George Costanza Lives On

I have discovered The Thing I Possibly Hate Most.

This morning, my lovely little Launchcast radio station is having "Fuck With Gladys" day. I would feel worse about this if I hadn't, in some better mood now past, specifically programmed it with songs guaranteed and intended to fuck with me in some way.

Anyway, one of the songs it played is from 1993, by a band called Deacon Blue, "Your Town". It's a song with memories attached, although they're memories about something that didn't happen til AFTER the memory was attached, if that makes any sense. It's a breakup song, a divorce song, with a little more optimism and malice than most. Cool tune, anyway.

Squishy nebulous brain-o-mine, though, insisted on a little time-travel to go along.

Back when I left David, with all the drama and terror involved in having my infidelity with JP discovered and confirmed, I expected the whole world to come crashing in. I would drive extensive distances to call JP from untraceable pay-phones in Wal-Mart parking lots; I was always looking behind me, over my shoulder. Some of it was paranoia and --dare I say it? guilt?--but some of it was understandable. David was not the most stable human I'd ever known. He was never violent with me, but I always sensed that possibility--and he talked MUCH shit. I remember a voice-mail one morning, threatening me with all sorts of legal and financial ruin for daring to screw him over. I understood his anger--I was totally in the wrong--but it still scared the hell out of me. I think that was a major deciding factor in why I didn't attempt to work things out with him, which he'd begged me to do for a long time after I left--on some level, I knew he was never going to let it go, not really, no matter what I did.

He was a petty little bastard. Really he was. For example:

When we were together, there was this hot-dog place we used to go pretty often, right by his old workplace. The people who worked there knew us; the owner knew us and talked to us often. It was one of those places where if you were a regular customer, they just loved you to bits and would do anything for you.

A few weeks after I'd left--and now please, keep in mind that I was being very kind in my communications with him, despite all provocations to the contrary--I was trying to make this as painless and merciful as possible for David, no matter what I WANTED to say to him--anyway, a few weeks after I left he said he wanted to go out and talk for a while. He tried to explain that he "understood" me now (the mechanism by which he had acquired this supposed "understanding" is a blog post for another day, and still makes me giggle when I think about it) and that he wanted me to come back and try to work things out. Which, no. Wasn't gonna happen. Which, in the kindest possible terms, I tried to tell him.

And of course, he got pissed, and informed me of the following:

Apparently, the owner of the hot-dog place had made the grievous mistake of asking David where I'd been lately, and got an earful. Whereupon the owner agreed that a commemoration of my evil, black-hearted ways were needed, and promptly created a lunch-special in my honor...

...known as the Floozie.

And THIS, dear readers, brings me to the Thing I Possibly Hate The Most.

Because it was this morning, while listening to that song--now fully ten-and-a-half years later!!!!--that I came up with the perfect retort* for that information.

Ten and a half YEARS!!! That's SO not fair.



*(For the record, it was "Well, I certainly hope they used the foot-long hot dog for THAT one...")