The Exploitation of a Manly Man's Vanity

          I’ve always been pretty big on eating well and working out.  I have a weakness when it comes to fast food but the healthier I eat, the grosser it is.  Since I’ve known Micah, I have tried to keep him healthy and alive as long as possible.  I stock him up on vitamins, load up his tractor and truck with sun screen, encourage healthy eating.  It’s like trying to convert a full blown blood thirsty barbarian into a healthy, civilized human being.  He fights EVERYTHING I introduce or simply ignores my instructions.  For example, the other day, I called him.

“Hi!” I said, “I’ve found a natural way you can take care of your-“

“No.” he said. 

What an obnoxious man. 

“You haven’t even heard it yet,” I told him, “just listen.  It’s called oil pulling.  You basically get coconut oil and by swishing it around in your mouth for twenty-“

“I ain’t doin’ that,” he said.

“Micah it removes toxins and bacteria from your mouth.  And since you refuse to see a dentist, EVER, it will at least help.  Plus, it makes your skin glow.”

“I don’t want glowing skin,” he said.

“Whatever,” I told him, “You're trying this when I get home.  Now the second thing I wanted to talk to you about wheatgrass.  This stuff is absolutely amazing and I can make it from home.  You just take a shot in the morning, afternoon-“

“No,” he said, “I ain’t drinkin’ wheatgrass.  Do all the hippie weird shit you want but I ain’t doin’ it.”

“Would you listen?” I said in my “Micah shut up” voice, “at least listen to why it’s beneficial before you decide to be a horses butt about it.  Just because it’s good for you doesn’t mean it’s not manly.”

“I AM ALL MAN BABY!” he roared into the phone. 

“Yes Micah, I am aware,” I told him, “you are all man.  Wheatgrass removes toxins from your blood, gives you energy-“

“Sissy men drink that weird crap,” he said.

“People who drink it regularly also typically have their gray hair reversed back to the natural color.  Swear to God. Look it up.”

Ten second silence. 

“We’ll see,” he said.

HaHA!   I found his Achilles heel.  Trying to explain to this man the social conditioning behind  his “manly vs sissy”  mentality is useless.  I love Micah enough to find it endearing.  Usually I find it obnoxious and stupid.  The “manly man” stuff is so irrational but most West Texas men are still primitive enough to be pretty hardcore about it and since I fell in love with one of these dudes it just comes with the package.  This yahoo cotton farmer of mine works very hard every single day and I know the benefits of healthy eating and techniques.  I want him to have as much energy as possible, feel balanced and alert, blah blah blah.  If he would just cooperate, he would realize how much better it feels to eat right and take care of yourself.  I am very clever though and always eventually get this guy to cooperate.  I have found out that appealing to this manly man’s vanity is more effective than appealing to his health.  I will be exploiting this since I love him.  Whish me luck!

Adrian Pruitt is Trying to Kill Me

I was minding my own business, reading a book, when Makayla announced she needed a pen for her cross word puzzle.  It was around midnight and neither of us could sleep so we were both in agreement that we needed to be very quiet when we went downstairs to get a pen.  On the stairs when we were halfway down, I thought I heard a noise.  I’m convinced this house is haunted and constantly spooked at night so I stopped on the middle stair, put a hand on Makayla’s arm and said, “shh!  Did you hear that?”  We both stood in the dark, listening, and I came to the conclusion I had just been hearing things.  We got into the kitchen and I, being night blind and still unused to the layout of the house, stumbled around, fumbling for a light switch.  I thought I heard a cough like sound and stopped and grabbed Makayla’s arm. 

“Did you hear that?” I whispered?

“Yes,” she whispered back, her little nails digging into my wrists.

We both stood there in the dark, listening, not moving an inch and after a few seconds we heard a low voice say, “Hey.”

We both shouted and I grabbed Makayla’s hand and took off running down the hallway yelling, “Adrian!  Adrian!”

We barged into Amber and Adrian’s room, and I yelled, “Where’s Adrian!”

Amber shot up out of bed and I assumed Adrian was right behind her. Their room is huge, kind of like two bedrooms in one and I didn’t go past the vanity since a wall blocks the view of their bed and rest of their room from there.  Even in a state of desperate fear, I still did not want to risk seeing Adrian in any sort of state of undress or God forbid, my two best friends doing something disgusting like fornicating.  Amber came rushing towards us.

“What happened?  What’s going on?” she said, all freaking out.

I was having a hard time standing upright, much less talking and after a few gasps and frantic “what’s going on’s?” from Amber, I managed to say, “I heard someone out there.”

“Was it Adrian?” she asked?

“Huh?” I said back, “Adrian’s out there?”

“Yes,” she said, “He’s in the living room.”

It took a second for it to sink in.  Relief replaced panic.  And then I started laughing like a goon.

“Bahahaha!  Oh my God!  It’s only Adrian!”

“Babe!” Amber hollered as we all headed towards the living room, “stop wondering around in the dark scaring Jess!”

He made some comment about how I was the one wondering around in the dark and he figured I would have seen the light on his iPad screen.  I gripped the back of the couch and Makayla said, “Mommy!  You’re shaking!”

We discussed my dramatic handling of the situation and Adrian said, “What kind of intruder is going to tell you hello?  What’s he going to do, introduce himself before he kills you?”

“Psychological torment you fool!” I yelled. 

“Would you people just go to bed?” Amber said, laughing at us.

Makayla and I tromped up the stairs.  Adrian remained on the couch, probably plotting a clever strategy to terrorize his next victim.  I vowed to get even.  Texted a friend about the legality of certain fireworks in California.  Yet another memory made with the Pruitt/Jessica/Makayla clan.  

Man Interests

 

          I am sure no one in my circle of friends or family takes my man interests seriously anymore.  I mean, in the past year, look at this:

 

The Cotton Farmer:  This doesn’t count as a man interest since I had an actual relationship with this guy.  I adored him actually.  Too bad we made each other psycho.

 

WTF Guy:  This guy always had me pick him up in various places around town for our dates.  It was bizarre and I could never figure it out.  He also didn’t seem to have a home because he never had me pick him up or drop him off at a house, ever.  Even if it was midnight, he wanted me to drop him off at McDonalds.  Then I realized his last name on Facebook was a fake last name.  When confronted, he said the fake last name was a nickname in high school and it’s what he went by.  I told him to get to kicking rocks because I assumed he was married or a criminal or something.

 

The Jealous Freak:  After about a month of dating I brought this yahoo along to Lubbock to meet my friends.  My friend Tracy showed me her boyfriend’s butt and I asked if I could feel it and she gave me her permission.  My friends and I are not prude dicks and tend to allow each other feeling privileges of our love interests around our third vodka spritzer.  My date walked up behind me, grabbed the back of my hair, and yanked it as hard as he could.  I was FURIOUS.  Tracy and her boyfriend, my friends Tasha and Jeff, all of us vaminosed the hell out of there and left him alone.  We went to another bar where I started making out with Jeff (every time we drink together, Jeff and I decide we are in love, make out, discuss how glorious our offspring would be, and discuss world events, while bugging our friends with our overdeveloped since of justice), vowing to leave the Freak in Lubbock all by himself and he could hitch-hike back to Abilene.  The freak tried to follow us into the bar but got kicked out BEFORE HE EVEN GOT IN, and sat in the street leaving various voicemails and sending texts proclaiming his love and begging me to forgive him. The only text I sent him was to tell him to find his own way home and then I got back to slobbering all over Jeff.  Tasha said that it was pretty shitty to just leave him in a town he’d never been to and to just get him back to Abilene and then tell him to fuck off.  Which is exactly what I did.

 

The Redhead:  This guy was actually pretty nice but I couldn’t get over the fact that my thighs were bigger than his.  He also wasn’t a good communicator and pretty much his only response to everything I said was “Hmm.”  I disliked that.

 

Ice:  I found out after three dates that he was snorting ice.  That is repulsive.  I gave him some resources for drug hotlines and told him if he came near me again I’d call the cops.

 

Sweater Guy:  This guy was an idiot.  On our second date I told him I was cold so we went back to his place since his house was closer and we went inside so he could lend me a jacket.  We were in there maybe five minutes, which was long enough for his roommate to jack my GPS from my Explorer.  I noticed as soon as we got back into the Explorer because I am LOST without my GPS, AKA Larohnda.  (Chuck Lewis died.)  Literally lost.  I was like, “Hey, where is Larohnda?” and he was like, “My roommate just got out of jail for stealing.  You should have locked your car.”  I was like, “Well, go inside and get it from him.  I need it.”  He said it would be better to just buy a new GPS.  I told him to get the shit out of my truck.

 

The Architect:  This guy was great.  It was going great.  I really, really thought there might be a future with this guy.  And then my friend texted me and let me know that my beloved was on a dating website.  Obviously we made a fake profile and contacted him with our invented girl and he said he was single and couldn’t wait to meet her. Once he found out he’d been caught, he said “Well, if you’d spend more time with me, I wouldn’t have to find other girls on the internet.”  Bitch please.  I told him, “If you feel like we don’t spend enough time together, you are supposed to bring this to my attention and we could work it out.  You’re just being a creepy cheater.  Later.”  And I never talked to him again.

 

The Pretentious Annoying Guy:  This guy was so incredibly annoying.  He had an associates degree in computer technology or something and because of this, you would have thought he had a PHD and established world peace.  He had the audacity to sit with me at lunch and tell me how he had “diagnosed” three of his exe’s with various personality disorders.  “Why do you feel like you are qualified to do that?” I asked him.  “I have a degree,” he said, “I know what I’m talking about.”

“You have an associates degree in computer technology,” I pointed out.

“I am right and you are wrong,” he said and put his hand up like a stop sign.  I was very interested in such behavior. 

“What an odd sense of entitlement,” I said to him, “Very odd.”

He loved to meditate and made sure to tell others how superior he was because of this.  He loved to point out how amazing he was because of his vegan, organic diet.  He loved to discuss how brilliant he was and typically he had no clue what he was talking about and when I’d point out something he’d said that was incorrect he would become irrational and blame others or just say he wasn’t arguing with an “inferior mind.” 

“How is my mind inferior if I’m smarter than you?” I texted, “I am actually emotionally and intellectually superior to you.  So I don’t understand why you feel like my mind is inferior to yours.”

“Your not smarter then me”

That was his response.

“You’re and than.”

That was my response.

I mean, it would never occur to me typically to point out or even care who is smarter or knows more about what.  Who cares?  When you hang out with someone it’s because you enjoy their company and want to do things together.  Normal, well adjusted, healthy people who are comfortable with themselves do not go around putting others down and telling everyone how great they are.  This guy was totally delusional because he based his brilliance with and better than though attitude on a stupid associates degree in computer technology.  Loser.  The breaking point came when I dutch ovened him.  He pouted, said “I really need to process what just happened to me,” and I got up, told him he was annoying, and left.  Deuces.

 

The Spaniard:  This guy was hilarious but totally crazy.  He picked me up on our first date, drunker than a skunk.  I had no clue he was drunk at first.  I thought he was just a freaking weirdo.  He had Spanish music on in his car, turned up loud, singing passionately along with the real singer.  It was very annoying but I had to give it to him: he was a very good singer.  Then he tried to show me he could drive with his feet.  He kept asking me if I wanted him to take me home.

“I am a very nice person,” he assured me over and over again.  He said “person” like “pair sone.”  I am a sucker for an accent.  At one point I pulled out my phone to call my sister, Amber.  She HAD to hear this guy.  When I pulled out my phone, the Spaniard yelled, "Oh no!  Are you calling the cops?"
I looked at him.  "Why on earth would I call the cops?"
"I am not a predator!" he screamed.
"OK dude, good.  Shit."
  He took me to the house of some illegal immigrants from Mexico and the lady asked me in Spanish, “You let him drive you out here drunk?”

“He’s drunk?” I asked?

“Couldn’t you smell it on him?” she asked.

I don’t have the Spanish vocabulary and didn’t have the patience to explain to her that I do not have a sense of smell so I just sat there, wondering why I was at this crappy house when I specifically told him I wanted him to take me to Abuellos the day before.  Then he tried to ram his tongue down my throat, I slapped him, grabbed my phone, and ran away into the night.  I called my friends to come get me and it took them over an hour to find me because I had no idea where I was.

 

That’s not even all of them.  I meet some of the weirdest freaks, I swear.  Anyway, this is why I am hesitant to even discuss my love interests until I’ve been dating them for a month and the time has come to introduce Chris to my blogging world.  I met him only a couple of days after he shattered his elbow in a car crash.  He’d just had surgery and the first thing he said to me on our first date was “I am so high.”  I went to turn to walk away from him then realized he was talking about pain pills because of his surgery and gave him a hug instead.  For some unknown reason, I thought a party full of strippers and illegal immigrants from various parts of Mexico would be a good place for a first date.  Naturally I ended up getting drunk and solicited him to go do naughty things in a shed.  He refused.  I propositioned him again when we were driving to his house for him to take another dose of medicine only this time I suggested a dirt road.

“My ex, this cotton farmer yahoo, we used to do that all the time,” I assured him.

He refused again.  Thank God.  The next day I felt like such a freak and was surprised when he texted, “Good morning, how are you?”  I apologized and assured him I rarely drink and thanked him for not taking advantage of the situation.  A couple of weeks later we were at the park with our kids and he kicked me right in the butt.  Naturally, I decided to retaliate and ordered the children to attack him.  I did not know he would take off in a dead sprint, the fool.  I yelled at him, “You’re going to fall!”

And as soon as I said it, he did.  Hard.  He even rolled.  I saw him fall on his elbow and knew we’d be going to the emergency room.  This was on Valentine’s Day by the way.  I was right indeed and we did need to go to the ER.  He kept complaining that his shoulder on his other arm hurt and I said, “It’s just a pulled muscle.  I’m more worried about your elbow.”

I get the bad girlfriend of the month award because he broke that shoulder and also rebroke his elbow and had to have two more surgeries.  One arm is in a cast, the other in a sling, and he is not in a chipper mood.  What a way to start off a relationship.  I'm just ready for this guy to get cured so I can figure out who he is underneath pain pills and misery.  We shall see.