by Mike B

Most people have VD.  But not me.  Not this year.  Yes, I’m talking about Valentine’s Day.  What the hell did you think I meant?  It’s just around the corner, and all the couples you know are anxiously and obnoxiously awaiting the flowers, romance, and other tomfoolery.  Single people see it much differently, obviously.  A lot of single people mope around on Valentine’s Day because they don’t have anyone to share it with.  They’re sad.  They feel unwanted.  Unloved. 

Well, not this guy.  This year, I’m choosing to celebrate my single-ness by remembering JUST HOW BAD my relationships typically turn out.  Friends have long said that I tend to attract women of, let’s say, a certain mental instability. In the past, I had always considered this theory to be a steaming pile of goatshit…and then, it happened.  The most insane night of my life.  I still look over my shoulder nervously when I go into Smith’s Olde Bar because of it.  What happened that night, you ask?  You didn’t ask?  Well shut up, smartass…I’m telling you anyway.  Maybe the Cliff’s Notes version, because I’m sure you have shit to do.

All times are approximated.  Certain names have been changed (repeatedly) to protect the criminally insane.

8:00 PM:  We arrived at Smith’s Olde Bar to attend a show featuring the musical stylings of my good friend Jim.  My girlfriend Snuffleupagus and I settled into the corner of the Atlanta Room to see the show.  We had been dating for a few months at that point, and I had started to notice some…ahem…anger issues.  It seemed as though some crisis was always seething just below the surface.  That night, it was gonna erupt.

8:15 PM:  During the show, Mistress Batshit was getting a little antsy.  Her friends were at a different bar, and she didn’t feel like I was paying enough attention to her.  That was when I should’ve nipped this whole situation in the bud.  That was when I could’ve saved myself.  Instead, I accidentally launched the first salvo of a full-on nuclear apocalypse. 

“Well, why don’t you go hang out with your friends?  I’ll stay here and watch the show and meet up with you later.”

Big.  Mistake.  It didn’t SOUND awful, but I saw Baroness von Psychopath’s eyes turn an odd shade of yellow.  I was supposed to want her near me.  I was supposed to hold her hand and pet her twitching, spinning head and tell her that I wanted her there.  I did none of those things.  The hollow, piercing look in her eyes told me that the evening had just taken a turn for the worst.

9:00 PM:  Jim’s show was over, and we all headed out into the bar for “fun” and “amusement.”  I had a small group of friends there, but most of them had other plans for the rest of the evening.  I felt an awful sense of foreboding…something bad was about to happen.  I begged my friends to stay.  Please.  No, really.  Help me.

There happened to be a baseball game on TV.  I was watching it near the main bar, as it was a late-inning affair and the Braves were only down a run.  Hannah-bal Lecter told me to come sit by her at a nearby table…but I couldn’t see the TV over THERE.  So I asked her to wait a second.  I am fairly certain this simple phrase nearly ended my life.  She snapped.  Her eyes shone with the ferocity of a thousand angry suns…and I knew instantly that I was toast.

“I NEED TO TALK TO YOU OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW!”

9:15 PM:  The next few minutes were a blur.  I was being yelled at–a lot–apparently for watching a baseball game.  I was being called names I hadn’t even heard of.  She was working blue in ways George Carlin could only dream about.  People on the sidewalk were gingerly stepping around us (we were standing right by the door, after all) and giving me very sympathetic looks.  It was like arguing with a tiny Tasmanian Devil hopped up on irrational bile-spitting rage and crystal meth (lots and lots of meth), except instead of arguing, I was just standing there keeping my hands relatively close to my crotch should I need to make a defensive maneuver.  I was frightened.

Screamy McYellsalot finally started to tire and had apparently used all the words she knew, so she declared our relationship over.  She stomped off to her car (she drove us down there…this will become important in a bit) and left me to wander back inside past a giggling doorman.  I sidled up to the bar, ordered a beer, and began relating the story of what had just happened to the friends who were still there.  I had barely begun when Jim said, “Umm…look out…”

9:30 PM:  Like a shrieking banshee, Crazella DeVille came flying back into the bar.  She had obviously caught her second wind.  What was amiss?  Apparently, after all that, I was expected to walk her to her car like a gentleman.  So back outside we went for another chat (and I swear the doorman was still laughing).  At some point in the three minutes since I had last beheld her grace and beauty, she decided that I was a cheater…and pointed this out to any pedestrian on the street that cared to listen (or had functioning eardrums).  When I told her that we spent six nights a week together–and on the seventh night, food magically reappeared in my pantry–I suggested that perhaps I didn’t have time to cheat.  Her response was some type of piercing howl…and I’m not sure her feet were even touching the ground as she maniacally sprinted back to her car.

9:45 PM:  Back at the bar and sweating profusely, I ordered another beer.  I think I got two sips of this one down before I was pulled right the hell off my bar stool.  Yep, the Crazy Train had pulled back into the station. This time, she screamed loud enough for the entire bar to hear that WE WERE BREAKING UP AND I HAD TO COME BACK WITH HER RIGHT NOW.  Why, I asked?  Because she wanted her stuff that was at my house.  Never mind that her “stuff” consisted of a can of hair spray and a scrunchy…she needed that shit NOW for CLOSURE, GODDAMMIT.  And if I didn’t go back?  She announced quite calmly (but still at a frightening volume) that she was going to key my truck.  In retrospect, I suppose I should’ve let her do it…I mean, there would’ve been witnesses and all…but I opted to get in the car with her.  This was a silly, silly thing to do.

10:00 PM:  Homicida Maniac instructed me that I had to sit in the back seat because she didn’t want to look at me.  I ignored her and sat in the passenger seat.  This was stupid, because now I was within arms’ reach.  I clearly was not thinking much on this particular evening.  Off we zoomed, ostensibly towards my house.  As we weaved in and out of traffic at frightening speeds, she informed me of her plan…she was going to take me to a “family house” in north Georgia so that we could “talk through this.”  I started to become alarmed, because this sounded increasingly like the plot of a bizarro-world Lifetime movie.  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket…were my friends trying to save me?  The text:

Jim (10:03 PM):  Dude, can I have your beer if you don’t come back?

Clearly, I was on my own.  She saw me look at my phone and swiped it out of my hands, saying that I was not allowed to talk to anyone on THIS trip.  Umm, gulp.  Suddenly, she swerved over to the side of 285 and told me to get out of the car.  Even though we were miles from anywhere, I was happy to oblige her.  Before I could escape, she zipped back onto the highway, mumbling something about how she couldn’t leave me on the side of the road because of how much she loved me.  Somehow, I don’t think this was the “love” that poets and songwriters talk about.  Love shouldn’t make you nearly poop your pants (I’m pretty sure).

10:15 PM:  After consulting her inner demons and deciding that we were now on our way to her house rather than the family kill shack, Elvira whipped onto an exit ramp off 285.  I saw the stop light at the top of the ramp…and my chance.  As the car slowed to a stop, I leaped.  Right out the door, past her hand trying desperately to lock it…RIGHT OUT TO FREEDOM.  In quite possibly the only sign of divine providence that I have ever witnessed in my life, an empty cab sat immediately in my path.  I practically jumped through the open window, screaming at the cabbie to head for my house.  It was a race, and I knew it.  Could I get to my truck in time? 

10:25 PM:  My phone was going berzerk.  Ringing constantly.  Every 15 seconds or so.  As I would later find out when I checked my voice mail, she was telling me her progress towards my condo. 

“I’m at Chamblee Dunwoody.”

“I’m at your complex.”

“I’m at your front gate.”

The cab driver knew an urgent situation when he encountered one.  He delivered me safely and speedily home in what was likely seconds before Little Aileen Wuornos could enter my parking garage and block my truck with her car (or her head under my tire).  I jumped in my vehicle and hurriedly sped away.  She noticed this quickly, as I found out in the subsequent voice mails:

“I’m in your garage.”

“I’m at your front door.”

“If you don’t get back here, I’ll jimmy your lock and trash your laptop.”

Needless to say, I didn’t come home that night.  I hid my truck in the back of some random parking lot in Midtown and then spent the night curled up in the fetal position on a friend’s couch and glancing out the window every ten seconds.  When I DID go home, I walked in my own front door looking to get ambushed.  Luckily, the lock on my door was too much for our intrepid heroine, and she gave up without any further felonious assaults upon my property.  The storm had passed.  I had lived to date another day.

So let this be a lesson to you, ladies and gentlemen.  NEVER watch baseball games at Smith’s Olde Bar.  You could wind up kidnapped and be forced to jump from a moving car.  If it can happen to me, it can happen to you.