Episode 5: The Episode that was so long it had to be split in half. (PART UN)

Have you ever had one of those showers that was the most infinitely perfect temperature; The hot water steamed up the entirety of your bathroom as you stood in the balmy nirvana? For a moment, the heat almost intensifies every thought that runs through your head, while simultaneously leaving you with a pleasantly mind numbing sensation?

Needless to say I was not having one of those showers.

My parents, namely my father, were on a new power and energy-saving binge. The heat, despite having manually turned it up before my shower, was not at all kicking in. I was standing, naked,obviously, with shampoo in my hair, darting, with some sincere pluckiness, back and forth between the sixty some degree water, and the iceberg like air that encompassed my entire house. Something about morning showers had always bothered me; mainly because I was not ever a morning person, but the shower also left me with an odd chill for the rest of the day.  However, a morning shower was inevitable, as the previous night’s events prevented me from thinking of anything else but the extreme anger that coursed through my veins.

My father is psychotic. I don’t mean “I’m a rebel kid who enjoys calling everyone in her life psychotic” psychotic. He literally has, I don’t know, maybe three or so disorders. It has never bothered me telling anyone this fact, and it has certainly never bothered me to remind the man on a daily basis of what an idiot he is. ( I don’t like him, did you guess?) He had threatened to kick me out of the house for probably the fifth time in the past year. Essentially because I made a joke about how astonished I was he could ever get laid. (It’s true.) I laughed in his face and told him to piss off. He stomped up to his room like a small child, and didn’t leave. This happened at least once every time I was home. Because I am a sick bastard, this almost became a delightful occurence.
Anyway, I hopped out of the shower, teeth chattering, shivering to death. I’m not quite sure this is how showers are supposed to work. I found myself longing for the heated gloriousness of my shitty as hell dorm shower. At least it was warm and I could waste as much enegery as I like.

The blower dryer sat mockingly on the bathroom sink, staring me in the face. It teased “Use me, use me! You’ll look so much better than Joan today if you do. That stupid whore!” I stared at the blow dryer, contemplating Maybe I will look better than Joan. She is married now…and it was a hick wedding. It’s only downhill after that. I then looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I realized then and there, that I, like most days, did not give two fucks what Joan looked like. I stomped out of the bathroom, bracing the cold air. I threw on a decent enough outfit, neglected to do my hair, and applied  a minimal amount of makeup. It was only Thanksgiving after all.

My distant family consisted of the most idiotic animals you would ever meet. Thanksgiving was the first time since before summer, that they all congregated around the watering hole. Thanksgiving was the least thankful day of my entire life. It the annual event in which we all partook in my miserable Aunt Lily’s vomit inducing food. I was always criticized, at least once, for what I was wearing. And I was asked, as the (now only) single girl in my family, what was wrong with me and why I didn’t have a boyfriend. The lesbian jokes would ensue, and then we would pray.

It was determinately one of the worst days out of the year.

I clambered down the stairs, met with the putrid smell of pumpkin pie and stuffing. (My family always brought food to my aunt’s house so we wouldn’t have to eat only Aunt Lily’s rations.) My mother shuffled over to me with an overwhelmingly happy “Happy Thanksgiving” and my brothers sat in the room, playing some game and mentioning over and over how much they hate Mexicans and black people. “Where’s the idiot?” I asked my mother.

“He still hasn’t left his room yet.”

“I’m assuming he isn’t going then?” I asked, my face lighting up with a smile.

“Guess not. Taste this stuffing.”

“Mom, it’s nine in the morning.”

My phone buzzed violently in my hands. I looked down, checking to see who had messaged me.

2 New Messages from:
Neil
Chelsa ScooperNeil’s messages was, obviously, ignored and deleted. Christine’s read “Can I come over and borrow your grey cardigan. My mom says I look like a whore without anything else.”

“Mom, Christine’s coming over to borrow my cardigan quick.” I looked in at my Dan with an inappropriate wink. The only response I heard was a silent “Shit..”

Dan sat up from the couch and walked calmy away from his racist debauchery with Tom. It was a very calm walk until he hit the staircase, when he hit the ground running.

I followed him…duh.

I barged into his room, not giving my brain anytime to reach my mouth.
“Did you fuck her?” I whispered. God forbid my mother hear my abhorrent language.

“Christine and have agreed not to talk anymore.”

I stared at him, my mouth agape.
“Oh, this shit is going to be so fun.”

Dan had a look of terror plastered on his face. I laughed maniacally.

We all look like assholes.

 

 

 

Episode 4: The Vegan and the Meat Eater

“All I wanted was to see his eyes open.”

I imitated my mother, half fake crying, half laughing hysterically. We were sitting in the caf in my school, early in the evening; Christine and I. For ethical purposes (although if you’ve gathered that I have any ethics, you haven’t read this properly.” I should make known that Tom did survive. Tom survived most likely because it was a concussion that knocked him out. Sure it was strong; but it was clearly not as life threatening as everyone, including the mass local media, had made it out to be.

Tom’s accident had, however, resulted in extreme short-term memory loss for the time being. He was receiving therapy for it, and milking it as much as possible. Forgetting names of people he hated was just one of the many pieces of wool he had covered my parents’ eyes with (who were still ridiculously sentimental.) I, however, was entirely too suspect of the fact that my brother was feigning headaches to receive more narcotics. (But, I mean, who can blame him?) I was also being constantly reproached for making light of my brother’s situation. Most especially from Joan, my no-morals, good for nothing, whore of a hicktown cousin. We had recently gotten into a facebook fight about my freedom of speech. I clearly won out the argument, since she ceased talking to me.

“You can’t admit that it wasn’t really scary.” Christine said, eating her salad. “I mean, I was even frigging scared.Probably more scared than you were.”  She eyed me, as if looking for some hidden emotion; some sadness, that wasn’t there. I stared blankly at her.

“It would have been a lot less scary if every one of my family members didn’t make it out to seem like he was in the ground already.” I stated quite coldly, and looked down at my cellphone. “Fuck!”  It was ten minutes before my English class in a building halfway across campus. “I gotta go, Christine. I’ll see you at the gym later?”

***

I was walking swiftly to my Women’s Writers class; a class that simply glorified vaginas to the umpteenth degree. I was quite out of breath, and looking a little frazzled as I sat down in my seat. It was halfway through the class, and I still had hardly any idea what was going on; it was full of old, old writings that I hardly understood, but imaginatively related too. Yet, there was never enough relativity to keep my attention for three hours.

“Burt’s Bees isn’t even organic, god forbid vegan.” A screeching voice  came wafting through the door. The girl next to me looked over at me in such annoyance that it could have been evident to people miles away. The resident vegan couple; a redheaded girl my age with an abhorrent lip piercing, and a thirty year old man with black rimmed glasses and a shaved head, who, uncharacteristically was silent compared to the noisy girl. “I mean, the glycerin count is absolutely terrible. How do they expect anyone with a conscience to- Oh no.” I could feel them stop right behind me and the empty chair next to me. I looked at the girl beside me.

“There is only one chair here…and one chair over there.“

“Glad to see she can count.” I murmured dryly.

“Well,” The man, Neil I thought his name was, finally spoke up. “I guess we’ll have to separate for this class.”

“I’ll miss you.” She pouted. He smiled vaguely apologetically at her and sat down next to me. I simply raised an eyebrow at him and continued to organize my desk neatly.

“Did you really do this?” He asked, referring to my weekly reading response assignment.

“I mean, I tried it (Of course I did it, fucktard.) But I have no idea what Whitney was trying to say. (That bitch spoke to me like no one else.)”

“Well,” He sighed. “You probably did a better job than I did.”

“Probably.”

He looked at me, as though he had never seen anything like me before, and chuckled. I was thoroughly frightened and determined to keep my mouth shut.

“How was your weekend?” He asked. I was still somewhat confused as to why he was talking to me, the nineteen year old psych major who enjoys an occasional burger, instead of his nineteen year old female, vegan counterpart. I was also playing back the past two weekends; my brother falling towards death, and the Halloween party I had been to; playing an accurate portrayal of Snookie, drunken slurs and, well, pure drunkenness to boot.

“Good, yours?”

And the awkward conversation ebbed.

“Did you even know what Whitney was talking about?”  This Neil character asked out of our sublime silence. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“All I know was that she talked about god a lot, and I wanted to shove a knife through my eye.”

He chuckled heartily again.

“I take it you don’t like god?”

The teacher was walking into the room, as I quickly responded “I’m an atheist.” hoping to get him to shut up. However, instead of him shutting up, he looked at me with a huge, stupid grin and held his fist up to mine. I fist pumped him and turned away, ignoring his comments, but still laughing at them, throughout the entire class. He wasn’t too bad of a kid. A kid who was, after all, nearly ten years my senior.

***

As the class was letting out, and I was slowly making my way back to my dorm building, Neil skulked up next to me.
“Hey you.” he said, walking beside me. “Would you want to go for coffee sometime or something like that? It would be fun.”

Everything made sense now.

I looked at him; the thirty year old man who was asking me on a date, and said, very assuredly:

“No.”

He looked at me again and laughed. “I like you, you’re an interesting one.” And walked away.

I just rejected a thirty year old, right?

We all look like assholes.

Episode 3: Trainwrecks

“Good morning!” The voice of one of my three roommates, Izzy, resounded distinctly through my tiny dorm room. I rolled over in my bed, being quite aware of Izzy’s quirky colloquialisms and realizing that it was 3:30 in the afternoon. “Its time for yoga!”

“Taking a nap right before a relaxation exercise probably wasn’t a good idea, was it?” I sighed, looking out my window at the sunny afternoon. The trees were full of autumnal glory. A glory that was best examined, according to my opinion on this afternoon, from the confines of my comfortable bunk bed. However, I could never pass up Friday afternoon yoga, (Not that Izzy would let me).

“You’re sleeping over Christine’s tonight, aren’t you?” Izzy asked, smiling brightly.
“Indeed.” I answered simply, which was met by a groaning “awww” from across the room. A sound which would only have come from Marie, another one of my roommates. “She’s all alone tonight, her roommate is on one of those retreat things again. Fricking asinine if you ask me.” I was attempting to wiggle my way into a pair of leggings, jumping frantically around the room, which meant wiggling around at a distance of about two feet. Izzy and Marie laughed at me.

It’s what we did really; giggled. Although the past week my giggles had been quite somber, although not ceasing altogether. I had faced rejection in its ultimate form: rejection from a person you have affectionate feelings towards, because obviously I’m far too bitter to be capable of anything greater than that. It was a poetically horrific scene. I confessed my affections, he didn’t. I was pms’ing and cried over Christine’s broken ID card, he, well, didn’t. It was an emotional mess type of thing that I, nor none of my friends, was used to. However, on the glorious fall day in question, none of it mattered anymore. I didn’t need anyone.

***

“These leggings aren’t even fucking staying on my body.” I whined, picking my underwear until I was at optimal level of comfort. Christine just stared at me, a look of disgust crossing her face. We were walking (in public, mind you) into Christine’s dorm room, pillows and bags in hand. “Oh, by the way,” I murmured inconspicuously, or what I at least  believed to be inconspicuously, “Did you fuck my brother yet?” It was obvious, even to me, that I had a volume control problem while in public places. It was most apparent when the security guard at the desk gave me a look of deepest discontent.

“You know,” Christine said. “Both you and Ron say ‘fuck’ more times in a day than anyone I know.” She looked apologetically at the security guard as she swiped her card to let us into the next section of the building.  Our school was Catholic after all, and far more anal retentive about security than any other university. (See what I did there?!)

“No, I did not fuck your brother.” Christine said, as if it were the most repulsive idea in the universe.

“So…did he have a big schlong?”

We both stared at each other.

“Just stop and think about what you just said.” Christine said seriously.

I mentally added ‘asking about your brother’s penis’ to the list of things never to ask your best friend.

“But you never answered my que-”

“So  what do you want to do tonight?”

Part of me realized that it wasn’t right to butt into the already awkward situation brewing between Dan and Christine. Part  of me was  also far too excited to contain the brilliant idea I had.

“Lets dress up as hipsters and take pictures!” It was clearly the most asinine idea I had ever had; even for a Friday night with nothing to do. However, Christine simply laughed and said “Why the hell not?”

Being a hipster had been my latest aspiration. Especially after joining the popular blogging site, Tumblr. I had bought scarves and skinny jeans. I wore dark rimmed glasses and never straightened my hair. I also enjoyed tea and badly written literature. However, I could not pull off the tumblr look. I was simply too much of a complete asshole to do so. So, as an asshole, I decided it would be much more entertaining to satirize hipsters. Twenty minutes later I was wearing red lipstick and Christine had a belt on her head.

Satire at its finest.

We were taking pictures on her webcam with expressions that made us look like aliens. Or well, simply a girl with red lipstick and another girl with a belt on her head. It was slowly becoming boring. I had exited the webcam and began looking at tumblr, coincidentally, while Christine sat on her bed faddidling with her phone, belt still wrapped around her head. We had become uncharacteristically quiet until I heard a familiar groan of disgust come from Christine.  ”What?” I asked, not entirely concerned.

“It’s Kendra.”

“Oh Jesus..” Kendra was a girl that we both mutually hated, although she insisted on communicating with us. “What does she want.”

Christine read the text silently and muttered “What the fuck?”

“Kendra is freaking out and telling me that your brother got hurt during the football game.”

I laughed it off. Tom always got hurt at goddamn football games. I still to this day believe that he broke every single one of his fingers. I explained this mockingly to Christine, who immediately denied my jokes.

“She says they’re taking him away now on a helicoptor.” She stood up with her belt on her head and jingled her car keys at me.

“We have to go!”

***

The hospital stunk of despair and denial, although it might very well have just been me. Despite the fact that my brother had been hardly responding to any type of stimulation was not sinking in yet. It was still, as I had told myself over and over, just like the time he had broken his pinky, or thumb…or index finger…
My parents were standing outside the door, pale as ghosts. My mother attempted to hug me as I shrugged away, never being one for affection from my family. The entire floor was filled with people from my school; friends, teachers, family members, all looking equally dismayed. I looked around for  Christine exasperatedly.

“The fuck..?”

I walked around the hospital, ignoring everyone’s advances, finding it only important to find my best friend. My emotions at the time were skewed. My youngest brother was sitting in a bed, dying, and I was more concerned about finding someone to comfort me.

“Pinky, thumb, index finger, wrist, middle finger..” I attempted to soothe myself by repeating all of my brother’s previous injuries.

(This might me a narcissistic thing, but…you know..)

Yet, alas, I heard Christine’s voice quietly echoing from a nearby waiting room. I damn near skipped there, just hoping that she was still wearing her goddamn belt. I came to the door to find Christine wearing something completely different; my tear laden brother, Dan. He was holding her hand tightly with his head nuzzled onto her shoulder. It was exactly like the Zebra spotting incident.

“Oh hey.” I said under my breath, and walked out.

The hall was empty. I literally stood in the pristinely cleaned hospital hallway alone. (And when I mean alone I mean I was waiting for one of those dustball things.)

Everyone was piled in my brother’s hospital room.

He was either dead or awake.

I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t with anyone at all.

We all look like assholes.

Episode 2. (A Half-Ass Attempt at a Segway.)

“Why am I getting so fat?” My words were barely discernible through the mouthfuls of  odd tasting Indian food I was chomping on.  I was sitting Indian (oho!) style across from my 28-year-old-brother-who-is-dating-my-best-friend’s best friend in a local Indian place. Ron stared at me blankly through his wiry-framed glasses.

“Shut the fuck up, Missy.” He said dryly.

Ron and I had an odd relationship, a relationship that, for some odd reason, my older brother did not approve of. Occasionally we went out to get food or coffee for no apparent reason. However, this time had a very distinct reason. I was simply getting Ron out of the way.

“What do you think Dan and Christine are doing right now?” I giggled maniacally. “Do you think they’re doing it yet?” Ron shook his head at me. The two lovebirds had decided to shack up for the evening at my brother’s place, watching (at my suggestion) consecutive episodes of Arrested Development.

“There’s a good chance, Missy,” Ron started, eying me  suspiciously over his glass of water. “that they’re at least at the ‘heavy petting’ stage of the evening.” I cringed at the idea. It still was not quite sitting right with me.

“Christine wouldn’t do that.”

“She’s a red-blooded, American female. Of course she would.”

The woman in the strange Indian garb came over to our table and brought the check. It was strange, really. This whole idea of just casually going out to dinner with my brother’s best friend and roommate sometimes struck me as odd at certain times. Especially when the check came and I realized that, despite being poor, the last thing I wanted to do was have any type of outing with Ron be mistaken for a date. He was a nice enough guy and all, but no.

No.

“I’ll pay for my own food, thanks.” I said sarcastically, snatching up the check.

***

“You’ve definitely got the ass in your friendship with Christine.” Ron said as we were walking up the steep and treacherous climb to  his and Dan’s apartment. “I mean, Christine has the boobs and all, but you have definitely got the ass. Its perfect, essentially.”  We neared the front door. I couldn’t even imagine what I would encounter. I had already walked in on Christine and Dan making out before. However, this time I was not intoxicated. Maybe they’re still just watching Arrested Development, I thought, vaguely hopeful. I had, though, purposely left my ID card in their kitchen, just to have an excuse to nose around in the affairs of my brother and best friend.

“Now just go get your damn ID card and I’ll take you back to school.” Ron whispered. I walked silently into the living room, (Well, let’s be real, I wasn’t silent. I was laughing incessantly.) the couches were empty, and there was no sound resonating from anywhere in the entire apartment. “They’re at least at the ‘heavy petting’ stage of the evening.” kept playing at constant loop over and over in my head. And then something took over my body; sheer nosiness, I call it. I darted towards my brother’s bedroom. I was so close, when I suddenly heard footsteps behind me and felt two arms grab my shoulders and steer me back to the door. “Leave them alone.” Rob said quietly. I attempted to move back, but his grip was far too tight. I attempted to finagle my way  out of his arm-lock and found myself in an awkward embrace with the man.

“Oh fuck no.”

We all look like assholes.

Episode 1.

“There’s a goddamn cheerio in my dress!” My best friend Christine said, pulling a little, grainy “o” from the bra area of her zebra print dress. We were sitting at eloquently cheap banquet tables at my cousin Joan’s wedding, along with my two brothers and my mother. My cousin Joan was three years older than I, and was marrying a boy she met after a drunken night of debauchery. The wedding was being held in an over glorified, overly laced, banquet…garage and the only appeal was an open-bar, as well as overly open cynicism from my other family members and Christine.

Its strange, I know, that I was attending a wedding with my best friend. It probably, as it always does, looked like we were a lesbian couple. However, I was recently “mourning” (and by mourning I mean celebrating) the recent break up with Jon, my good-for-nothing,  Latin lover from New Jersey. Christine was, inevitably, my replacement date; one that I liked far more, anyway.

The garage door opened, the harpist started plucking, and my cousin walked through the door, arm in arm with her cowboy hat clad father. “Aw damn, I thought she was going to ride through on a four-wheeler.” Christine whispered. I laughed, a bit too heartily, as my mom sent me a death glare. It was clearly time for drinks.

Needless to say, I became far too enamored with the open bar and my seemingly older appearance (I’m only nineteen, after all.). The alcohol was coursing through my blood, causing me to feel the driving desire to dance, and dance like a complete asshole. Christine, myself, and  my brothers, Daniel and Tom, were sitting at the table of drunken relatives, staring, quite inebriated, around the room, not dancing whatsoever. This was a bit too much for me, in my drunken state. And I suddenly stood up, pulled Christine along with me, and did every goddamn stupid dance that they do at weddings.  There were shots and I was with my family, so drinking and dancing was the only apparent option.

Despite being intoxicated, however, I was certainly not any less observant than I usually am; more so, in fact. Besides myself and Christine, there were many other women my age dancing on the scarcely lit and, well, scarcely  available, dance floor. I could see Daniel, my oldest, 27-year-old brother, eying up the other scantily clad women with a wanton lust that overtakes the man every time he has an ounce of alcohol. This time, however, it was a different look;  a softer one. One that, despite its softness, had an intensity that I knew meant that he was on the prowl.  Why I was focusing in on this fact, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was my love for my older brother. Maybe I wanted to get him laid so he didn’t have that pathetic little look on his face. Mostly I think it was just because I was drunk.

All thoughts of my brother’s hormones were thrown out though, when the dulcet tones of the Chicken dance started ringing through the garage. My god, it was like the second coming of Jesus in the place. Putting a couple of hicks and drunkards together and playing the chicken dance was only something from the likes of Revelation. After not wanting to be a chicken or a duck and shaking my butt for quite a while, though, I decided that the whole “spinning around in a circle” thing was just too much for me. I looked for Christine around the floor, but she had disappeared. So, I stumbled over to the table of drunks to find her. The table was, however, quite empty except for my cousin, Joan’s brother,  who was drunkenly snoozing next to his pitcher of beer. “Mikey” I said, shaking his arm, “Where’d everyone go?”. He looked up, pointed at me, and fell back to sleep.

The venue wasn’t very large, so I figured Christine had to be in the bathroom, peeing profusely, as usual. My heels were clicking quite loudly, as my steps were large and clumsy. Before I walked into the bathroom, I heard many “shhh”s and giggles, not all of them female. I swung the door open, not exactly sure what I was expecting to see. It was in fact, one of the most horrifying  sights ever to have crossed these eyes. There was a flash of zebra, and my twenty-seven year old brother Daniel and my eighteen year old best friend Christine pulled themselves apart from, what appeared to be an intense, slobbery, make-out session on the sink of the woman’s bathroom. They stared at me. I, asininely said “Oh hey.”, and walked out, the door swinging in my wake.

We all look like assholes sometimes.

Introduction

We all, unfortunately, look like assholes from time to time.  Its become somewhat normal in the processes of a day in the life of a human. We most especially look like assholes walking through the pouring rain wearing a white t-shirt. It, however, becomes very clear that you look like an asshole, when you have come to terms with the fact. When you know that, beyond a reasonable doubt, you look like a complete idiot.

It was at this point, walking across my college campus in the downpour (completely unprotected from the elements and any chance of sexual dignity.), that I realized that even the legitimately large amounts of pouring rain couldn’t wash away the strangeness of my life.  It couldn’t wash away the fact that my twenty-seven year old brother was dating my eighteen year old best friend; or even the fact that my seventeen year old brother was suffering from severe short-term, albeit selective, memory.  It wasn’t even able to drown out  the strange boys in my life, along with my little, weird, religious family, and certainly not the dirty thoughts that ran through my head at a non-stop pace.

The  cold, annoying droplets were what made me realize that my life was turning into a dark tragic comedy. It was slightly emo of me, I know. It was cold and dark and rainy, and all I could think about was how cold and wet I was. But, through the  chattering teeth and running mascara, something else was ticking in my mind and a smile was forming across my face. I have always been a devious one, meddling around in the affairs of others. I’ve always been manipulative, and this makes for such comical standards (at least to me anyway), that I felt my life must be written down.

Of course, I know my life is no more extraordinary than anyone else’s . We all have those moments in life where we think “Gee, I wish someone else was here to see this.” In fact, our lives are all determinately equipped to be a series of some sort. We have the cast of characters, the obscene plotlines, and plenty of bad humor to go along with it. This is my life. This is an account from a purely cynical college student who is trying to take things into perspective. Some is fiction, some is not. No one in my life is safe.

Its time we all look at our lives from a different perspective. We can learn to laugh at what insanity we face from day-to-day activities. Because, after all, we all look like assholes.