHOCKED, SHOCKED that I’d even think of doing such a horrible thing. I pointed out that I’d even borrowed the ring from kid’s mom, but no one wanted to hear it so I bounced. My Army buddy met me about 10 minutes later and said that everyone was pissed as hell at me but that he thought it was fucking godly.
I knew we had to cash the check early, so Hottie met me the next morning and by 9:05 we each had our $250. The paper that day had a blurb about us, but they were working off of old info, so we were still cool.
The father went back, told everyone it was a fake, at which point everyone involved hated me. I’d obviously taken advantage of this poor girl, cheated the system, and didn’t deserve the money, but since I’d already cashed the check, it was too late. Fuck ‘em. Point of note: One judge said he was so impressed by my originality that he would have given me a higher score if he’d known at the time.
I was feeling pretty unloved, so when presented with the opportunity to further “practice” with the Hottie, I threw caution to the wind and went for it. We had a ton of fun, then the Woodstock Times called and asked if they could do an interview with us. Sure, wtf, why not? Everyone hates me now anyway, I figured. I was wrong. For about a year after the article came out (front page, giant pic of the two of us) people would stop me and ask if I were the guy that cheated with the high school girl to win the kissing contest at the Garlic Festival.
Yes. Yes I was…
TL;DR: I win a kissing contest with a girl 10 years younger by cheating and in the process alienate my friends, my friends’ families, and the towns of Saugerties and Woodstock.
What makes someone ‘out of your league’?
The sad truth is that you’re right. There are many girls out there WAY out of your league. They’re too pretty, too smart, too rich, too funny, and why the hell would that want you anyway? I mean, you really don’t have much to offer, so no point in even bothering. I mean, realistically just talking to them is going to end in rejection, and that’s painful and embarrassing. You are kinda chunky, you have that one crooked tooth, your hair is thinning, and you tend to stare at your feet a lot. You’d better just hide in your room.
Then again…
http://famouscouple.com/famous_couple-julia_roberts-lyle_lovett.htm
What do you call it when several people come up with the same idea independently of each other?
If you have a good lawyer it’s called intellectual property theft.
I just found my dream car on Craigslist for a mere four thousand dollars, but I don’t even have 1/4 of the necessary funds.
Offer him all you have. Set up payment plan. Tell him you will be his butler on weekends. Be creative you sorry motherfucker!!!! Go get your baby! She needs you!