Clearly, I Didn't Think This Through : The Story of One Tall Girl's Impulsive, Ill-conceived, and Borderline Irresponsible Life Decisions (9781101612255)

by Goldfarb, Anna

  Jack: Two words: grammar Nazi.

  Jack: Two more words: come over.

  Jack: come overrrrrrrrr. I just got a jug of whiskey and I want you to help me drink it.

  See what I mean? He makes me laugh. That’s my Achilles’ heel! I’ll give any guy who makes me laugh a chance, even if he’s a tall goofball jock who really should be shunned by anyone with ovaries.

  I hate to admit this, but being stranded together with Jack in a snowstorm did sound sort of romantic. I pictured us in warm sweaters with deer and snowflakes knitted into cute patterns, cuddled up by a chateau fireplace like rich skiers in the eighties. I never got to ski in the eighties, and I certainly never got to be stranded with a guy in a chateau, so this might be the closest I’d ever come to living that dream! I had to do it. I owed it to myself to have a snow bunny snuggle. At the very least, I knew he would entertain me. It could be fun. I felt myself nudging toward saying yes.

  Anna: Okay.

  Jack: FUCK YES! This is gonna be awesome.

  Anna: You’re really fine with being stuck with me during a snowstorm?

  Jack: I already said yes.

  Anna: It’s starting to snow.

  Jack: Well, hurry the fuck up then.

  Getting action with Jack was in my immediate future. I wanted to high-five myself for having a viable prospect. I tossed some clothes in a bag, lied and told my parents that I was going to a friend’s house, then hit the road. Flurries came down light and fluffy, like God was shaking off his dandruff onto my windshield. I was genuinely excited that he’d have some kind of home bar setup. I thought, where on earth did this guy get a bar? Did he inherit it? Did he win it on The Price Is Right? Did he salvage it from a sidewalk sale? I pushed those questions aside and happily schlepped to his house through the snow with visions of exotic mixers dancing in my head.

  Thirty minutes later, I arrived at his house, a tiny row house on a side street in West Philly. He opened the door and gave me a long hug. I will admit, it felt good to hug a taller guy. My head fit into his neck perfectly. Maybe this wouldn’t be terrible. I set my things down on the floor.

  “So where’s this wet bar that you’ve been talkin’ my ear off about?” I figured that the quicker whiskey showed up to this party, the quicker we’d get down to business.

  I expected shticky barware and an array of shiny strainers and bottle openers. Maybe there’d be tiny, colorful umbrellas to perch on the rim. Maybe there’d be a wooden stool I could sit on so I could cross my legs and flash him a smile while he swirled a few martinis together. Maybe there’d be that novelty singing fish mounted on the wall like Tony Soprano had. Maybe there’d be a tiki cocktail mixer like Mrs. Robinson used in The Graduate. Frankly, I hoped he would have something a cool uncle would have, tucked in the corner of his living room.

  “Right this way, m’lady.” I followed him into his kitchen, where he bent down on one knee and swung the cupboard door open. It turned out that his “wet bar” was just a half dozen dusty bottles stashed under his sink. His motherfucking sink! This was no bar. I felt swindled with this bar description.

  “Here it is!” he proclaimed boldly. My face couldn’t hide my disappointment. What a ruse! “So, what’s your poison? I can make whatever you want on the rocks. As a heads-up, everything will be on the rocks ’cause I don’t have any mixers.” Yup, laugh it up, Jack. The only bar here is my bar for dating guys without a bar, and I refuse to lower it. His “bar” got an F and we all know that spells BARF, which is frankly what I wanted to do when he asked if I wanted a drink from under his shitty sink.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna break into this whiskey. Do you want some or what?”

  “Fine. I’ll have some. With lots of ice,” I said, dryly.

  “That’s gonna cost you extra. Just kidding.” I didn’t even recognize the brand of liquor he had. It was beyond bottom-shelf whiskey. It wasn’t even a shelf, it was like it had been unearthed in a cellar buried next to Chester Copperpot’s treasure maps.

  “Cheers!” We clinked glasses and he gulped his drink down. He quickly poured himself another one.

  “So, word on the street is that we’re going to spend this snowstorm together,” I purred.

  “I know. That’s why I asked you over here. That’s the whole idea.”

  “So, what do you wanna do?” I looked around his small kitchen for inspiration.

  “Wanna watch a movie?” He shrugged.

  “Sure. Let me see what you have.” As we stepped foot into his living room, I got a good look at his couch situation. And we did have a serious situation: He didn’t have a couch. He had a futon. Whenever I walk into a guy’s house and I see a futon, I let out a little whimper. I don’t care how many pillows he tosses on the thing or how many blankets he drapes over the back, that uncomfortable piece of furniture will never be a couch. It’s not even in the couch family. It’s like a couch’s second cousin’s half brother’s roommate. I’m pretty sure they’re not even friends. If the couch got married to a sofa, the futon wouldn’t even be on the invite list.

  For one thing, we can’t lie down on it comfortably together because it’s kind of hard to be relaxed with a huge metal pipe digging into our backs. The pillows always slip through the arm railing thingy so we slide down like angel hair pasta through a colander. I hate that metal arm bar. Why didn’t they make that out of something—oh, I don’t know—soft? That one tweak would improve our time in his living room immensely.

  I think a half-deflated air mattress has more cushioning than this futon did. It was all lumpy from years of flopping around, and it had weird stains on it that I don’t even want to get into. God forbid if we ever got in a tickle fight and I somehow landed facedown on the fabric. I would do everything in my power not to inhale because I knew it would smell like pepperoni meets dog’s breath. [shudder]

  This futon had to go. It was basically going to be like trying to watch a movie while lounging on a barbecue grill with a cloth napkin on it. And that just made me sad. But I tried to overlook it and be a good sport.

  I saw that he had an amazing, huge flatscreen television mounted to his wall. It was clearly the most valuable thing in his entire house. Guys like him always have the most amazing entertainment setups. Their entire house could be in shambles, nothing more than a pile of bricks shaped into a houselike formation, but the television set would sparkle like a JumboTron.

  I scanned through his DVD stack and suggested we watch The Big Lebowski or Back to the Future, but he wasn’t interested.

  “Have you ever seen this?” That’s when he pulled out The Endless Summer from the stack and tossed it at me. It was a surfing movie that came out in the sixties. “Come on! Give it a chance.” I shrugged and said okay.

  Not to brag, but I think it was pretty awesome of me to indulge his request to watch a movie about surfing when I have zero interest in the subject matter. The Endless Summer, Step into Liquid, Riding Giants: I’ve seen them all. Like I give a shit about some dude surfing a wave.

  Sure, I’ll even pretend to get a little upset when some famous surfer dies after an epic wipeout. Boo-hoo. Huge waves can be dangerous: I got the memo, every single surfing movie out there! Mother Nature can be a cruel bitch, and surfers walk the line every time they go out into the ocean; got it.

  Good luck finding a girl to tolerate a more boring genre of film. I didn’t roll my eyes, cross my arms, and huff loudly after two hours of monotone narration spoken over repetitive footage of waves. Not me! I played along and marveled at the rip curls. What girl gives a fuck about rip curls? None! All I’m saying is that it’s something about me to appreciate.

  As we tried to curl up on his futon, that was when I noticed how drafty it was in there. My teeth started chattering and I could practically see my breath when I exhaled. If I listened hard, I was pretty sure that I could hear the wind rushing in through the cracks around the windowsills. Why is it so cold in here?

  I get that he’s trying to keep his he
ating costs down, but couldn’t he get his Home Depot on and affix plastic sheeting around those drafty windows? Throw me a winter-preparedness bone here! A rubber glove would’ve provided more insulation than these flimsy, drafty windows. Were they made of Saran Wrap? I considered stripping down and flinging myself into a long, hot shower to warm up, but the thought of having to exist in his freezing house with wet skin made me want to cash out my paltry 401(k) and buy a one-way ticket to somewhere tropical like in How Stella Got Her Groove Back. (I’ve never watched the movie, but I imagine that a guy’s cold house might have been a component to the plot.)

  I’m like Raymond BURRRRRR in Perry Mason. I own a horse named Mr. Ed and my name is WilBURRRRRR! I’m John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and I’m dancing to the song “BURRRRRRn, Baby, BURRRRRRn.”

  “Seriously, Jack. I’m freezing here.”

  “Just come closer. Let’s warm up with some body heat.”

  “Aren’t you freezing, too?”

  “No way. The whiskey is warming me up. You want some more? I’m gonna grab some.”

  “Nah. I’m good.” Jack proceeded to get trashed, downing whiskey like it was Kool-Aid. After a while, the whiskey coupled with the boring movie knocked him out.

  “Jack? Jack. Wake up.” He didn’t move. He started snoring.

  Fuck it. I wasn’t going to get any action. He was dead to the world. I left him on the futon and ventured upstairs to find his bedroom.

  I popped into the bathroom and I gasped. It was a total guy’s bathroom. His shower was cluttered with an array of products with no more than a quarter inch of shampoo left in each of the crusty, dank plastic bottles. They were propped up on the edge of the tub like a police lineup. He had the usual suspects: White Rain, Suave, VO5, Fructis, and Selsun Blue.

  I’m not a shampoo snob—well, maybe I am—but I’d rather use plain water than lather up with anything in this moldy shampoo graveyard. He doesn’t have to be a metrosexual Aveda freak, but a little bit of a higher-end shampoo would’ve gone a long way.

  He had one cracked bar of plain white soap by the sink that made me feel like I was sudsing up in a prison. Of course the rusty faucet only let about two drops of water cascade down at a time, so trying to wash my hands took way too long. And the only thing he had for facewash was a nearly spent tube of St. Ives Apricot Scrub. That stuff makes me feel like I’m washing my face with gravel. I wasn’t interested in any of this.

  When I went to dry off my hands, there weren’t any towels to be found. I reached for the toilet paper and frowned when I touched it. It was one-ply. Few things make me as distraught as encountering one-ply tissue paper in a dude’s bathroom. Not to be too dramatic, but that flimsy toilet paper makes me reconsider all of my life’s choices. I work myself into a tizzy as my mind races to answer the question, What missteps have I made that have led me to use this inferior ply?

  What if I had run for school president in high school? Do high school presidents wipe with one-ply? I don’t think so! I should’ve worked harder in that statistics class in my junior year of college. It would’ve raised my GPA and—who knows?—maybe I would’ve snagged a better job. What if I’d gone for my MBA? Do MBA grads use one-ply? Hell no!

  If I had gone for my MBA, I’d probably be dating a real man who had hobbies like rock climbing or windsurfing. He’d be cultured; he’d probably enjoy sipping loose teas from exotic locales. And I’ll bet you ten bucks that he’d have a super-sized roll of Cottonelle (with aloe!) in his bathroom. Or maybe some NASA-developed toilet paper unavailable to the mass market that’s made with ten percent cashmere and five percent kitten hair. Maybe he’d even have a heated toilet seat! Who knows what kind of toilet treats I’m missing out on?

  Instead, I get to date guys that live in West Philly flophouses, drink budget whiskey, and can afford only one-ply toilet paper. I’m pretty sure prisoners get higher-quality toilet paper than this. As a child, I pictured my adult self as an adult surrounded by plush TP. Where did it all go wrong? I’ve not only let myself down, but I’ve let my inner child down, too.

  By the time I left his bathroom, I had a dead look in my eye and I was quoting Nietzsche. I climbed into his bed, cursing myself for ever leaving the comfort and warmth of my bedroom. It turns out that staying at his house was less eighties ski chateau and more Misery.

  I woke up with the snow piled high outside the window and a groggy Jack beside me. He must’ve crawled into bed during the night.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “What? Oh, hey. What time is it?”

  “I don’t know. Your clock says eight thirty A.M.”

  He groaned and hoisted himself out of bed.

  “What? No cuddling?” I pouted.

  “Sorry. I gotta get ready for work. Why don’t you see if Suzy’s up? Maybe you can spend the day with her.”

  “I’m sure she’s still sleeping. It’s pretty early. I mean, I’ll text her.”

  “Well, you gotta figure something out because you can’t stay here.”

  “I thought you said that we could hang out. That was the whole point of me even coming here, Jack.”

  “I have work to do. I told you that. Go hang with Suzy. I’ll text you when I’m done. Is it cool if you scoot soon? I have things to do.”

  “All right. Just let me get my things together.” I gathered up all of my stuff and trekked out into the snow. I couldn’t even hear him shut the door behind me because the snow was coming down so heavily. Thank God Suzy answered the door when I rang her doorbell. With twelve inches on the ground, I wasn’t going anywhere I couldn’t walk.

  “Hey, girl!”

  “Anna! Come in, come in.” Her house was warm, thank God.

  “I was across the street at Jack’s, and you’re not going to believe this, but he kicked me out of his house for the day.”

  “Oh, that guy is the worst. Here, take a seat. I’ll make some coffee.”

  I had a great day with Suzy, catching up and giggling, but I started to get a strange feeling that I wasn’t going to hear from Jack again. Three P.M. came with no word. Then, four P.M. Then, five P.M. Six P.M. rolled around and still no word.

  “Suzy, I have a weird feeling about this. He’s going to blow me off. I can feel it.”

  “I’m sure he’s just busy,” she reassured me.

  Finally, at seven P.M. I texted him.

  Hey. What’s up?

  Twenty-three minutes later, I got a text back:

  I think I’m just gonna lay low at my house. Um, you can come over…if you want.

  I wrote:

  Well, do you want me to come over?

  Another ten minutes went by before he wrote back.

  It’s up to you. I mean, you can. If you want.

  Nothing puts a pin in my balloon faster than a guy saying this to me. It is the most noncommittal, least enthusiastic, unfriendliest, crummiest thing to hear from someone you were excited to spend time with. Of course I want to hang out! Of course I want to come over! That’s why I drove all the way over here for the blizzard. All signs point to Yes-I-Want-to-Hang-Out land.

  I’m not sure if this is even scientifically possible, but I swore I could hear him shrugging through the phone. It was maddening. I felt my whole body becoming hot with anger, like when Sarah Connor grabs the fence when the nuclear bomb hits in Terminator 2.

  I wanted to punch a pillow. I wanted to slam a heavy door. This little text exchange had essentially turned me into the Hulk. Great.

  Then, like a roadside bomb, he sent this:

  I think it’d be best if we were just friends. I don’t think that this is going to work.

  I read the message out loud to Suzy and she rolled her eyes.

  “He was the one who invited me over in the first place! So now he’s dumping me? Nothing even happened between us. He passed out on the couch. I’m sorry, the futon.”

  Suzy got up and grabbed me a beer from the fridge. “Don’t worry about it. You’re here with me. You’re out of his rathole of
a house. Don’t give it another thought.”

  “To not thinking!” I said.

  “To not thinking!” she echoed, raising her beer in the air and taking a sip. “You can stay here as long as you want. Seriously, forget him.”

  For the third time ever, I deleted his number from my phone.

  Suzy let me crash on her couch as the snow choked off the streets. Cars weren’t even cars anymore, just large lumps of snow. However, I was woken up by the sound of sharp shoveling noises. I shuffled over to the window and saw Jack trying to shovel out his car from the massive amount of snow. I had to take pause.

  He was wearing his bedroom slippers, no socks, pajama pants with Homer Simpson saying “I am so smart” printed on them, a ratty T-shirt, a winter coat, and…that’s it. Picture that outfit in your mind. Things that were missing from his snow shoveling outfit: Gloves. A hat. A scarf. Socks. Hands down, he was the most ill-prepared snow shoveler I’ve ever seen.

  Besides his outfit being insane, the way he was swiping at the snow on his windshield with the sleeve of his coat made him look like a maniac, too. He was hopping through the snow like Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream because he didn’t want to get snow in his slippers. I have an idea: Don’t wear slippers outside! I mean, who wears their slippers to shovel out their car? That’s crazy!

  Then, I saw Jack playfully toss a snowball at a girl standing by his front door smoking a cigarette. Holy shit. He had another girl with him. She was getting the snowball fight that he had promised me. Where the hell did she come from? The city was buried under several feet of snow and he’d somehow managed to sneak a girl into his place? Is he a magician? Was she in a closet the whole time? How’d he do that? She shrieked playfully as he pelted her with snowballs. He must have a huge pair of snowballs to openly flaunt her in front of me like that.

  I didn’t know who I was angrier at: him for tangling me in this mess or myself for ignoring the obvious signs and believing he’d changed.