The Mile Long Rant

Let us speak, once again, of the Phone Nazis.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we changed phone plans.

And when we did, we all shouted ‘Hurrah!! Let’s get voicemail!! For none of us can work the damned answering machine anyway!! And when that bastard Babs is online people can still leave messages!!’

A plan which, ultimately, crashed and burned; because the Phone Nazi’s would THEN get annoyed were I to pop online anywhere between the hours of 8 AM EST and midnight (midnight anywhere on the planet, that is) and someone left a message.

Babs: Right. I’m popping online for a mo to check something.

Phone Nazi: What if someone calls??

Babs: Why did we get voicemail then??

Phone Nazi: The pope might call!! Or the queen!!

*Babs goes online, pops back off again*

Phone Nazi: God dammit!! There’s a fucking message!!

Also: Inevitably, as I’ve mentioned MANY time previous, the SECOND I toddle on to check something, someone, without fail, will fucking call and leave a message, thereby proving their point. The phone will be silent ALL FUCKING DAY, but the very MOMENT I need to do something everyone and their fucking brother is calling here. The Phone Nazis will then call whoever it might be back and sigh heavily ‘Oh, BABS was online AGAIN’ as if I’ve been on the damned thing all day, when in fact I’ve been on all of five fucking minutes (ok, fine, maybe fifteen, but still).

This annoys me no end because NOW when some people leave messages, regardless of anyone being home of not, they automatically assume they aren’t getting through because I’m online. I got home from the Quackery last week and I check the messages: ‘Well I WOULD like to talk to you Ma, but Babs is online AGAIN I bet’

Meanwhile I wasn’t even fucking home.

{This is usually my aunt, EFL, or one of Ma’s friends. EFL’s are further annoying because if we ARE home and no one answers the phone [because I'm using said puter] we then hear pounding on the door because IT. WAS. IMPORTANT. And you know what?? Nine times out of ten it isn’t. I can never have a moments peace, which is why I’m slowly re-plotting my re-escape}

What irks me even FURTHER, is the OTHER argument for same.

‘What about people who don’t leave messages??’

My answer, quite plainly, is FUCK THEM.

Ex-asshole #3 was famous for this.

This was back in the day when my life was quite hectic. I was not only working two jobs, but playing chauffeur to half the bloody family. Caller ID had not yet been invented, and *69 wasn’t exactly foolproof, because he’d have to have been the last caller, which wasn’t the case necessarily. So I’d have to wonder, ‘Gee, did he call?? Did he not call?? Are we still going out tonight?? Should I call?? What the fuck??’

It always left ME calling HIM. Which pissed me off no end. So I’d get on his case about same. His answer?? ‘I don’t like talking to machines’

Look, fucknuts, if you love me SO much, and think SO highly of me, you can get past your little Answeringmachinephobia Issues and leave me a god damned message. My speech, of course, didn’t work. Thus, if the phone rang when I was, say, out in the pool and I couldn’t get out of the damned thing fast enough, I’d have to wonder if it was him or some fucking electrolux salesman. Then debate on whether or not I should call back.

Why didn’t I ditch him sooner??

We’ve already been through that, people. It’s because I’m a fucking idiot.

Anyway, back to the Phone Nazis and the Non Message Leaving Idiots at hand. I say if these people are calling and NOT leaving messages this is very much Not My Fucking Problem. If it’s SO god damned important, they’d leave a message. If they don’t leave a message?? FUCK ‘EM.

But no!! It could be VERY important!!

{And if I know anyone is waiting for an important call, such as Trash’s friends picking him up for work/darts/etc I do not use said phone}

They will not be swayed.

There is also, apparently, a very fundamental difference to my popping online and, say, surfing want-ads, and Trash deciding he doesn’t want to answer the phone. I do not know what the distinction is, but I just thought we should get that out in the open NOW. When Trash ignores the phone because he doesn’t feel like answering it, it is good and just; when Babs utilizes the Devil Box anytime between 8 AM EST and midnight, it is BAD.

I hope we’re clear.

This is not to say that either Phone Nazi isn’t open minded about using the internet during the day. Heavens no!! When they need something to be looked up, or searched for, it is Right and Good.

Babs?? Not so much Right and Good but Completely Evil and Heathenistic.

And it is fine for us to bicker about this between the three of us. I can handle that. It’s all part of being stuck in the same domicile (temporarily) and all that.

When other people start sticking their snoots in the debate, though, it really gets on my fucking nerves. Because I really, REALLY shouldn’t have to explain what I do, when I do it, or why I do what I do. It’s none of their fucking business. Even Ma will concede to THAT point. Especially when I’m busy filling out online job applications.

{That’s the other thing that bugs the shit out of me–EFL thinks that just because I am home, I’m not looking for work. We will overlook ENTIRELY the fact that this is very much None of EFL’s Fucking Business to begin with, for that’s another debate for another day. EFL is under the distinct impression that one cannot possibly get a job if they aren’t out and about. My last four interviews (two of which resulted in eventual jobs) were all the end result of my filling out applications and sending out resumes while I happened to be sipping tea and wearing my fuzzy slippers in the comfort of my own room. I’m not saying that one can stop pounding the pavement outright. HOWEVER, if I’m having a really fucking wretchedly spazzy day, it’s easier to fill things out from here. Rather than say, flopping into whatever office/store I wish to work at while spazzing mightly, drooling as I mumble thank you while taking said application and handing over my resume. I like to save surprises like that for my second or third day of employment. I’m fun that way. The same applies for dates. That is, if I could get any}

What’s really funny is that, thanks to me and this Evil Contraption and my heretic and Oh So Evil Daytime Use of the Devil Box, one of Trash’s resumes has finally hit. A resume which I’d ‘creatively re-written’ (read: ‘pizza delivery man’ becomes ‘delivered food to homebound persons’ etc) and sent out last October at his request (because were he to do it, he’d still be typing the bloody thing). You know, back when the Garbologists screwed him over royally?? So he shall now be gainfully employed by Ye Olde Citye, in a proper job that does NOT have two week breaks (or more) between gigs, with a pension, benefits, and all that other fun stuff.

And I can now officially declare myself the biggest and only fuck-up left in the family.

Unless, of course, our cousin the crackhead resurfaces to claim the throne.

She’s Pathetic: Boogie Woogie Woogie

So, everyone read the previous ‘Algernon’ post?? Hurrah!! You’re now caught up with the rest of the class.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I graduated eighth grade my one hope was that high school would be easy peasy. I would no longer be humiliated and tormented by my peers every five god damned minutes.

Indeed my life WOULD turn around.

It got worse.

A LOT worse.

I don’t know WHAT I was thinking back then. Obviously I was smoking way too much crack. Or, perhaps I’d just seen too many high school movies with the classic ‘Cute guy gets the cute girl, everyone gets into Harvard, and the bullies end up hog-tied in the back seats of their convertibles with anchovies stuffed in their ears and tighty-whities stapled to their heads while a fat nerd named Larry, dressed in a toga and a Dungeons and Dragons hat, farts on them WITHOUT MERCY’ happy endings. I also failed to remember that, when it came right down to it, I was a walking waddling movie cliche: Hideous fat chick, braces on my teeth (oh how we laugh about THAT now), 5′11, built like Merlin Olsen, and an epileptic bastard, to boot.

I was clearly a very stupid and unquestionably naive youth, back in Ye Olden Days.

Yea verily.

When I walked into Public High School (after having been chucked from Ye Olde Catholic HS for failing four classes and wearing lemon yellow Converse sneakers one too many times with my uniform) for the first time, I knew three days in that my life had gone from bad to fucking apocalyptic.

It’s one thing to have the popular kids make fun of you; I expected that. It’s the schoolyard norm, after all, you know you’re in for it. It was no surprise.

When the special-ed kids and the bastards from the chess club are tormenting you too, though, you know you’re fucked.

I found a few oddball friends who accepted me for what I was, tried to ignore the majority of the assholes (very difficult given that there were so many), and wore lots and lots of black.

And, though my illusions of the Perfect High School Career had crashed and burned the minute the zit-faced Albanian kid with the lisp started calling me fat-ass every time I walked past the science lab, I still held on to one tiny, tattered shred of the high school dream: The Senior Prom.

It was my last hope. The perfect prom night would wipe away the three and a half years of sheer HELL that was high school. It would be my redemption. My vindication!! I would show them ALL.

{Yep. I definitely had to be on something}

Kind of like Carrie. Except with no blood. And no fire. Or vomit. Or explosions. So really not very much like Carrie, come to think of it. Well. They WERE all going to laugh at me.

Even my date.

And how did I, Babs Geller, manage to get a date, you ask?? It would seem rather impossible, given that, in the entirety of my high school career I hadn’t ever been asked out. Not once. Hell, technically speaking I’ve STILL never been asked out on a date (unless we count the Psychotic Stalking Spaniard, which we don’t). All of my ex-bf’s started out,as I’ve said before, as friends and then just sort of started going out with me (read: Perennial Great Personality Postergirl). If any one of the bastards had seen me in, say, a bar, you can bet your sweet bippie they wouldn’t have come near me. The only pick up line that’s ever been thrown MY way whilst in a bar is ‘Hey. You’re a fat bastard. So who’s your hot friend??’

Swoooon!! Well buy ME a drink sailor. Assclowns.

When prom time started rolling around, I started to hedge. Why was I going to torture myself?? I certainly wasn’t going to go alone. Sydney had a date, of course, as she and Jimmy had been going out on and off for the past year. Nicole and Jack were also going to the gig together. And I, as usual, was without a significant other with whom I could pass notes to in the hallway between classes, and, possibly, make out in the back stairwell by the music rooms. Pariah of the cellulitic masses and all that. Sydney wanted the prom to be perfect. I was her best friend and she wanted me to go. I was dateless. And I wasn’t about to show up alone, only to be laughed at by two hundred of my fellow seniors yet again. Syd had a brainstorm.

‘Babs’ she intoned ‘Ask Stay-Puft!! Go as FRIENDS’

Let me say here and now that I had no problem with the ‘go as friends’ concept. I had a problem with ‘going to the prom with the guy who I had dated last year for god knows how long and who’d kept me under the Grand Delusion that we were in fact a ‘couple’; then schtupped me; and after the deed was done, said we were never GF and BF to begin with’ concept. I mean, sure, I’d pretty much gotten over it, but still, it had been humiliation on the GRANDEST of scales. Everyone else had started talking to him again, though, so it was either ditch my friends or deal with the fact that Stay-Puft was back in Inner Circle. So, idiot that I was, I once again listened to Sydney. Sydney talked him into wanting to go, but I still had to do the actual asking.

And, this is the real kicker, since I asked him, this meant I was buying the tickets. Not only was I asking the fucktard who had stomped me into a thousand tiny pieces and made me feel like two-foot-tall shameless tramp a year earlier, but I was PAYING for his ticket. And the chip in dough on the limo!!

{I mean, ok, yea my PARENTS were really the ones paying for the tickets etc. But still, you’d think he’d get chivalrous and, in some sort of mea culpa for his heinous acts the year previous, he’d offer to fucking pay for my ticket etc. He had the dough. I know because half our drinking sessions were fueled by money he had proudly stolen from his fathers wallet. And his parents gave him money left and right. So like, dude, really, what the fuck?? Jesus I was SUCH an idiot back then. I still weep for my teenaged idiocy}

Prom day comes. I’d gotten my hair done up all nice at the hairdressers. I had the dress, culled from the Fancy Fat Chick Dress Shop. A black dress with regretably poofy shoulders (hey, it was the eighties, fuck off). Nails done. The works. And for a while I actually thought I didn’t look half bad. Which was saying something, given that I hadn’t worn a dress or a skirt since getting the chuck from Ye Olde Catholic HS. Fat chicks who wore dresses to school were just asking for trouble. I knew that. So I never even BOUGHT them nevermind WORE them. Plus, you know, I was reminded 24/7 that I was repellent. So my thinking I looked good, especially back THEN, was tremendous.

My parents had forgotten to get film so as to take a picture of this momentous event. Their eldest and only daughter going to her senior prom. Huzzah!! But, sorry Babs, no picture. Our neighbor saw me standing on the porch in full prom regalia and exclaimed ‘Babs!! You look beautiful!!’ She ran down the block, got her camera, and took my picture. Limo comes, I hop in, and Syd and Nicole are already there, ‘Babs!! You look brilliant!!’ We’re twittering and babbling on the way to Manhattan. And, you know, for some reason I can’t remember if we picked the boys up or if they met us at the pier where the party yacht was docked (Yes. Our prom was on a yacht). Doesn’t matter.

The point here now is, I was thinking ‘Hot damn. I must look human!!’ I mean, we’ve all heard me lament the whole ‘She’s got such a pretty face, shame about the body’ spiel my father’s friends spewed out for YEARS. It’s one of the MANY reasons I’m the endearing bundle of insecure neuroses that I am today and probably will be forever.

The boys see us. Jack fawns over Nicole and tells her she’s gorgeous. Jimmy fawns over Sydney and tells her she’s gorgeous (Sydney, by the way, was of heft to, but not as much as myself, and she was far more at ease with herself and confident). And they did look gorgeous. Let me also say that I wasn’t expecting Stay-Puft to gush about how WONDERFUL I looked. Or witter on about how radiant I was. A simple ‘Hey. You look, er, normal’, however, would have been nice.

Did that happen??

Stay-puft lobs my corsage at me and says ‘Oh my god!! You look like a french poodle. Where did you get that dress?? Ugh.’

Damned if he didn’t set the tone for the evening. The fucking prick.

Now as everyone walked onto the yacht, they’d stop midway on the gangplank, turn to the side, and have their picture taken. EVERYONE was doing this. Even people who had gone with their cousins; not because they were inbreeding trolls, but because they wanted a nice bloody prom picture and happened to go to the prom with their cousins. It was our turn. ‘I’m not doing that!!’ Stay-Puft whines. ‘I just want one picture’ I tell him. ‘No, I’m not doing it!! We aren’t *dating*’ he whines on. ‘I KNOW that. You don’t have to put your arm around me. You don’t have to hold my hand. You don’t even have to fucking touch me. Just stand there for gods sake. I just want a fucking prom picture’ Sydney tries to help by pointing out the few pairs of cousins who have taken prom pictures. End result?? Babs isn’t getting her prom picture. Stay-Puft, whiny prick fucktard from hell, has spoken.

I wanted to cry, but I managed to bring forth the tough chick that we all know and love, and I muscled through it.

The prom itself can be summed up thusly: Though I have a date, I am not asked to dance by said date once. I was not surprised, really, after the french poodle/ugh comment and picture debacle. And in fact, had he asked me to dance I probably would have said no, because I don’t dance. Especially not in front of 200 people who have tortured me for three and a half years. Still, the gesture WOULD have been nice. But no. Instead I spent half my time listening to him beg Sydney to dance every 3.5 seconds. A lovely shot in the arm, yes?? Sydney, being a very good best friend, did no such thing. I spent the rest of my time out on the deck, alone, sneaking cigarettes while fighting back tears. Because not only was I dealing with Stay-Puft and his retard-o-shit, but the random bastards who decided I was a laughing stock and thought I should know.

Ah yes. The magical senior prom. You can fucking have it, people.

I do admit that I sort of wished Stay-Puft was standing there on the deck, watching the water with me, as the boat made its way around Manhattan.

Because then I could have pushed the bloated, candy-assed motherfucker overboard and watched him drown in the East River.

Now, had I ended this right here, you’d all be cheering for Babs and hoping that Stay-Puft would one day get his comeuppance. Perhaps he’d get amoebic dysentary. Or leprosy. Better yet, his member would snap off the moment Samantha Fox declared her love for him, and he’d never get to schtup her; nor hear her tell her stupid kidley pie joke. That would have been sweet revenge, right there, believe you me.

But there was the After Prom.

Ah well. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that.

Now lots would head for the wilds of Wildwood, Seaside, and other merry places of New Jersey for After Prom. None of us had cars, though. Nor were our parents going to let us get away with traversing to the wilds of anything further than Linden, nevermind Asbury Park. So we drove around in our limo til our time ran out and went to our friend Percy’s house. Percy was another one of our drinking gang. Percy also had parents who were NEVER home so we could party until god knows when. The lads had the limo driver stop at the store; they dashed out and bought copious amounts of beer and liquor. Beer and liquor which, once we arrived at Percy’s house, I fully intended to avail myself of to the max. I was upset. I was miserable. This was not the prom I wanted. Hell. It wasn’t the life I wanted. Getting drunk would be nice. It would make me forget the whole god damned night had ever happened (though, given the length of this post, I’d say I failed in the Alcohol Amnesia Department).

Everyone was having a ball, except, of course, for Stay-Puft, who sat on on the couch whining the whole god damned time. He seemed to be very good at that. Jack and Jimmy had pretty much had it with him, especially after his heinous treatment of me. Jack had to be taken aside so he wouldn’t pummel the ever-loving shit out of him. This is because having the cops show up would not be good and once Jack started swinging, he didn’t stop.

I was so polluted, far beyond the normal realm of alcoholic intake, that it wasn’t funny. So much so that I joined in when Nicole and Sydney put the ‘Electric Slide’ on the radio. You want to laugh?? Watch a drunken Babs do the Electric Slide, people. I think I fell twice. Luckily, Sydney and Nicole were just as drunk and fell just as many times. We all thought we were hilarious.

Then, as was bound to happen, the Couples Tonsil-Hockey Olympics began.

That, my friends, was what set off the waterworks. I was, as usual, alone. This was not how my prom was supposed to be. I was supposed to go with someone I loved, dammit. Or at least LIKED. Not with some whiny fucktard who, at that very moment, refused to cede the couch to me; thereby leaving me the kitchen floor to take my drunken nap upon. Chivalry, if there ever had been any such animal, was most definitely dead. Deader than dead. Rigor mortis had come and gone and the worms were now settling in, munching merrily on its eyeballs.

Percy, sensing that perhaps this was a chance to go in for a very drunken kill (because, you know, he’d have to be drunk), decides, ‘Hey!! Perfect time to make out with Babs!!’

Clearly he was the drunkest person there.

Clearly I was the second drunkest there.

Most amusingly, word on the street was that Stay-Puft had the fucking BALLS to say that Babs had some nerve making out with someone who was not her prom date (I never confirmed this, but damned if it wouldn’t make me giggle if it were true). An absolutely laughable statement seeing as he’d A) told me I was repellent B) wouldn’t even take a PICTURE with me, nevermind acknowledge my existence C) spent the entire prom begging my best friend to dance and D) we’d only gone as ‘friends’ and he’d ignored me the entire fucking time

Thank the good lord and all the saints in heaven that nothing untowards happened twixt Percy and myself other than a bit of tonsil hockey. Like five minutes worth. We were both so drunk that we passed out.

{Here comes the part where all of your ‘Aww, poor Babs, how awful’ shall turn into jeers, shock, and scorn. You may even throw rotting vegetables at me}

I’ll bet it was probably Stay-Puft who rang Percy’s brand new girlfriend the very next day to tell her of my heinous misdeeds. Which, granted, were treacherous, but at the outset my thoughts were never ‘Gosh, you know what?? I think I’m going to make out with Percy’ I never even had a thing for him. I was stupid and drunk and upset. And bloody Percy was the one who started it ANYWAY. Not that it’s a valid excuse for my own moronic behavior, but still. I nearly got my ass kicked for being absolutely shitfaced and making out with Percy for all of five minutes. I only managed to avoid Nala coming over and putting a knife to my throat (and she would have. trust me) by apologizing profusely and agreeing with her when she declared what a moron/ho/slut I was. And, yes, while my behavior was horrible, I hardly thought she could call me a slut. Previous to this Stay-Puft was the only guy who’d ever kissed me. So. Undeniably stupid?? Yes. Slut?? I don’t think so, really (though some might disagree with this assessment).

Percy’s old place is right near here. I pass it every time I leave the house.

I STILL cringe when I walk by.

I still wince whenever I hear the Electric Slide.

And if there is a god, one day Stay-Puft will fall off a boat, whilst wearing a tacky rented tuxedo from the eighties, and I will laugh my fucking ass off as he goes under for the umpteenth time.

I will despise him until the day I die.

Boogie woogie woogie.

Algernon: A Repeat

As I am about to delve into the UNHOLY ATROCITY that was my high school prom, I thought a memory refresher was in order. This way, when you all read said Prom Post, you can all go back in time, and bitchslap the teenaged Babs for being such a fucking idiot.

I originally posted this in November of 2004. Have fun!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My most recent post, on sex and religion, was a first for we (we being me and the mouse in my pocket) here at Spazzymoto’s Revenge, owing to the fact that we don’t discuss either subject AT ALL as a general rule. Firstly, because I am a heathen (read: I haven’t been to church since Wednesday’s christening in 1995, and yet oddly, still feel guilty for same) and secondly, because I am a spinster (read: it’s rather hard to discuss a topic such as nookie WHEN YOU’VE FORGOTTEN WHAT IT BLOODY WELL IS and don’t have a BF to remind you of same). Of course, this is not to say that if, one day, I became a church going nymphomaniac or something I’d be rattling off on either subject ad-nauseam. I am after all, a prude, both by nature and years of nun-induced guilt. It would just make any thoughts I had on either subject, had I chose to bring them up on occcasion, more credible and far more valid.

Now, fair reader, let us just ASSUME for one brief moment that my highly evolved and well thought out logic (read:where the amount of sex you’ve had is gauged by how many children you have) is somehow fundamentally flawed. The chances of this are quite slim, granted, but let’s just pretend, ok??

If (and that’s a mighty big if) this logic were flawed, one might be able to assume that certain authors of certain blogs (starting with Spazzymoto and ending in Revenge, and that’s the ONLY clue you’re getting) were not, in fact, as pure as the driven snow. One might also be able to assume, that back in high school, certain authors lost certain things.

Some irretrievable things.

Ok, one irretrievable thing.

*cue to dreamlike sequence where we flashback to a certain high school on Staten Island but then cut out because we really don’t feel like putting in the effort of a flashback narrative at the mo because we’ve only had one cup of tea but then decide to try it anyway*

Ah. The spring of 1989. I remember it well. It was a time for fun, frolic, and cutting out of every class humanly possible. I was never alone in my endeavors, for I had my own little posse to run with (it was the 80’s, and yes we called it a posse, and yes you can fuck off if you giggle one more time ok, we were COOL dammit). We went to class (occasionally), snuck out to drink (more than occasionally), and generally had a good time of it.

Some more than others, mind you.

And the topper to every week, of course, was the Friday night drinking sessions. The lot of us would call our parents and inform them that we we’re heading out to the movies. Then the lot of us would bugger off to Brooklyn instead and drink ourselves into alcohol-induced comas on certain bridges that went to said borough. Of course, on the rarest of occasions there was a bit more than just your average 40 oz of O.E. consumed (read:pharmaceuticals). Babs however, was not allowed to partake in anything more than the occasional puff of a joint. The reason for this being that Babs was a spaz and her friends didn’t want to take the chance of her having a seizure. I like to gloss this fact over by saying they really cared about me and worried for my health. Honestly, though, I think (while they DID care) it was more the fact that they’d get busted if I suddenly had a seizure as they’d have a LOT of explaining to do. Plus, it’d be REALLY hard to drag my fat ass, unconscious mind you, onto a train.

For the purposes of this narrative I shall provide a quick cast listing:

Babs: adorable (teenage) spinster and fifth wheel
Sydney: confidante, best friend, and all-around good egg
Jimmy: Sydney’s BF and also one of my best friends
Nicole: friend and the posses resident monogamous nympho
Jack(rabbit): Nicole’s BF and the resident male mongamous nympho, also was like a brother to me and was ready to beat up anyone who said ONE bad thing about yours truly
Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man: uppity pain in the ass, questionable sexual-orientation owing to seemingly feminine-like gestures but suspicions were squashed by his ardent love of Samantha Fox {the singer, not the porn star, he was always sure to note} so he HAD to be straight. Occasionally good fun when not being utterly annoying and whiny, he was a cow, like yours truly, and the sixth wheel

Now our drinking sessions (either near home or in Brooklyn) always had a certain routine to them. Nicole and Jack were more often present for the home games, owing to Nicoles zealot parents who wouldn’t let her out often on a Friday night. Occasionally, though, they did make the trip to Brooklyn. But more often than not, it was myself, Sydney, Jimmy, and Stay-Puft who wandered over to the land of the Vinnie Boombatz.

The drinking sessions began when some of us went to fetch the beer (amazingly easy to buy despite our being a full 4 to 5 years underage). We’d all meet in a pre-determined location (in Brooklyn, a park, at home it could be anyone’s house or the abandoned apartment buildings, or the abandoned railroad tracks, or anywhere there wasn’t evidence of recent residents, or moreover, the cops). In Brooklyn, we hung about until it was 6-ish or so, and tramped up the bridge under the cover of darkness. We’d start on the beer (and Jimmy always had a joint for himself) and generally have a good time of it.

Inevitably, the couples would wander off to the other side of the turrets, leaving Babs to train her liver while they made out for (what seemed to be) at least 5 fucking hours. For yours truly didn’t have a BF. Or even a shot at one. As we know most of my HS career was spent being tortured because of my cow-like body and looks to match. Jimmy and Jack always told me how great I was and wondered why I was alone (though I think they really said it to make me feel better, but I’ll forgive ‘em for it, as it did make me feel better). And as a consolation prize, when the couples tonsil-hockey olympics began, Babs was given a majority of everyone’s beer (as they’d had some beer AND passed the joint–and were nicely buzzed) to pass the time as she looked out over the river, alone, and screamed along to Echo and the Bunnymen, The Sex Pistols, and any other band everyone hated. Stay-Puft usually leaned against another wall listening to his walkman, never saying much of anything. Sydney would always come round to check up on me, make sure I was ok, and tell me to slow up with the drinking and then go back to making out with Jimmy round the corner. She felt bad for me, I know. Then, the time would come, and we’d stumble (granted I stumbled more owing to more alcoholic intake than others) to the train for the trip back home.

One day, Sydney (in a bid to try and solve my BF woes) had a (seeming) stroke of genius. Babs should go out with Stay-Puft. Because both were single, and moreover, both were a tad heiferish. Therefore they were MADE for each other. I believe she informed the others of this brilliant scheme and recruited Jimmy and Jack to have a chat with Stay-Puft in order to extol my many virtues (read: poster girl for ’she’s got a great personality’ {read: ugly, fat, but great fun}). She, of course, chatted with me and planted the seed of impending couplehood in my head. Babs being an idiot, and a very lonely idiot at that, began to see the light. They were right!! And he was sort of fun. And he WAS tall. And he did like me, right??

That question was answered one day when he went along with me to Aunt Nutter’s house (where I would go every day after school to babysit my cousins). As we waited upstairs for the impending cheese-colored chariot (read:the cousins’ schoolbus) to arrive, Stay-Puft kissed me. Me. ME. Babs Geller, fat lonely pathetic old cow and pariah of the cellulitic masses, got KISSED. There I was 17 years of age, and this, as sad as it may seem, was my first kiss.

*the heavens open up, trumpets sound, and the angels sing*

Right. Perhaps there were no trumpets, nor angels. I may, in fact, not even remember the actual kiss itself. This is owing to nerves, pressure, and the fact that I didn’t think he was particularly skilled at same. These matters, however, are beside the point. Our ‘courtship’ grew after said kiss. He’d toddle along with me on most days to my post as ‘babysitterus emeritus’, to keep me company. And during the hour and a half between the end of our classes and the cousins arrival at home we busied ourselves with good wholesome things, such as (but not limited to) bible-study, charity work, and reading to blind Lithuanian orphans (read: NOT making out *cough*). This routine went on for a good few months when, finally, Stay-Puft decided we should take things to the oft-referred-to-but-very-dreaded ‘next level’. Yours truly, being pure of heart and soul etc, and quite virtuous, I might add (shaddap), was naturally hesitant. And moreover, scared shitless.

Then, one bright summers day, while my parents (and Trash) were gone to pick up Manson from the airport (he’d gone to spend a few weeks with Uncle Stinkyfingers), it happened. The one thing thats so special, the one thing that you remember for the ages, the one thing a girl awaits with baited breath, and gives to that special someone in a moment so special it defies description.

It, of course, defies description, because it lasted all of 1 1/2 god damned minutes (and I’m being VERY generous here). But that’s fine. After all, we were both nervous, both hadn’t ever done such a thing before. Moreover, we were working against the clock, as who knew when the car would pull up into the driveway. As if on cue, as we finished sorting ourselves out and popped into the kitchen for a sandwich, the car came back and everyone piled out. Babs remains calm, cool, and collected as no one will know what just transpired. There isn’t the telling ‘glow’ that poets speak of, because one can’t GET a fucking glow inside of 1 1/2 god damned minutes. So my secret is safe.

Or, so I thought.

The parents come in the door, yelling etc as usual, doing normal parent-y type things. Trash ambles off to his room to play with his latest He-Man action figure. Stay-Puft toddles outside to say hello to Manson, as do I.

What transpired in the next moment, is something that haunts me to this very day. Manson, too, no doubt.

I stood at the top of the stairs as Stay-Puft pranced down the steps to shake Manson’s hand and say hello.

And the first words out of his mouth are ‘Guess what I just did?!?!’

*cue to Babs freezing like a deer caught in the headlights*

I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout at Stay-Puft to shut the fuck up. But I was paralyzed with fear and utter humiliation. Poor Manson, not knowing what he is about to hear, says ‘What??’

And Stay-Puft fucking TELLS him!! He TELLS Manson what he’s just done with his SISTER.

I fucking died. Literally died. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I was bright red and couldn’t fathom what had just happened. Nor could poor Manson, who at that moment, didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.

*cue to Manson falling to the ground and scratching his own eyes out while screaming at Stay-Puft to shut up*

(because beating up Stay-Puft was not an option for Manson, as he’d not yet reached his 6′2 height and was still a rather scrawny 5′5, whereas Stay-Puft was 6′3 and weighed more than even myself)

Now I realize that the event described, for most men, is a conquest to be bragged on. You swagger in for a beer with the boys, piss on a tree to mark your territory, and say ‘guess what I just did?!?!’

BUT YOU DO NOT FUCKING TELL THE GIRLS BROTHER!!!!!!!!!

There I was, virginus-no-moreus, and he’d fucking told my kid brother.

Manson and I agreed, albeit without ever actually saying anything, to never mention this horrifying turn of events again. And I didn’t speak to Stay-Puft for nearly a week, at least.

Sydney talked me into giving Stay-Puft another chance (as it were) and after all, it was nice to have a BF, wasn’t it?? Even if he was SO FUCKING STUPID that he announced said turn of events to my bloody brother.

Desperation, fair readers, is a most odious and pathetic affair.

So one weekend, while all and sundry had gone somewhere or another, Stay-Puft came over to my house again. We swam, had lunch, and as they say, one thing led to another. I soon realized there was no glow to be had, as Stay-Puft was happy as long as HE was happy. And it took all of 2 minutes to make him happy.

Once again we sorted ourselves out, and as we walked out of the room, I forget what I said exactly, but I said something, and I used the word ‘boyfriend’. As he WAS my boyfriend, right?? After all, we’d been going out for quite a few months now. We hung out with the gang all the time, and THEY knew we were together. He called me. I called him. And he always came over while I minded the kids. I loved him and he loved me, right?? To my definition (and the girls had said it as well) this was my BF. It was inherently known throughout the collective. Babs and Stay-Puft, item at large.

Stay-Puft: What did you say??

Babs: Blah, blah, blah, boyfriend.

Stay-Puft: But I’m not your BF.

Babs (curious now): Excuse me??

Stay-Puft: We’re just friends.

Babs (shocked and just a TAD infuriated now): Friends?? EXCUSE ME?!?!

Stay-Puft: Yea, friends.

Babs: *launches into lengthy diatribe listing the above factors and moreover what we’d just done* So if we’re just ‘FRIENDS’ what the hell was that we just did?!?!

Stay-Puft (the ever tactful): Oh, friends fuck.

And with that, he trounced out of my room while I stood in shock, ready to burst into tears with the sudden realization that not only did I no longer have a BF, but I never HAD a BF. And that I’d lost it to a ‘friend’ who was doing nothing more but having a bit of fun while letting all and sundry believe that we were in fact, an item, when we never were, to his way of thinking.

Stay-Puft was cast out of the posse for the most part, after this happened. No one talked to him for months. Until a year later when prom night came around. Sydney, knowing I didn’t have a date (and knowing the sting of what had happened had somewhat susbided by now), somehow managed to get Stay-Puft to take me, but you know, as ‘Friends’ (I never said I was brilliant fair readers, and all of this proves my case) That, however is a story for another night.

The above was the highlight of my ‘Worst BF Stories’ for quite a few years until Ex-Asshole # 2 performed his infamous ‘let’s kill ourselves because she’s a heifer’ stunt (new readers may want to track back to read that gem, it’s even better than THIS sordid tale).

But of course, none of this matters, really, because it’s all speculative. According to ‘Babs Catholic Calulations of Sex vs children given Birth to Theorem’ (from the previous post), Babs must be a virgin, as Babs doesn’t have any children.

So I can safely deny that any of the above ever happened. And I can wander off into the sunset, pure and virtuous, hoping one day I’ll find a man who won’t A)off himself or B)declare himself a friend the moment the deed is done.

Again I say, desperation is a most odious and pathetic affair.