[Article] Article: The Dating Lighthouse: Part 1

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY

In early times, people set fires at the edge of the water to warn boats of dangerous rocks and shores. In modern times, I will write stories at the edge of insanity to warn people of dangerous bitches and whores.

“It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.” I like that quote. It’s reassuring that maybe what I do to myself can be shown to others, just like Faces of Death, except for dating.

We had decided to go to bed early that night. When I say “we” I mean “she” and when I say “decided” I mean “she whined until I lost the will to fight back”. This had been our little recipe for months now: dinner, a crappy sit-com, whining about not loving her enough, and then sleep. Throw in a few margaritas for spice. Serves one. A few hours earlier I was listening to our manager drone on about sacrifice, another way of saying that we can expect layoffs or more required hours. Usually I’d wince, but the prospect of spending an extra hour a day there didn’t seem that bad. I had taken this job as far away from her as I could manage on my meager budget. Not meager as in I don’t get paid, but it is made meager from the hundreds of dollars a month I sink into “special nights” with her. Apparently a “special night” involves expensive dinner and going to sleep unfulfilled.

I rolled out of bed. 1:18. Gotta be at work in about 6 hours. Not that I actually get into work on time. I’ve been trying for months now to perfect my stealth-showering technique in the hopes that as I am lathering up my defiled form that I won’t hear the scraping of the shower curtain and the foreboding “Mind if I join you, lovey?” That can only mean two things: either she wants to fool around, or she wants cake. That harpy always wants cake.

I stumble around for my glasses (another one of her wonderful ideas. “It’ll make you look smart!”) and trip over another cat toy. That goddamn cat. She made me get that as well. Little furry eat-and-shit-and-piss machine. For most of my life I’d avoided taking care of pets; I can barely manage basic hygeine without getting a migraine and now I’m responsible for an animal.

With claws.

And a horrid case of the surprise shits. (You know the ones I’m talking about? The one where the damn thing rolls up next to you, jumps on your lap, and then in a non-vocal way yells “Surprise!” by shitting on you?)

I walk into the kitchen. My eyes drift towards the picture of us that we took 2 years earlier. My friends had warned me that she was a bit unstable, a bit off, a bit…well let’s be honest…fucking crazy. At the time I hadn’t seen a good pair of tits since I walked in on my best friend nailing my current girlfriend. He did have a wonderful rack. So I told myself it’d just be casual, nothing serious. If I could have smacked the smile off that picture I would. But then she’d just wake up.

I roll back into bed and finally go to sleep. My next conscious memory is that of a warm mess around my ankles. Surprise! I get up to get the rag and I hear the moanful bleating of my girlfriend singing in the shower. I reach inside the hamper to get a towel (my head’s already hurting) when she pulls back the curtain and says, “I forgot to tell you last night, I’m moving to your company! We can spend the entire day together!”

“It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.”
 
I think that it's funny that as i was reading this i could faintly hear "Love Hurts" playing out in the warehouse...