Embracing Spinsterhood

Growing up with two immigrant parents means that I don't see my extended family very often. When I was younger, we would spend our summer vacations abroad, but once I entered college and then started working, my visits lapsed substantially.

On one hand, I hate this turn of events because I have a huge family with dozens of adorable cousins, wonderful aunts and uncles, and grandparents that like to spoil their grandkids (including a grandfather who is a famous tycoon with a mistress and illegitimate children, but that's a whole other story). Time with my family is endlessly entertaining, to say the least.

On the other hand, in recent years, I have begun to feel slightly lucky in the situation and this is why:

On my mother's side of the family, I am the eldest of my generation. Little sister E comes next, four years my junior, then two cousins who are a few years younger than her (both in college) and then the remaining cousins' ages range from twelve to two.

Thus, I am in the popular position of being the eldest: the one they all ooh-ed and ahh-ed over at birth, the one who got spoiled the most growing up, the one who went to college first, the one who graduated first, the one who got married and produced the next generation of offspring first...wellllllllll...not so much on that last one, which is the root of the problem.

Since I so rarely see my family, I didn't realize what a dire situation I was in until my grandparents flew to New York to see us two years ago. I was excited to see them since it had been seven years since my last trip, and I knew they were curious to see how I had "grown up."

My grandfather (yes, the one with the mistress) walked in, hugged me, pinched my cheeks, told me I looked healthy and pretty, and then grabbed my hands and asked me very seriously, "When are you going to give me a baby?"

Whoa, back his truck up.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Excuse me????

Grandpa explained to me, "I am getting very old and I have colon cancer and before I die all I want is to hold my great-grandchild in my arms. So when are you going to make me a great-grandfather?"

At some point after they resuscitated me, I explained to him that it was a pretty difficult request considering there wasn't even a boyfriend on the horizon, much less a husband. (And yes, I guess if an illegitimate great-grandchild was acceptable, I could've discussed the idea of sperm donors and whatnot, but could you imagine saying "sperm" to your grandfather? I really, really hope not.)

I had a good laugh about this with my sister and friends, and figured that was it. Then my favorite uncle called to catch up and I asked when him and his family would be coming to visit us in NY and he replied, "Oh we keep wanting to do a trip to New York since your little cousins have never been there, but we've been planning on using your wedding as the excuse to finally visit."

I was obviously thoroughly confused:

My wedding? I have a wedding coming up? When is this wedding? But I don't own a white dress? What kind of cake will there be? I like cake. Mmmmm...cake. Wait up. Focus. Who the hell is the groom?

I told my uncle that if the cousins want to see New York, he should probably come now because if he waits for the wedding, then they'll be way too old to appreciate FAO Schwartz and play at the Toys'R'Us in Times Square (or worse, the toy stores won't even be around anymore because they went bankrupt).

So after all this, it turns out my parents, who I had originally thought were the annoying ones about my plight as a single girl, have gone out of their way to protect me from the scrutiny of my extended family. I finally got it out of the rents last week that our relatives used to call repeatedly to inform them of the growing concern that I'm "no longer of marriageable age" and they should start interfering now or for sure I will end up a spinster.

Even more astounding than the idea that I am no longer of marriageable age in my twenty and six years (and that my family hasn't already arranged marriage for me in exchange for a dowry of twenty goats, three sheep, and a handmade quilt) is that when I asked my parents how they respond to these indignities, my dad told me, "I tell them you're healthy and happy so it's none of their business, and you can get married or not get married whenever you want. And that's the end of it."

Major props to Papa Drone on that one because honestly, I never saw it coming from the guy who was going to resort to picking up men on the street to bring to our house for a group dinner so I could date them, since I was (am) incapable of meeting good guys.

The other unforeseen but pleasant side effect of not being able to keep a man is it seems to have lowered my father's expectations for potential boyfriends. As is expected of men with daughters, he has categorically hated anyone I've ever dated, and had very strict requirements about someone that would be acceptable for his firstborn daughter.

Lately that list of prerequisites has pretty much lapsed to someone who's "intelligent and a nice person," which really could fit the descriptions of most generic guys (well, with the obvious exception of Shmucks and his crew). Apparently everything else is up for grabs. Seriously. I asked him if he would be ok with me dating someone older than him and he shrugged and said, "As long as he's still willing to call me dad even if he's 10 years older than me, then sure."

(So if anyone knows of a nice, moderately intelligent single man in his mid-to-late 60s willing to call a younger man "Daddy," please send his phone number my way ASAP.)

After the incident with my grandfather asking to be made into a great-grandfather, I even asked my dad if he would be ok with me being a single mother someday, if I chose to do so. And he ALSO shrugged at that. I almost made him write out a statement stating that he will be excited when I come home and announced that I'm officially knocked up.

(My mother does not seem to be quite as open-minded and informed me if I do any of the above, she will register for a shotgun. I don't dare imagine what she will do with it.)

But in general, outside of the familial pressure that I do my best to avoid, I don't feel that much pressure on me from my friends and society that I have to rush to the closest altar.

I guess most of the issue can be attributed to a generational difference from those who think a woman's life is over if she's unwed at thirty. And although there are still whispers of this mentality in society, it's definitely not the disaster it used to be when a single woman hits 30 and up.

What matters at the end of the day is that I'm doing what works for me, and I am happy in my singleness and definitely have not met anyone that I would remotely consider worthy of spending the rest of my life with. And if that continues to be the case for another decade, or two, or more, and people want to call me a spinster, or old (hot) maid, so be it.

Instead of cats as my companions, I'll have awesome funny friends and instead of knitting as my hobby, I'll troll the Lower East Side bars a a cougar.

All in all, doesn't look too bad.

Chicks Dig Scars

I am a huge klutz.

I don't consider myself accident-prone, but I definitely have my share of accidents. I think my guy friend R described it best when he said I was "lacking in that whole hand-eye coordination thing."

It's true. I trip on flat surfaces. I bite it and fall down on my face pretty regularly. I walk into doors and furniture. It's such a natural occurrence at this point that when I do something that would be embarrassing to a normal person, like walking straight into a door in a very public space, I just get up, wipe myself off, shrug it off, and keep going.

I was always envious of graceful girls, ballet dancers, figure skaters, women that carry themselves regally and probably never get concussions from getting hit on the head by refrigerator doors (Senior year of high school, no big deal).

But then again, they probably don't get into the shenanigans that I find myself in, and therefore don't have the fun anecdotes that I have, best chronicled by the scars and bruises leftover from my multiple injuries.

My most impressive bruises were an assortment left after a horseback riding adventure in South Africa. I had this fabulous fantasy in my head of riding a horse into the sunset on the beautiful white sand beaches of South Africa, but it turned out to be much more physically demanding (and smelly. and dangerous.) than I had originally anticipated.

When my horse Chelsea took off into a trot with me on her back, with no previous horseback riding experience (other than that one time I rode on the back of a pony when I was four), I clung on for dear life until one of the instructors saved me. Apparently I hung on so tightly that I was left with huge baseball-sized bruises all along my butt, thighs, and calves.

Later, back on steady ground in our hotel room, my sister fell over laughing as I gingerly examined my injuries. It looked like I had been massively beaten on only the lower half of my body. The bruises were so resilient they outlasted the jet lag. Luckily the trip to South Africa took place in January, summer in the Southern Hemisphere, but frigid in New York, so warm clothing covered up my physical memoirs, and I avoided any questions about the obvious fight I had gotten into with an angry elf.

I haven't always been that lucky with my mishaps. I managed to ram my head into the edge of my armoire once when I was reaching down to pick out a shirt. I did this with such gusto that I wound up with a black eye, and had to go to work for the next few days sporting a lot of concealer and dealing with incredulous looks and a kindly inquiry from the HR woman if I'd been having problems at home.

In less of an accidental move, I got my belly button pierced as my first act of independence my freshman year of college. I, just like every other 17 year old out here, thought it was the coolest look ever, but hadn't anticipated the pain, not only the pain of the actual piercing, but the subsequent pain while it healed.

I learned quickly that every time I sat down and my pants rubbed against the ring, there would be substantial pain from the shifting. I solved this problem by unbuttoning my pants every time I sat down, from class to mealtimes, to an embarrassing encounter when I stood up to meet my friend's father and realized my fly was unbuttoned.

Four years later during my senior year, I decided the ring wasn't so cool anymore, especially since it was continually getting infected and still annoyed me every time I sat down, as well as made wearing high-waisted pants impossible.

So I took out the ring, expecting it to close up. Instead, it just scarred and left me with a small hole at the top of my belly button, a scar I will have for life unless I let my dermatologist stab at it, which is not a feasible option. It's this nagging reminder of my foolish acts of defiance when I got to college, but it still makes me laugh when I think of the awkward moments it prompted.

My most recent injury occurred this past year on a trip to the Bahamas with my family. Little sister E wanted to go on the water rides at Atlantis, so we made a day out of it. We went on all of the fun slides with height requirements before taking a break by drifting down the "Lazy River Ride," where you sit on an inner tube and float around a giant circle in three feet of water. Totally fun and harmless right?

Oh no, not if you are me. About twenty minutes in, my inner tube managed to get pushed into a wall and it turned out that the surface was jagged, leaving me with several deep gashes along my left ankle and foot. We ran over to the nearest emergency station where they disinfected and bandaged my foot.

The next day, the deepest gash on my left ankle was still bleeding, so I was taken to the nurse's station at the resort, where I had to fill out three pages of medical history to get ointment and a full foot wrap. She also told me that I had to stay off my foot and out of the water if I wanted the blood to clot.

Considering I was in the middle of the Bahamas on vacation, this wasn't about to happen, so I ignored her instructions for the next few days until I returned home to NY and kept my foot elevated for three days straight. After this, the wound finally closed up and scabbed, but for some reason, decided not to completely heal, leaving behind an elevated scar.

I was worried it was infected, so I asked several people to touch it ("Touch it, touch my scar!"), which they wouldn't (way to be loyal in my time of need, little sister E). My mom finally took a look; apparently being a parent means you are required to deal with your offspring's gross issues that no one else even wants to touch, literally. She was so worried she told me that I might have skin cancer and I should go to the dermatologist.

Instead, I showed it to my friend T, who is doing his residency in plastic surgery, so he seemed like a good dermatological substitute. He made a disgusted face (always good when a doctor-in-training is disgusted by your scar), and told me that I should get it checked out because it looks like cancer. Did I mention T is going to be an awesome doctor someday? Wonderful bedside manner...

So now, I have this very impressive one-inch scar on my left ankle that in addition to the possibility of being cancerous, was also caused by a children's lazy river ride. There were four year olds on this ride that managed to exit in one piece, but I, of course, managed to get potential skin cancer from it.

I maintain that the scars and bruises are just physical souvenirs from the fun times and adventures I've been on. Especially that lazy river ride. Those mini tides were QUITE exhilarating; I'm so glad I'll remember them for the rest of my life.

I think Keanu Reeves said it best as Shane Falco in The Replacements: "Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory...lasts forever."

That's right kids. Glory. Lasts. FOREVER.

Oh, What a Night

Despite what you may think, it takes a lot for me to get into the hijinx that I manage to find myself in regularly. A big part of that is alcohol. But the other part of the equation is my two partners in crime, girlfriends S and R. And when we all go out together, it's guaranteed to be an entertaining night.

One of the most memorable of these nights occurred a few months ago. We had a pleasant dinner in the lower east side and then stood on the street trying to figure out what bar we should go to. While we were arguing, this guy wearing a shirt that read, "ERIK'S BACHELOR PARTY" approached us.

"What are you girls doing tonight?" he asked.

Even though I'm usually hostile to strangers, he was a totally vanilla white guy that seemed harmless enough, so I told him we were trying to figure out where to go.

"Well my friend Erik is having his bachelor party at this bar, so if you want to hang out with some chill guys and have free shots, you should come on by," he told us.

Being a fan of free booze, I turned to R and S to see if they were down, and they both shrugged so we followed the dude into the random bar to attend Erik's bachelor party.

On the way in, the bouncer took one look at the guy leading us in and the three of us, laughed, and told R, "I'll be seeing you in a few minutes. Trust me."

Slightly confused, I followed the guy up to the bachelor party, losing R and S along the way, and entered a room filled with about thirty guys watching a basketball game. My lone presence and short dress obviously flustered them because one of them shouted out, "Awesome, the stripper's here!"

I realized that R and S had lagged behind and I was in a precarious situation, so I laughed awkwardly and then bolted away to find R and S and drag them back with me. After we made it clear that we were NOT there to strip for them, we were introduced to the man of the hour, Erik.

"I hear congratulations are in order," I said to him, "When's the wedding? Are you excited?"

"It's in October. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready to get married. I mean, if you wanted to go home with me tonight, I'd be totally down," he responded.

My condolences to Erik's fiance because I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm not sure it's going to work out. I declined Erik's invitation and pounded a few free shots with the rest of the bachelors. Despite the free shots, it seemed to be a pretty low-key and therefore disappointing bachelor party, so we decided to get the hell outta there.

The bouncer, of course, laughed when he saw us: "I told you so. I knew you weren't going to like it there."

Then he turned to R and said to her, "You're a really fine lady. Would you mind if I got your number and took you out some time?"

R said, "Um, yeah," and ran away.

She meant, of course, that she would mind and was declining his invitation to go out, but the bouncer took it as a yes, she was enthusiastic to go out on a date with him.

He turned to S, confused, and said, "But she said yes. Why didn't she give me her phone number? When are we going to go out?"

At this point, S and I burst out laughing and ran away to join R and tease her.

We were trying to figure out a plan of attack, since Erik's bachelor party had been such a letdown, when I noticed a table of three guys sitting alone watching the basketball game at a table next to us. They were all super cute and there were three of them, and three of us. Perfect!

So I sat myself down at their table, introduced myself, and started chatting with them. After signalling to R and S that they were cool and they should join us, R and S came over to sit down.

This part of the night gets slightly blurry, because we started ordering tequila shots like they were going out of style. It was as if someone had told us that Jose Cuervo was shutting down the next day, because every five minutes we would hail the waitress over and ask for another round of shots. They had to go down to the basement at some point and restock because they ran out.

The guys, it turned out, were all single, nice finance guys originally from DC, and were pretty entertaining once we started downing tequila. I believe it was S who originally proposed that we take shots and ordered the first round, but I lost track quickly after that. And after the bill came, the guys, being gentleman of course, insisted on paying for the many bottles of tequila we had consumed.

At some point they mentioned that they had an awesome roofdeck that they used to play beirut on, and S and R wanted to get their game on, so it was agreed upon that we would all go back to their apartment to play some beer pong.

They did, indeed, have an incredible roofdeck with views of Manhattan, and more importantly, a table, a case of cold beer, ping pong balls, and Solo cups. We put on music and I deejayed while everyone else alternated playing beirut and trash-talking each other across the table.

I came up with a nickname for S's teammate, after noticing that he had to go to the bathroom about every five minutes, and suggesting that he should get a catheter put in, or at the very least adult diapers. For the remainder of the night we referred to him as "Depends," and I honestly couldn't tell you what his real name is if my life "Depend"-ed on it. (Ha, puns are fun.)

At about 3AM, we ran out of beer, which was clearly a problem, so the guys ordered more (New York is obviously the greatest city in the world, if for no other reason than the fact that you can call and order a cold case of Bud Light to be delivered right to your door at 3AM).

S, bored of waiting, though, decided she was uncomfortable in her going-out clothes, so she threw her shoes in the corner and wandered into Depends' room and went through his closet. Deciding that his Brother Jimmy's t-shirt and basketball shorts were acceptable, despite the fact that they were about five times too big for her, she put them on. Then, feeling like a snack, she wandered down to their kitchen and went through the contents of their freezer until she found some Ben and Jerry's.

We were sitting around, munching on party mix, when S padded in innocently, looking like a five year-old who had put on her father's clothes, eating ice cream. R and I just looked at each other and fell over laughing while the guys were just kind of confused.

At about 5AM, I started to feel exhausted and ready to bail. I went to find S to tell her I was going home and found her changing into her own clothes, ready to go home as well. Then we went to fetch R, and the three of us walked out of the apartment.

We stood on the corner, laughing about our night and then I said, "Wait, I didn't give my phone number out. Did you guys?"

"Nope," both R and S said.

"So those guys just spent hundreds of dollars on alcohol for us all night, didn't get any, and didn't even get our numbers?"

Basically, yes.

So all in all, it was a terrific night out, although I am left with many lingering questions that may never be answered:

Did Erik's bachelor party ever get better? Did they eventually find real strippers? Will Erik go through with his marriage? If so, how many years will it be until she files for divorce? Did Depends ever solve his frequent urination problem? Is that bouncer still waiting to get R's number?

I guess we'll just never know...

Ocho Cinco Dating Tips

So I was sitting around the other day, frustrated, because I'd run into a dilemma. I simply couldn't think of any inventive new ways to meet guys. But luckily for me, HBO was playing Hard Knocks, and I have now found the answers to all of my problems.

For anyone who doesn't know, Hard Knocks is a show that follows different NFL teams through their pre-season. Last season it featured the Dallas Cowboys and this time around, it was a behind-the-scenes look at the Cincinnati Bengals, struggling after their dismal season last year.

The best part of the show, though, isn't the brilliant athleticism that it attempts to showcase, but the comedic genius of Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson, their loud-mouthed wide receiver who wants desperately to be T.O. In the midst of his many witticisms, I managed to get the answers I need on how to properly pick up members of the opposite sex, straight from the horse's mouth.

Ocho Cinco Strategy #1:
Invoke Jesus

According to Ocho Cinco's current girlfriend, Maya, they met on a flight when he "borrowed" a wheelchair and pretended he was a cripple so he could sit next to her on the plane. And then as soon as he had her attention, he stood up and said, "Ah Jesus thank you. I'm saved. It's a miracle I can walk!"

Anyone religious and/or with a stringent moral code might want to shy away from this one, seeing as it consists of stealing a wheelchair, pretending to be a cripple, and then invoking Jesus Christ as your own personal savior.

Yes, this might seem to be slightly problematic, but the bottom line is it is downright charming. I know if a guy kidnapped a seeing-eye dog, then donned dark sunglasses to fake blindness, then said he could see again, all to impress me, well I would be damn flattered. The only thing that could make me want to take my pants off more is if he could throw in a cheesy pickup line, something like, "Thank you Jesus for giving me sight because now I can see if you taste as good as you look."

I mean the best part about this move is if it fails, I could just pretend to get injured, thus re-crippling myself, and at least score a pity date out of it. Right? Can't fail.

Ocho Cinco Strategy #2:
Try a Little Creepiness

So, after the "I was a crippled but now I can walk again" gambit didn't quite work with Maya, Ocho Cinco moved on to the next best strategy, violating her private property. While she was sleeping, he took her cell phone and called his own number, so that he would have hers. Then he put his earphones on, so that when she woke up and tried to talk to him about it, he pretended he couldn't hear her.

I am a big fan of being creepy, especially to strangers. Nothing revs up someone's engine like having their personal space violated, and then being blatantly ignored by the perpetrator.

Personally, I find the grabbing the phone a little too passive. I usually like to go straight for a guy's wallet, so I can copy down his name, address, birthdate, social security number, and at least one credit card. This makes it a world easier to run the background and credit check.

And of course, the major advantage is if the background check turns up something I can't abide by, like felonies related to imitating cripples, I still have the credit card number to buy myself a little something pretty. I mean, he'll never notice since he's already buried in debt from those legal fees. And this way I get a consolation prize.

Ocho Cinco Strategy #3:
Be Afraid of Rejection
and
Ocho Cinco Strategy #4:
Don't Be Afraid of Some Mild Stalking

According to Ocho Cinco, the reason he stole Maya's phone and put his own phone number in is this is the best way to get someone's phone number because you never have to actually ask for the digits, which is obviously always awkward and weird, especially if your request is denied.

His instructions are as follows: "You take the woman's phone, you ask to borrow it, you tell her your phone is dead at the present time, you dial your number with her phone and you just call her later on or text her. It might be some kind of stalkerish stuff but it helps with the rejection process. You don't have to deal with being turned down."

This is quite possibly the most genius of Ocho Cinco's ploys because it is so foolproof. You are guaranteed to get the digits, and then you can resort to stalking as a standby if calling/texting incessantly doesn't work.

I mean for all these years I've been taught not to be afraid of rejection, that there's no harm in failing as long as you try, blah, blah, blah. And now I realize that it was all bullshit rhetoric and Ocho Cinco was right. Who needs the fear of failing when you are guaranteed to succeed aided by just a little white lie? Brilliant!

I don't know about you, but I am going to put these little gems of wisdom to work right away and see what kind of results I get from the fellas once I start creeping them out, stalking, lying, faking physical debilitation, and letting Jesus take the credit when I am miraculously healed. I don't see how this method can't fail.

All I can do now is hope that Ocho Cinco gets his own reality show where he teaches hopeless people like me how to pick up and date members of the opposite sex. It's a craft worthy of a Nobel Prize, which let's face it, at this point is probably more realistic than him holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

BAM!

I think I did a disservice to the last guy I dated, Shmucks, in my last blogpost by painting him as an idiotic, delusional, lying dirtbag.

The truth is he's a really, really idiotic, delusional, lying dirtbag, and I neglected to paint an accurate picture of how truly idiotic he is.

His group of friends consists of about twenty guys who have all known each other (and gotten into trouble together) since high school, and apparently haven't changed very much since those days even though they are now thirty, mostly married, and some even managed to procreate (Bestie R put it best when she said, "If I was unlucky enough to have one of their kids, I would just put a football helmet on its head at birth and cross my fingers for the best").

At least once a month, these esteemed members of society congregate in the city or at their hometown in upstate New York and proceed to shotgun beers and shoot tequila and get belligerent with random strangers (because as I mentioned earlier they are privileged white Jewish guys who are under the impression that they are "gangsta"), until at least one person is puking, one person is missing, and one person is arrested.

I had heard multiple anecdotes about these MENSA conferences, but I figured in typical idiot guy fashion, Shmucks was just exaggerating to make himself look cooler (I have no idea why that would make someone look cooler.) After all, a bunch of thirty-year olds with wives and kids and respectable jobs couldn't be THAT bad, right?

Fast forward to Shmucks' birthday. All of his friends and his older brother came into town for the celebration, about twenty guys in total.

(Quick Side Note on Shmucks' Brother: Shockingly, he seems to be the fuckup of the group. For some bizarre reason, he has this propensity towards drinking and driving. The moment alcohol hits his lips, he feels the need to get in the car and speed down the Palisades Parkway until he's pulled over. Apparently, this is an improvement from what he used to do, which was to blow massive amounts of cocaine, then drink and drive. He's on his third DUI in five years, and on the verge of doing real time.)

The theme for the evening (oh yes, they had a theme) was inappropriate t-shirts. For example, Shmucks was clad in a shirt that demonstrated Karma Sutra positions using cartoon vegetables. His friend C was wearing a shirt that said "I Kick Puppies." He had it custom made because apparently when he tried to text "I Lick Pussies" to a girl, his phone keypad automatically changed it to "I Kick Puppies." This did not have the intended effect on the lucky lady recipient (although I'm not sure she would've been that impressed with the original text either).

They started playing beer pong at 4PM and before they even went out to the bar, had polished off three handles of tequila and eight cases of beer. I started getting drunk texts around 8PM that made no sense whatsoever and by the time I met up with them at the bar at midnight, they were completely wasted.

I walked into the bar to find Shmucks about to throw an empty beer bottle at the head of someone literally three times his size while his friends held him back. I should've known what I was in for, just cut my losses, and walked right back out the door.

Instead, we managed to convince Shmucks it was time for him to go home and we attempted to hail a cab. Unfortunately, at the corner we ran into some other drunk white dudes already trying to get a cab, and one of them stumbled up to me to say, "Which one of these losers is your boyfriend? You should come home with me instead."

Of course, at this point, the pugnacious idiots I was with got in his face and started shoving him and telling him to back off, while I futilely tried to stop them. Luckily for me, at this moment a cab pulled up, and I managed to force Shmucks and his friends into the taxi.

As Shmucks got in, he yelled at the guy, "Fuck you douchebag!" (What can I say - although his vocabulary is limited, he's clearly a poet in the making), and slammed the door. The guy swung his fist towards Shmucks but ended up punching the door of the taxi just as we sped off. The idiots I was with, of course, found this amusing, while I was just exasperated.

I thought at this point the excitement for the night was over. However, we arrived at Shmucks' apartment to find a brand new scene of chaos.

The rest of his crew had made it back there before us. As four of them played beirut in the kitchen (with the case of beer they had just picked up on the way), two of them were passed out and snoring in the living room, and their friend J was in the bathroom puking his guts out (Apparently he had only eaten a salad before the binge drinking commenced and was now worse for the wear. What an amateur).

Shmucks proceeded to find Sharpies in the apartment so that they could draw on the faces of the passed out idiots while the awake idiots took pictures of them in posed positions (seriously, after the ball-slap game, this is the most absurd aspect of boy behavior I've ever encountered).

Then, everyone congregated around the bathroom to leer at J, who was half-passed out on the toilet, and argue about the best course of action to take care of him.

"We should give him some Advil," someone piped in.

"Yeah, otherwise he'll feel awful tomorrow and have a bad hangover," someone else concurred.

"Yeah, let's make him take these Advil right now," someone said, pulling the pills out of the medicine cabinet.

"That's a terrible idea," I told them, confiscating the Advil. "His stomach is all messed up right now, which is why he's puking. The last thing he needs is Advil, which will make his stomach feel worse since there's nothing in it. What he needs is water and bread to soak up the alcohol."

Silence.

"Are you a doctor?" one of them asked me.

"No, just not a moron," I informed him.

They decided to respect my orders and I prepared to go home and call it a night, having done my good deed for the night in not letting these fools kill J, when Shmucks decided he was mad at everyone. I was sitting across the room from him, saying goodbye to his friend C, when he suddenly launched a wooden stool towards us. As it fell the floor, narrowly avoiding both of us, I jumped out of the way and yelled at him, "What the F are you doing you jackass?"

At which point Shmucks yelled at me, "Shut up! I've had enough of your lip for tonight!"

C jumped up and yelled back at him, "Stop yelling at her just because you're an asshole! She didn't do anything!"

Since he was too far away for me to slap his nuts, I yelled back, "Fuck you! I'm not the drunk asshole throwing stools around!"

At which point we all started yelling at each other at the top of our lungs while Shmucks and C heaved whatever was in arms' length toward the other one.

It was at this moment that Shmucks' older brother stumbled into the room, and finding that the bathroom was occupied (with J, still puking), he limped over to Shmucks and projectile vomited all over Shmucks' bare feet.

The throwing and yelling ceased immediately before C and I looked at each other and burst out in laughter. Shmucks, obviously, was not amused and continued to yell at all of us and his brother for being such a "fuckup," but I didn't hear anything he said because we were laughing too hard.

I thanked C for standing up for me, made sure J was still alive, and left the apartment as Shmucks wiped up his brother's vomit while said brother tried to convince everyone in the room to give him his car keys because he was "totally OK to drive home now."

I think we can guess who ended up in the slammer that night...

It shouldn't surprise anyone to know that night was the last time I saw Shmucks. I shall always cherish my last image of him, crouched down on the floor, screaming bloody murder as he attempted to wipe his brother's vomit off his feet and the floor. Oh, the memories.

And hopefully, I have cleared up any lingering doubts you have about the extent of Shmucks' idiocy and douchebaggery. I think it's an understatement to say that he set the bar for how low my standards can be.