Dirty Hooker

I was in the holiday spirit and thinking on all the things I am grateful for, and I stumbled upon one old memory that made me grateful I’m not 20 years old anymore.

True story: I went to Great Adventure with my fiance, the man who would be my ex-husband. We left the water-park section and were getting changed when he realized his sneakers were gone. Stolen.

They were a new pair of sneakers that his parents had spent $150 on, given to him as a gift. A normal person would be pretty steamed. My ex decided the whole thing was my fault, since I must have left the locker open the last time I went in there. I argued that that seemed unlikely, since all our other stuff was still in there, including his wallet. No dice. He completely lost his shit in the middle of Great Adventure, screaming and ranting at me. The exact words are lost in time, but the general gist of it was that I was a worthless piece of shit and should be buried in sand up to my neck and eaten alive by fire ants while vultures pecked out my eyes. Or something like that.

Later, he would recall that he had left his sneakers on the bench next to the locker when he was putting his trunks on and didn’t remember putting them back in the locker. Oops.

When we hit the parking lot, the hot sun had been beating on it all day, and he was barefoot, so I gave him my shoes, and I walked across the parking lot barefoot.

He was peeing his pants that his parents were going to be mad at him, so I bought him a new pair of sneakers just like the old ones. I had to buy them because we didn’t have the cash, and his parents checked his credit card statements and would know he’d lost them. If I recall, he gave me the money back later, but still.

During another trip to an amusement park, I accidentally left a container of powder open in the bag with his wallet. This led to another screaming hissy about how baby powder is flammable. I told him that as long as he didn’t set his wallet on fire, everything would be fine. I’m sure the people on line enjoyed that display. Amusement parks made him decidedly unamusing.

It’s tempting to be all, “What an asshole.” Because it’s true. But I’m the asshole who married that asshole. After a long dating hiatus, I vowed not to spend a lot of time with assholes. This got me some shit from my sister, who, in a heated argument, accused me of thinking I’m too good for everyone because I never spent more than six months in a relationship, but it turns out that when you know what you’re looking for, six months is more than enough time to tell whether someone’s an asshole.

The point of all this is:

1) Holy shit, am I glad I’m not 20 anymore. I was a moron at 20.
2) If I gleaned any wisdom at all from this, it’s that I don’t believe most people who say, “I never saw it coming.” Only the most accomplished and charismatic sociopath can trick people for very long. If you ended up with an asshole, it’s because you stuck your fingers in your ears and sang pretty songs while they cursed at you in front of hundreds of people.

This shit’s cool. Trust me:

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