In many ways I consider myself a lucky guy. Over the course of my life, I have been in all kinds of situations, and I’m still here to write about them. Those situations range from dumb kid stuff to typical war environment stuff. I’m happily boring now, I’m not involved in any Tomfoolery and to be fair at 42 years old I shouldn’t be. However, when I was younger, dumber, and happily not as boring, I had a few good times that I reminisce with friends about. So, I’m going to invite you into my memories during one of those more lighthearted moments this week.
Thirsty
As a male at 18 years old my brain was very much on Hollywood mode meaning sex, drugs and money were more intriguing than books, games and charity. To be fair though, the drugs part was really, really low for me. At that point my highs were contact highs because I knew some serious potheads. I was into actual candy at that point, not the edible weed or booger sugar. This was a simpler time for young people in the hood. We had weed…just one or two flavors at the time, those being dirt weed and good weed. This wasn’t long before pill popping became fashionable, or at least before I knew it to be. That said, my interests centered on sex and money. As a shy kid, the money aspect was way easier for me to get because hustling is in my genetic code somewhere. Talking myself into some panties wasn’t my gift, I was usually invited in once girls got to know me, which seems like a long time to an 18-year-old, no matter how long it is in actual time.
This particular Friday I was hanging out with my cousin, cruising through the city looking for something to get into as usual. He was fresh out of jail, I was fresh out of high school and it was the weekend and I had just been paid from my job at Allstate. That to say, we weren’t driving around looking for money or drugs. We stopped at this restaurant to get an Italian beef and opportunity seemed to find us. My friend called and asked if I remembered this girl from high school, which I did. He said she invited us over that evening to “hang out” with her and her half sister. It was looking like my search was over, and the smart thing to do was drop my cousin off at home and proceed to this no brainer situation with my buddy. Pretty sure I mentioned I was young and dumb though, so he came with me anyway.
Third Wheel Motion
That evening the three of us piled into my tiny blue Ford Festiva and headed to the girl’s house. We didn’t ask any important questions until we were already in the house. You know, “are your parents home”, “what do your parents do for a living”, or “what kind of dog do you have”. Even then, we asked those questions when we pretty much knew the answer to the first two at least. We sat in their basement charming these girls in this overcrowded situation. They were only interested in my buddy and I because my fresh out cousin, is telling tales from his days in the joint. Funny stuff, but certainly not the kind of conversation befitting of the scenario we found ourselves in. Awkwardness compounded because their dad was a cop.
Mood Change
As we’re laughing and joking we heard walking and talking above us so we immediately shut up. The girls told us to hide in this storage closet in their basement so we went in with the lights off and just stood there motionless and silent. Her dad comes down into the basement, talking loud, audibly upset, tells them to “clean this shit up and take y’all ass to bed, it’s 2 in the morning”. While he is scolding them, these two rottweilers are sniffing and barking at the storage closet containing the 3 jackasses that didn’t live there. Luckily, and much like a lot of cops, he didn’t follow the evidence at all. He was more annoyed that these dogs were barking, no concern for why. When he finished yelling at the girls, he yells at the dogs…walks up to the door stood there for a second and told the dogs “get yo ass upstairs, ain’t nothing in that closet”. He is still standing there, farts, walks away, and reminds them to hurry up.
They finish cleaning up, the TV and lights turn off, then the door closes. It’s painfully silent and we’re still huddled up in this closet whispering to each other about a plan to escape. Though it is really dark now, our eyes adjusted a little, enough to see each other moving around. About 15 minutes later We heard slow but heavy walking above us, then the door to the basement opened, the light turned on and walking around the basement. The additional light coming from under the door was enough for us to see that my cousin had a gun in his hand. We’re whispering to him to put it away and he’s giving us this fresh out take on why we will have to shoot our way out. Finally, those steps get to the closet and there’s a tap at the door. The girl opens the door and says, “I forgot y’all were down here” and escorts us to this tiny door out the side of their home.
Luck Kicks In
I dropped my friend off, my cousin stayed at my place for the evening and I took him home the next day. Oddly enough, the girl that was originally interested in my friend, called me up and asked if it would be OK if we tried again that evening, but without my cousin. I was still good on money and no desire for drugs, so I said yeah. Now, you’re probably thinking, Doug seems like a smart guy, he probably asked some questions to avoid a similar scenario. I can tell you with certainty that 42 year old Doug is that smart…18 year old Doug ended the conversation with “yeah, we’ll be there”. It was a “by any means necessary” moment being orchestrated by the girls…we were just willing participants. As luck would have it though, they thought things through at the last minute and they ran outside in their pajamas and socks and hopped into my little blue Festiva and asked if we had a place available. Terrible time to ask that, but my friend’s brother, 10 years older than us cleared us to use his apartment since he was going to his girlfriends’ house anyway.
I did learn something from this though. On the way to drop them back off at home, I let them know we’d drop them off a block away so there’s no sound or loud car noises when they go back in the house, even though I was double parked with my lights off picking them up. It was in this moment I realized how legit post-nut clarity is. The lead up was reckless with very little critical thought, or consideration of consequences applied at all, pre-nut confusion if you will. Based on this, I fully understand how guys can get caught up in weird situations like Tiger Woods did. It’s not that guys are dogs, scandalous cheaters, or anything like that, we’re just searching for clarity while in a confused state.
😁