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2002-02-15 - 1:32 a.m.
survey says it was a bad idea in the first place
Since my roommate Randall started working for AFLAC insurance a few months back, he’s gradually drifted deeper and deeper into that social circle, and effectively out of our group of Towson friends. I don’t mind so much myself, although people around here seem to roll their eyes at him more and more every day. He has gotten pretty obnoxious lately, though. As I like to say, he’s learning how to ‘talk black’ from a bunch of white frat boy insurance agents. So he comes home every night all wound up and spouting a new batch of ridiculous, incomprehensible slang (sample phrase: "knock that shit right off the bling!.....what the hell did I just say?"), and often goes right back out to whatever club the AFLAC heads are up in that night. Most of the time, I’m happy to have him out of the room so I can sit around and listen to records in peace for the rest of the night. But I do sort of wonder if it could be my kind of fun now and then, or at least an easy way to go out and get drunk. On Tuesday night Randall came home for his usual hour of downtime and preparing to go out, and decided that I was going out with him. I had just gotten home from work myself and hadn’t really planned on anything other than, well, sitting around and listening to records, the usual drill. But when I thought about it, I figured “what the fuck”. And in the immortal words of Booger, “what the fuck” will free you. I had no idea whether what I was wearing was appropriate, so I asked Randall for advice on what to wear, and whether I should change. I realized how bad an idea that was as soon as he asked me if I owned any “shiny pants”, and told me to try on his blue-tinted shades. I did make 2 small concessions at his request: white socks and khakis. Apparently my gray socks and green slacks don’t cut it. Once we got to our destination, it occurred to Randall that he didn’t have any cash on him. I really just didn’t want to stand around in the cold while he looked for an ATM so I offered to front the cash to get us inside...let’s call that Mistake #1, but let’s not keep count, because we’d be here all day doing that, and the bad ideas probably started a lot earlier than that. But at least that’s where the bad ideas started emptying out my wallet, anyway. The cover charge was $15, and I was taking care of myself, Randall, and a girl he works with. I paid with three 20’s, and only got back a tenner in change. I was too confused and intimidated to say anything and went on my way. We made our way in and soon met up with Randall’s AFLAC compadres. The club was mammoth and they were having a Mardi Gras celebration, apparently unaware of what city they’re located in. It was one of the saddest sights I’ve ever laid eyes on. I swear the male-to-female ratio was roughly 10-to-1, with big frat boys (and fat ex-frat boys) crowding around every girl and offering beads and alcohol for a flash of nipple or whatever. Now, I don’t wanna get all high and mighty and shrill here, because if that’s how some people get their kicks, more power to ‘em, but honestly, how fuckin’ tacky can you get? It’s shit like that that makes me embarrassed to even be sexual at all. As for the gender divide, Randall insists he saw more girls than guys there, but we’ve agreed that he has some sort of girly tunnel vision. The only way I was going to stay sane in this environment was alcohol and lots of it. Randall and I are both not yet 21, but his co-workers were happy to order drinks for us. Of course, this meant I’d give them the smallest bills I had on me each time, conveniently 10’s and 20’s, and never got change back once. So I kept drinking until I didn’t care about anything. All told, it was kind of nice. I haven’t really gotten drunk for a couple months now, and I was kinda craving it. Towards the end of the night, Randall and I met a girl who had a ridiculous bounty of beads around her neck, and informed us that she got them all without flashing her tits or doing anything nasty, so we gave her all our beads just out of respect. By the end of the night, it occurred to me that I’d left home with $80 in wallet, and now had only $10. This was all the money that my mother had given me when she visited last weekend. It’s practically all I had to last me until I get my first pay check, which is still at least a couple weeks away. And now it’s gone. I wasn’t so upset at first. Randall promised me right away that he’d pay me back ASAP, and get the money his co-workers owed me for the change from the drinks. But it’s been a couple days now and it’s started to dawn on me that Randall isn’t the most reliable person in the world. He makes a lot of money at AFLAC, and can definitely afford to pay me back, but he’s very dodgy about this sort of thing, and already seems to be trying to weasel out of it little by little, negotiating the amount and such. I’m sorry, but when you boast to someone about make $1600 dollars in one day and throwing money around on idiotic luxuries like fog lights, you do not act shady about $50 and accuse someone of ‘nickel and diming’ you. The more I think about it, the more anxious I get. It’s actually gotten to the point that I get pissed everytime I even think about money. I don’t like being aggressive about this sort of thing, but I realize that I have to really just pin him down to get anything out of him. I realize it’s my fault, I should know better. But fair is fair, and even if he’s barely ever here, he still lives here and he can’t avoid me like he usually does when he does someone wrong. In other, if not much less whiny news, I’m also losing my patience with Chris Monahan. A few months ago he did me the great favor of giving me a place to keep my drums in York, PA, where I can come up and jam with him on weekends. But in all this time, I’ve only actually been up there maybe 2 or 3 times. Probably every other weekend or so, I try and give him a call, and he either has something else up, or more often than not, just isn’t around and never calls me back. A couple times, he’s even made plans and then completely flaked out on them. To be fair, he’s the only one with a car, and it’s a couple hours round trip between York and Towson. But mainly it’s him being undependable that’s driving me nuts. We keep talking about making music together, but if we don’t spend any time on it, it won’t happen. This week I’ve called him like 3 times, and 2 of those times, he’s been there but it was just “not a good time”. I can’t even get him on the phone for a minute just to see if he wants to do anything this weekend. My patience is hanging from a thread right now. I don’t feel like being the initiator every time. I don’t care what the situation is, when you call someone over and over and are never called by them, you get to feeling like an idiot. I don’t think I’ll bother trying to call him again this weekend, or even next week. He’s leaving York after this semester, so I’m just going to come get my drums sometime by then, and keep them in my Dad’s house for the time being. I don’t need this. Something funny: lately Marilyn’s been sporting a scarf her friend The Devil made for her, and I really like how it looks, especially after I realized that its 2 colors were almost exactly the very color scheme I handpicked for this here site. Too weird, but very cool. -al P.S. I don’t know what you thought of my last entry, but it gave Kevin a Sporty Spicegasm.
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