SATMATC 11: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

We drove to Watertown in record time, and didn't even have trouble finding Sean's place. It looked like typical military housing apartment buildings, only it wasn't on base (thank god). Sean and the kids met us at the door. The girls were very happy to see Uncle Shea, and while they were engaging him, Sean took me aside and asked about the trip.

The trip was a nightmare, obviously, but I was still having a good time. I was well past hating Shea, and into "despise" territory. He had driven about six hours of the whole trip thus far, attempted to sabotage a budding relationship with a hot chick, and had nearly gotten us busted not once, but twice while crossing borders. He also farted a lot.

This, of course, is everyone's opinion of their road trip partners by the end of the second day. Grown men turn into whining blobs of needs. Grown women cry for no immediately apparent reason--and I'm not talkin' sexy crying, either. Kids turn into monkeys. I grok Chevy Chase in all those "Vacation" movies. Those were right on.

So the trip was a nightmare. Sean was pretty damn relaxed about the whole situation; I expect he anticipated personality conflicts, or maybe he really didn't care. In any event, as soon as we were alone, he told me that Alethea had called.

Alethea, if you recall, was my recent sort-of-mostly-ex-girlfriend. I'd given her Sean's number with instructions to call only if the house was burning down. However, knowing that she called didn't necessarily mean the house had burned down--one of the irritating habits she had that led to our ending of the relationship. In fact, she had called from MY phone, which, if the house was on fire, would have melted, right? So I ignored the call.

This is important later in the story.

See, Alethea had been living with my friend John and his merry crew of idjits over on the other side of town. One of those idjits was a guy named Matt, who had decided he wanted to be called "Matteus," which didn't work out for him. You can't ASK for your nickname, especially if you're a dipshit like Matt. So everyone called him Dink. Dink was one of those guys who constantly talks about how big his penis is. No, really--this is a guy who once told us his girlfriend's doctor wrote him a note asking him to "avoid full penetration," because he was too big. Unfortunately for Dink, we had from various sources that his penis was actually quite small, which was cause for all sorts of sniggers and soup-out-the-nose whenever he began his bragging.

Dink had been, from the beginning of this "trial separation," out to get Alethea in the sack. This was no surprise--I suspect she was highly sought after over there, given the quality of the rest of the party girls in the house. It wasn't even a surprise, given Dink's general morality, that he spent a lot of time lying to her about my doings, under the mistaken theory that making me look bad would somehow increase his attractiveness. He was also lying to me about what she was doing, but I didn't believe anything the guy said anyway. Anyone who'll go out of his way to brag about his penis size has some serious issues with the truth to begin with.

Anyway, this obnoxious prick was even lower than I suspected. The day after I left, he rode with her to my house (she was feeding my cat and her dog, an obnoxious blue heeler whelp named "Ophelia"), and planted a used condom wrapper on the floor of my bedroom.

Now bubba, you know me. You know that when I tell you I'm not going to do something, I'm either not going to do it, or make damn sure you never find out that I did. In this case, I wasn't responsible for that condom wrapper, but if I had been, I sure as hell would have been more careful about how I disposed of it.

But the evidence of my infidelity was there--right beside the bed, too close to provide me any wiggle room. I was framed, yer honor. Alethea's phone call had been about this incident. If I had called her back, I might have avoided some of the...inconvenience...that I had to deal with when I got back.

Anyway, I didn't find any of this out until my return. Back to the story.