Roses and Threats

Alyssa pulled her purple Ranger into the driveway with enough speed and gusto to make her fiancée Ryan cringe. He gripped the “oh shit” bar and was about to comment on women drivers as she came to a notably abrupt stop, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to put Lyss in a pissy mood. He jumped quickly out of the truck, thanking heaven he was still intact after the ride.

“I’ll get the mail!” He offered cheerily, already making his way to the mailbox.

Alyssa grabbed her purse and climbed out of the driver’s side, grinning to herself. She loved getting to Ryan like that. She admitted that she wasn’t a cautious driver, but she knew he didn’t consider her a good driver anyway, so she did shit like that just to bug him. She hummed as she stuck her key in the door, but stopped when she noticed the overwhelming smell of roses as the door swung open.

There were white rose petals EVERYWHERE. Alyssa’s eyes widened as she looked around. The ancient door normally swung back into whoever was walking through it, but the carpet of flowers made it stick half way open. The floors and countertops were crowded with crystal vases of every size, stuffed with long-stemmed white roses. Every step she took sent up a floral aroma, because there was no way to step around the carpet of petals. She was still standing completely awed in the middle of the kitchen when Ryan walked in the door.

“What the-” Lyss grew more bewildered when she saw the look of confusion on Ryan’s face. He smiled when she looked at him. “You tryin’ to butter me up, Baby? I prefer beer to roses.” His joke fell flat when Alyssa responded.

“I didn’t do this. How’d you afford all this?” Alyssa was still too overwhelmed to say anything else. She looked around and noticed the envelope with Ryan’s name sitting on the table the same time he did. Ryan shuffled through the matting of roses, and Alyssa giggled at how ridiculous he looked. He picked up the envelope and tore it open as Alyssa leaned forward to sniff a vaseful of flowers. She breathed in deeply and her eyes slid shut as she luxuriated in the smell, so she didn’t see Ryan’s facial expression darken from confusion to rage.

“WHO THE FUCK IS JACK?” The question reverberated throughout the room, making the many roses shiver. Alyssa jumped at the unexpected outburst, and knocked over the vase of flowers she’s just been enjoying.

“What?” she whispered. Her heart pounded in her ears as she waded through the mess. Ryan flung the card at her ferociously, and backed away from her. The look of utter malice in his eyes as he did so made Alyssa’s stomach drop. She looked down at the card in her hands and mouthed the words as she read them.

Ryan,

You’ll never be able to give her this. You can’t even afford to pay the electric bill, can you? She’s too good for a loser like you, and you know it. Alyssa is mine, and I can give her everything you’ll never be able to. Take a hike, buddy.

Jack

Alyssa looked up from the note, and Ryan mistook her wide-eyed expression as guilt. He backed even further away, shaking his head in fury.

“I know I’m broke, but what the fuck?! You find some rich asshole to have an affair with and talk about what a loser I am? What kind of sick cunt do you have to be to do that?”

It felt like Ryan had just punched her in the face when he said the words. He had never once called her any offensive names, and as far as she knew, he’d never found her untrustworthy. She felt tears prick the backs of her eyes, and she stuttered to correct him.

“No, no, no,” She put her hand out to grab his, and he swatted her away. “Jack is that creepy guy I told you about that stops by the store; the one who kept asking me out, even after I told him about you. I’ve never seen him outside of work.” She felt herself becoming hysterical the more she thought about it. “He had to have gotten in here somehow- he had to have followed me- oh my god, Ryan, he was in our house.” The moment she said it, she began shaking.

“Well that’s probably because you fucking let him in, Alyssa.” Ryan’s tone was cold and unforgiving. “How else would he fucking know I’m broke unless you told him during one of your sex romps?”

Alyssa squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head furiously. She didn’t know if the tears were from shock or betrayal, but they would not be stopped. She could hardly breathe, but she refused to let Ryan think she’d cheated on him.

“No, I never told him that. I swear I never did sex with him! I was nice to him at the store, that’s all. I kept telling him I had a fiancée, but he kept asking me to have a drink with him. He said he just wanted to talk, because I was nice to talk to. I didn’t- I would never, EVER do that to you, Love. You have to believe me.” She opened her eyes, and squealed in surprise. Ryan was still looking at her like he wanted to strangle her, but her focus was behind him. Jack was standing directly behind Ryan, with a deadly-looking bowie knife gleaming in his hand.

Facebook Freak

A month or so ago, I was checking out my Facebook when I came upon a friend request from a Mnde Mdba. Now this was not exactly her name, ( it was something very similiar) but she was from Turkey or some other country I have never visited, which confused me a bit as to why she would have requested my very important Facebook friendship. I do not have any privacy settings on my life (obviously), so I am assuming she was just cruising around looking for fabulous glittery friends and decided to pick me, so I thought “What the hell?” and approved her friend request.

A few days after that, I was on Facebook again, (promoting my blog shamelessly) when a chat box popped up from my new friend Mnde. Now I must tell you, chat boxes are a source of irritation for me, because I am usually the one causing them to pop up on OTHER people’s Facebooks, which in turn causes said people to quickly log off and pretend they didn’t see that I was trying to talk to them. If they didn’t want to talk to me, WHY the hell would they add me as a friend?! As I have said, I have no privacy settings, so any photo stalking or general cyber creeping is possible WITHOUT adding me as a friend. Anyhoo, that is for another post.

So the fact that anyone desired to actually chat to me was a thrill I rarely experience. This is how our little chat went:

Mnde: Hi.

Me: Hi, not that I mind, but why did you add me to your friends? (I can be very blunt sometimes)

Mnde: Because you sexy.

Me: (oh geez) Well, yes I know. So where are you from?

Mnde: Italy. I love sex.

Me: I HAVE heard that italians do. I do too. How very fun.

Mnde: You have webcam?

Me: No, why would I need a webcam?

Mnde: I want to do you. On webcam. You have pictures for me?

I must break here to tell you a bit about Mnde. It was quite obvious that her English was not highly fluent. Yes, I said HER, because when I checked out her profile during this little convo, I found out that according to Facebook she is a 15 year old cute girl from Italy who is a widow. Now, I am not so simple-minded to think all of this may be true, but I wasn’t feeling like flirting with a 15 year old anything.

Me: Aren’t you a little young? (testing)

Mnde: Yes, I am young. I LOVE sex, Sexy.

This reminded me of this little game a local radio station used to play, called Scared Straight. They would go into a chatroom and pose as a young girl and try to bait pedophiles into calling them, which they would then ream out on the air. I will state that I am NOT a pedophile, but how would this Mnde know this? I felt baited and deceived.

Me: That’s very nice that you love sex so much, but you should really wait until you hit puberty before you start having it all the time. I am going to delete you now, because I don’t need a horny little girl chatting at me all the time asking for pictures. Goodbye.

Mnde: You have pictures for me?

Obviously, Mnde doesn’t get it.

P.S. A few days later, I had another friend request from a person with a foreign name. I think they are out to get me.

We’re All Out of Crazy Here

Hello, My Lovelys. Today I have decided it’s about time that I reach 1000 views on my blog. (I personally think I should have reached this about a week ago, but perhaps I am not as utterly entertaining as I believe myself to be.) Even so, I when I logged in this morning, I found that 19 people had already viewed my site today, even though I hadn’t yet posted anything yet, so at least I have a small following. By the way, I love you all who read my blog, whether it’s every day, once a week, or you are new to my site. XOXO

So, I only need 179 views today to make me famous,  (in my own mind), so if you feel the need to spread the word about this “life-changing site”, feel free! To do my own part, I shall delve into the deep and twisted recesses of my mind to bring you a story that is just too bizarre not to be true. It is a story about life, love, friendship,  stalkerism and me. (All my favorite things to write about) To prove to some readers (Trask Avenue) that Creeperville seems to follow me wherever I go, this is my story….

Once upon a time, Sparklebumps had a friend we will call Carebear. (Carebear has been mentioned in previous posts as the friend who pussy-whips her men.) When I left my husband and had gotten an apartment, Carebear was in the middle of dating a man named Chaqd. (FYI, the “Q” is silent. Chaqd had low self-esteem in school so he made up a way to stand out by adding a “q” to his otherwise normal Chad name, and he gets very upset when you don’t acknowledge the “q”.)

Carebear and Chaqd had a very tumultous relationship, mainly because Carebear wished to be married (as she was the only one of her friends not yet) and Chaqd was a hopeless romantic who believed in Karma and Fate and all that fun stuff. Because Chaqd was also emotionally unstable, he freaked out quite frequently when Carebear would tell him to get a “real” job and quit being such a baby. There were many conversations about Chad with a Q  between her and I, and being able to see more clearly than she, it seemed to me that Chaqd was just a slightly more-neurotic ex-alcoholic female version of myself. Carebear had even said several times that he and I would be perfect together.

During the course of their relationship, I only met Chaqd once, and he seemed nice enough. He tried really hard to be the kind of boyfriend Carebear required him to be, but his excessive emotionality irked her. That and the fact that she didn’t find him in any way remotely attractive. When I told Carebear that I had left my husband, she immediately dumped Chaqd, thinking that now we could be the not-as-skinny Midwest version of the gals from Sex and the City. I had not yet told her that I had a red-headed Fuck Buddy who had incidentally become my boyfriend. When she found out, she called Chaqd up and he came back to her like a moth to the flame.

After a week or two, she decided she didn’t want to deal with Chaqd’s hysteria anymore, and dumped him for good. This resulted in Chaqd’s descent into what we call Stalkerism. He hacked into her Facebook account and would show up at her house in the middle of the night banging on the door and begging for Carebear to take him back.

One night during all of this nonsense, I was working at my bookstore, as I do, when Chaqd came waltzing in the door. He stated that he had come in to get my advice on how to get Carebear back. Being the blunt and honest person that I am, I said, “Dude she doesn’t want you back, and considering the good things that I know about you, you probably deserve someone nicer. You need to get over it and find a good girl. And quit acting like a crazy nut.” (This may seem very un-friend like of me, but as I said before, Carebear is a great girl- I would never in a million years want to marry her.) This got us talking about Carebear’s less-than- desirable qualities, the main one being that her desire for material things resulted in many over-time hours, keeping her from being available to her young son.

When it was time to close up, Chaqd walked me out to my car, and we were babbling about whatever non-stop, so since my apartment was only a few blocks away, I invited Chaqd to come over for a bit and hang. (In hindsight, if I would have thought about the Stalkerisms he had committed, I would not have done this.) For a few hours we talked about life, and Chaqd, being a histrionic like me, told me all about himself. (without me asking him to.) We talked about the ironic fact that we both want children desperately and don’t have any, and about art and Prince. ( Because I was alphebetizing my CD collection.) I told him it was time for me to sleep, so he had to go, but if he needed a friendly face, I was around. He stood in my doorway and said, “You know, Carebear said we would be perfect together.” I was some-what surprised she would have told HIM this while they were still dating, but I was happily dating my Rockstar, so I told him, “Yes, maybe we would have been if I didn’t have my Rockstar.” We said goodbye and he left.

The next day, Chaqd texted me and told me he was so happy that we had had the lovely colloquy that we’d had, and that he wanted to go out for lunch if I wasn’t busy. I thought it a bit odd, but at times I suffer from bouts of dumb-assedness, so I told him ok. We went out for lunch and Chaqd told me he was leaving for a trip to Vegas with his dad the next day, but would think about me the whole time. He asked if he could text me while he was there, and I suspiciously said he could.

The entire next week, my phone was bombarded with texts from the Chaqd, many of them coming in the middle of the night, as he was staying up all night in Vegas. He proceeded to schmoogle me with text of his undying almost-love, and how he couldn’t believe we were so alike. I continued to remind him that I had my Rockstar, and although I didn’t mind being a friend to him, he needed to understand that not anything romantic was going to come of our relationship.

The night he came back from Vegas, he showed up at my apartment building at 3 AM and text me that he was outside with flowers. I told him that I would not buzz him in, because his behavior was borderline dilirious. He spent the next hour texting me from downstairs, trying to convince me to let him in so he could just “lay in bed with me while I slept.” I shut my phone off.

In the next week or so, I found out that Chaqd had been talking to Carebear again, and twisted everything around to make it look that I was persuing HIM. She called me up, furious, asking me how I could do that, and why was I going after Chaqd when I had my Rockstar. I explained the situation, and since she had had her own Stalker behavior from him, she understood. Unfortunately, Chaqd had also mentioned our conversation about Carebear being a less-than-admirable mother (Oops.) She and I ended up having a huge fight, telling each other all the things we actually thought about each other that we had never said in 20 years.  I admit that I shouldn’t have told Chaqd what I thought, since Carebear was my friend, but I guess we got it all out anyway.

We spent the next days in a terrible three-some text war, Carebear, Chaqd, and I, with alot of he-said, she-said going on. In the end, we deleted Chaqd from our lives and slightly forgave each other.  Our friendship is no longer what it used to be, although I know if I called her today, Carebear would be there for me. Unfortunately, if I called Chaqd today, he also would be there for me.

So this is the story of how my honest and too- big mouth got me in trouble with someone I love.  May this be a lesson to you all. XOXO

P.S. Make me famous today!