Lucy: Source of Unending Disappointment
So Lucy texted me yesterday to tell me she’d be coming into town for Mother’s Day weekend, so I was to clear some time to hang out. Fair enough.
Then she called me this morning — actually, she frantically sought me out by IM, text, and VoiceMail, although I was wandering around town and didn’t take my phone with me, so technically I called her (back) — to let me know she wouldn’t be coming into town. She does this often — any time there’s a light rain or something, she’ll cancel the trip because she doesn’t want to drive in it. I can relate, so it’s not a big deal, but it does get a little old.
Of course, I can’t say anything because it leads to the inevitable “Well, you can always visit me” conversation. It’s not that I mind the drive to Iowa, or that state’s delightful manure-caked-on-popcorn stench; it’s really a lot more personal and depressing. She keeps the most disgusting place I’ve ever seen. In my life. I shit you not. I’ve visited her at three separate apartments (and now she’s officially in a fourth), and each is more disgusting than the last. The last time I went out to see her, I refused to show. I had a hard enough time just sitting on her toilet. When I glanced into the shower and saw brown-black grime in the basin and soap-scum clotting the tile grout…all I gotta say is “yuck.” I’m not a dude known for thorough cleaning, but even I have my limits.
On a shallower note, I don’t like visiting her because, more often than not, when she comes out here, she’s officially on my turf. We do what I want to do. Not that I don’t mind giving her the option, but her option is almost always “let’s go to a bar so I can chain-smoke in your face and take the edge off your rambling with a few light beers.” At the very least, since Illinois is now delightfully smoke-free, even if we did go to a bar, she wouldn’t be inflicting that shit on me. (Hilariously, last summer she came into town with her boyfriend, and the three of us plus her brother went to a pool hall in Schaumburg that was actually really awesome, but I only thought it was awesome because it was, like, a real pool hall. Not a bar with a pool table. They were all freaking out about the “giant” pool tables, which meant I won despite seven years passing before I retired my hustling cue, and were so blindingly enraged by the lack of smoking — Schaumburg had already imposed a ban. They were so disappointed, we ended up going down the road to a shithole Hanover Park — with no pool table — because you could smoke there.)
Anyway, this cancellation had nothing to do with weather or laziness; it had everything to do with her brother acting like a dick. He recently separated from his wife. His grounds were that she’s an awful mother — in fact, his main goal is to fight for custody of their kid before she destroys his young life. Unfortunately, his wife comes from a well-off family who have both the financial and physical means to support the kid. He doesn’t have that luxury; plus, he’s a dude, and somehow that always hurts in custody battles. Oh, and also, the moment he got separated, he ditched the kid with the wife and started dating three women at once. And, yeah, Lucy’s pissed because he made a date even though he knew she was coming into town, and he wouldn’t cancel it when she said the only reason she was coming into town was to see him. (She omitted the part about seeing me, or maybe I’m not a reason. I’m just there.)
I feel kind of bad, because when I talked to him that night last summer, it sounded like he was really hurting over this stuff with his wife and son, but now…he’s just kind of acting douchey.
Also, this means I don’t get to hang with Lucy. She insists she’ll be coming into town “in two weeks.” She said that two weeks ago.
Posted by Stan on May 9, 2008 2:22 PM | Permalink | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em | Digg It
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