Bong Juice

I invited him to my apartment for dinner...just dinner and conversation. We really needed to talk. He insisted that I instead come to his house for a dinner he would prepare, but I didn't want to go to his house--I don't like his furniture--and I didn't want to drive the 11 or 12 miles to get there...I was still traumatized by the veal problem and his other inconsiderate ways, but I of course eventually caved in and drove down there as fast as I could with the air-conditioner on high.

The old me would have refused his invitation and said, "Come to my place or we're not getting together tonight. Period." But these damn hormones....so even though intellectually, I know he is a bad deal, I nevertheless went to him because I felt attached. Well, fuck me.

He was cordial when I arrived. He hugged me and invited me in, but the house was filled with a foul odor. I meant to be polite, but the smell offended me and, when I insisted on remaining on his miniscule deck even though it was almost 100 degrees out, he wanted to know why...."Why stay out there when I have the fuckin' air-conditioning on, Dolores?"

I lost it then. I was so angry for all his past misdeeds. I shrieked, "Your fucking house smells awful! Why did you invite me here?!" Without missing a beat, he went into one of his long (exhausting) stories about himself and explained that two nights earlier, in an attempt to prepare food for the coming week, there had been an explosion on the stove when the tomato sauce boiled over and splattered most of the kitchen....yeah, probably because he was drunk, I thought....he subsequently left "other things" on the stove and they created, he believed, some sort of mold problem, and that was probably what I smelled. But, hey, I know foul bong juice when I smell it. I used to be the King of foul bong juice.

It was at this moment that I suddenly had an intense moment of clarity--a revelation....

"What an ass," I thought. What a complete drunken, pot-addled, narcissistic, passive-aggressive, used-up ass." I can do so much better. All that initial bravado...was nothing but hot air. After all, he was my rebound man after The Undertaker and, let's face it, any man is an improvement over The Undertaker.

So I took a good look at him and smiled. I told him it was time for me to go, but he wanted me to stay. I said I couldn't, it smelled too bad in there. He offered to take me out for dinner. I said no, maybe another time.

And maybe there will be another time....when both of us see things with clarity....