With Friends Like These

A couple of years ago, shortly after my divorce, my friends and co-workers began to take pity on me and my lack of social appointments (dates). They quickly began to set me up with every neurotic, picky girl they could find. I was bored and certainly not in a position to be choosy, so one weekend I accepted Harley's invitation to meet Carrissa.

Before you think this is a tale about a match gone wrong.......well, it is, but it's also an anecdote that provides an example of one of my pet peeves, being ditched.

Harley and I worked with Tracey, whose brother was having a huge pool party in McKenzie, about ninety minutes away from Jackson. Harley suggested that we (as in me, Harley, his wife Cheryl, Carrissa, and some other girl that was sportin' a killer mullet) meet at his house and then drive out to Mike's where the party was. Fine by me. I park my truck at Harley's house, they introduce me to Carrissa (quite the cutie) and then tell me that Harley and I will be taking Jordan, their nine year old son, to Tracey's mother's house to be babysat. Confused yet? Wait, it gets better.

Cheryl, Carrissa, and Carrissa's friend (the one with the uni-brow) take Carrissa's car and head on out. Harley and I drop Jordan off in McKenzie and proceed to the party. By the time we got there, things had died down a bit and we were playing catch up with the booze. Carrissa was interesting and I asked her if I could call her and she gave me her number (remember this point sports fans).

Carrissa and her friend, the Sasquatch left which meant that boredom was starting to set in for me. Harley had decided to fire up a fattie and was sitting on the patio getting his groove on. Mike came over and asked me if I wanted to help him throw Harley in the pool. I'm always up for some mayhem, so I said "sure."

We tossed Harley into the pool and he began to whine and cry about how he was wet (big deal), and his blunt had gotten soaked (not like he offered to share) and his cell phone was ruined (oops). I told him to cowboy up and enjoy the pool. He gave me some lame excuse about his clothes and Mike said "take 'em off, nobody gives a rats ass." Taking the hint, I stripped down to my skivvies and dove into the water. When I surfaced I was completely horrified.
The bastard had gone nude on us and apparently was wearing a squirrel or some other hairy rodent on his crotch! All I could say to him was "dude, if you trim that 'fro back a foot or two, it might look like you have a tool worth working."

This pissed him off a bit so he got out of the pool (fine by me, I don't like swimming with marmots anyway), put on a towel and sat down in a lawn chair.

Everyonce in a while I would hear a girl squeal "ewww, Harley!! Put that thing away!" Evidently he thought it was cute to show every female that walked by the wolverine between his legs.
This went on for an hour or so while I blissfully swam in the pool with the other party people that had decided to strip down.

Eventually, I left the water to grab another beer and passed Cheryl (Harley's wife, remember?) on the way. She was only wearing a bra and panties. "Hey," she says "we are going to pick up Jordan (Harley's progeny, keep up readers), wanna go with us?"

"Nah, I'm ok."

So she grabs Harley in all of his nekkidness, piles his drunk ass into the car, and off they go. I spend the next couple of hours drinking and socializing when Mike (owner of the house, sheesh, do I have to provide a scorecard for you people?) taps me on the shoulder. He remarks that the party is starting to thin out a bit and how was I getting home. I took the hint and started looking for Harley and Cheryl.

Now folks, admittedly, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but when somebody tells me they are leaving to pick up their child, I didn't think for a second that they weren't coming back! I looked for the dynamic duo for about ten minutes before I realized that I had been ditched! Mike listen to my tale of woe and told me we would figure out some way to get me back to Jackson, an hour and a half away.

I finally found a ride about 8 p.m. THE NEXT DAY! There was some small revenge. Harley and Cheryl had left all of their clothes at Mike's (I would have loved to have been there when the state trooper pulled them over to find two drunk nekkid people with a small child in the back seat. "We only had one beer officer, I swear!) so when I was dropped off at my truck, I threw all of their clothes into the trees and basketball goal at their house.

All was not lost, right? I mean I got Carrissa's number and she wanted me to call her so I was taking the "no pain, no gain" attitude.

I called Carrissa Monday night and left a message. No return call. I called again Wednesday night, still no return call. I was starting to feel a little stalkerish, so I decided to call one more time on Thursday and if she didn't answer, I would just let it go. To my surprise she picked up the phone. We made small talk for ten minutes or so and I finally asked her if she wanted to have dinner sometime. The rest of the conversation went like this:

Carrissa: Chunk, what did Harley and Cheryl tell you about me?

Chunk: Just that you and I would get along and might enjoy each other's company.

Carrissa: Well, my husband and I are trying to work things out and they know this.

pause

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Chunk: I am so sorry, I had no idea. Please, really, accept my apology. I'm gonna go crawl back under my rock now.

So I get off of the phone before I can even think, "WTF? Why did she give me her number and tell me it was ok to call?"

I saw Harley and Cheryl the following weekend, thanked them for ditching me in the ass end of Tennessee and then chewed their asses for trying to set me up with Carrissa when the poor girl was trying to work out things with her husband. That was wrong on so many levels

Cheryl thinks it over for a minute and then looks at me and says "Chunk, her and her husband have been done forever, when I talked to her during the week, she decided you were too short."

Fuck.