Monday, January 3, 2011

Colossal Lapses in Judgement

Whenever the new year rolls around, despite the fact that I resolve pretty much nothing, I can’t help but be a little bit retrospective about my life.  All the events that have led me here.  I’ve made some good decisions but most of those were accidents, and I’ve made more than my share of bad decisions.  How I came out in one piece on the other side of them is like wondering how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop (the world may never know).    What I’m going to share right now, ranks right up there with my most serious lapses in good judgement.  
What brings this on?  Well poking around in my junk trunk has produced a VHS of The Jerry Springer Show.  Not just any Jerry Springer show, this is one of the Jerry Springer episodes before he got all the heat from the television PTB’s.  We’re talking chair throwing, cat fighting, ugly shit.  And I’m going to trot it out her for your entertainment.  To be perfectly honest, this was my life but I didn’t really take it on the Jerry Springer Show. If it had made it to Springer it might have looked like this: 
***”Hello Ladies and Gentlemen.  I use the term extremely loosely because we all know who ‘really’ watches my show, I’m Jerry Springer and today we bring you “Assholes and the family members who carry their children”.  On stage I’d like for you to meet Candy.  She is 5 months pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby.  We’ll meet him later.  So Candy, what do you have to tell the audience?”  
Candy: “I just love Tad so much (eyes well up with tears) I just can’t believe that he would leave the state to get away from me and his baby”.  
“Now Candy is there anything else you need to tell us about your situation?”
“Well, he’s also my step brother.”
****audience****oooooohhhhhhh
“And he’s seeing someone else”(she dissolves into tears)
“That scoundrel, let’s get him out here”  
****audience*****booooo!  booooo!  
“Okay, Tad, have a seat there on the other side of the stage.  Candy, has been telling us about the situation you got her into and are now trying to run from” *explosive cheers from crowd*
“Okay, okay....everyone just settle down.  Is it true then Tad that you are the father of Candy’s baby?”
“Yeah, that’s what she tells me”
“And you are also her step-brother?  Exactly how long has this been going on?”  
“Since my mom married her dad.”
“And that’s....”
“A few years.  It’s not like we grew up together or anything”.  
“I see and the reason you are trying to get away from her and your baby?” 
“Uh, because she is a controlling bitch and I don’t conform for anyone.”
****audience**** boooo!  booooo!
“Okay, so I have a little surprise for the both of you.  Would everyone like to meet the other woman?”  
*crowd cheers wildly, candy starts crying again and Tad starts to look a bit green*
“Tory why don’t you come on out now”  *comes out to a lash of catcalls and boos*  She barely has time to sit down and get her bearings before....
“You’re a home wrecker!  Slut!” cries Candy before launching out of her chair and hurtling herself with astonishing speed for a pregnant lady toward the defenseless Tory.  She manages to land a few blows and draw blood from Tory’s cheek with her ridiculous fingernails before being pried away by ‘security’ and crumbles into loud sobs again as if she were the one who has just been attacked. ***** 
*DISCLAIMER - She seriously was a controlling bitch, and I really wasn’t trying to steal anything from her.  I just sort of genuinely enjoyed his company and lacked the requisite good judgement to walk away. 
And as Paul Harvey would say....here is....the rest of the story.
Imagine if you will, I’m 20 years old living with my mother and paying rent along with two other housemates.  A nurse and a carpenter.  This is starting off like a bad joke already....but I am rabbit trailing. The nurse is not important the carpenter is.  He was cute and about 5 years older than me.  Bright blue eyes and an easy manner.  When mother decided to rent to him I took her aside and hissed at her... “You can’t take on attractive renters!”  She looked at me like she honestly didn’t know what I was talking about.  
It didn’t take long for he and I to start sleeping together.  I mean honestly, how convenient that we lived in the same house?  We liked spending time together too.  Then I started learning more about him, because honestly we couldn’t fuck ALL the time.   Come to find out he had moved down from up north getting away from family and all the pressures that went with that.  Then find out that he has a pregnant girlfriend who followed him down in hopes of convincing him to move back with her.  This is where it starts to get really twisted, stay with me now.  She’s also his step-sister.  That’s right, her dad and his mom were married.  
Long story short, he caves and goes back to the great northern hinterlands but not before inviting me to come with him.  What ever in the world made me think that I could be anything next to a pregnant step-sister girlfriend I’ve no idea, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t pack up everything that I owned into my hatchback and follow him up north when he asked.  As I’m sure you can imagine this didn’t play well with his pregnant step-sister girlfriend (I keep saying that because even now, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the reality of it) or his mom, or her father, or his full sister who happened to be best friends with pregnant step-sister.  
I stayed up there for a few weeks, she tried to have a cat fight with me over him a couple of times but somehow she ended up looking like the victim (which I hated because I never touched her). She failed to realize a key aspect and that was that I wasn’t there to steal him from her (he was never really hers), I didn’t really want him all that badly. I was simply being 21, floating along the currents of life.  I was reasonably sure, in the way that only those in their early 20s can be, that whatever happened it would all be alright. 
I hope this little narrative doesn’t make you dislike me.  I never wanted to inflict emotional or any other type of damage on anyone.  But when you talk about colossal lapses in judgement, I’ll say that is right up there for me. Possibly even a record when I think about it.  One of those smack yourself in the forehead later and wonder “WTF was I thinking?”
Please tell me I’m not the only one who has done colossally stupid things.  

17 comments:

  1. lol @ step sister girlfriend.

    also, all 21 year olds think they know everything. otherwise we'd never have tried stupid shit. it generally has a habit of working out in the end. but i have some epic HOLY FUCK WHAT WAS I THINKING?!? moments in my younger years.

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  2. No way have you been the only one to do stupid things,, we all do them. The only people in the story that sound really dumb is the pregnant step-sister girlfriend, and the guy... U sound like a young woman trying to find love.
    It does seem like a great jerry springer story though...

    amberlashell.com

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  3. Definitely not the only one! at that age we really don't have a clue (but think we do).

    But I tend to look forward not back.. the mistakes we make are all part of what makes us who we are now.

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  4. No, you're not the only one. I'm still paying for one of my more major WTF decisions. But in retrospect, I realize that those moments have helped shape who I am now. As much as they may suck, I just take what I can from them & try to move on.

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  5. I can't believe Jerry is still on the air. It's the same old script with only different scenarios and characters. Pump up the audience, class-less people on stage, security getting ready for the fight, crying, end of show, Jerry's opinion. And the man is making millions and millions of dollars. Amazing.

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  6. Steph - yeah talk about shitting where you eat or fucking where you sleep, or pick a fitting metaphor.

    Amber- I think that doing really stupid shit is a rite of passage. We must be wired to have all the common sense drain from our brains (and in my case into my crotch) for a while in our early 20s.

    Oilfield, it is pretty funny when I think back on it. Mostly because that little voice in the back of my head was telling me to run like hell when he told me that his pregnant girlfriend was also his step sister. *insert theme from Deliverance*

    Juniper - I agree that everything in our past shapes our present and there is something to learn from all of it. Looking back sometimes makes us so much more thankful for where we ended up although we fail to see how we could have gotten there.

    Vinny - I know what you mean I have some WTF's that aren't nearly as far removed in my life too. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger though, right?

    Barb - I've no idea if Jerry Springer is still on the air or not. I never really watched it. It was like the worst soft core porn soap opera ever.

    I do feel a tiny bit bad. I wasn't TRYING to inflict harm on anyone but I'm sure I did nonetheless.

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  7. LOL...this beats the hell out of my stuffed green pepper story! And I still love ya, the little home-wrecker that you are :-)

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  8. LOL..very funny and to think my hubby use to watch this all the time

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  9. This is hillarious! Thanks for making me smile!

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  10. Holy crap...but honestly we all have had Springer moments, haven't we? Yours just happened to involve pregnant step-sister girlfriends. WOW that just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

    hed www.hedabovewater.com

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  11. thank god you didn't marry uncledad..

    any one that hates you for this, is a butt-wipe moron.

    well, except for stepwife. she has a reason...

    homewrecker :)

    love ya!

    Bruce
    bruce johnson jadip
    evilbruce
    stupid stuff i see and hear
    Bruce’s guy book
    the guy book

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  12. could have been worse. You could have married him, like the way I married a guy at 22. BIG MISTAKE.
    Why on earth would we judge you? You have to walk to path you have to get to where you are now. And it makes a simply brilliant story. Hugs
    xx

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  13. Chief Dad - Wasn't trying to trump your green pepper story. Sorry about that. I think technically maybe I wasn't a homewrecker, really. Since they hadn't set up housekeeping and he was trying really hard to get away from her. :oP

    Becca - I've caught a few episodes myself, much to my shame. Clearly enough to imagine the recipe of my situation on it.

    Bruce - That's slut and homewrecker to you, sir. *wink*

    Mynx-y....I think I've mentioned having a practice husband when I was 18 that was an absolute disaster. I can't imagine ending up with him but I've often wondered if they ended up all happily ever after. That would be a strange family tree to try and sort out.

    Hed - It does roll off the tongue! Rolls right off the fingers too. I had to say it so many times because you know I just couldn't make this shit up! LOL

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  14. Melissa, don't know how I missed addressing you. I think blogspot ate part of my comment.....

    Always a pleasure to know I've put a smile on someone's face in any given day.

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  15. I once took my toboggan down the wrong side of the snow hill and totally almost hit a tree and then almost hit a rock. What was I thinking?

    Wait... that's on the same level as what you were talking about right?

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  16. Sure thing Kev. Both potentially disasterous, both disasters avoided. We all have our level of WTF when we look back.

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  17. This text is worth everyone’s attention. How can I find out more?
    Renovering tjeneste Danmark

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