Love Story

Carbonated caramel-coloured sugar water?

Check.

U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind - which would be perfect if not for the groan-inducing Beautiful Day - on the stereo?

Check.

Brain hijacked by evil, evil memories?

Check, check, and double check, with one more check for good measure.

I suppose, then, it's time to begin.

The possession of so public of a forum requires a decent amount of discretion on my part. There are a many number of things that I shouldn't post about; and number one with a bullet are the details of my personal life. The reasons for this are varied, but my favorite is also the one with the most common sense: nobody gives a rat's ass. So I ate a strawberry Pop Tart for breakfast this morning. Who cares? Is that knowledge going to empower some poor sap to take charge of his own life? Frankly, I doubt these "revelations" carry enough oomph to puncture a brain cell; beyond the blogger's core audience of friends and family, of course. And since a large section of my audience is imported from somebody else, I'm not sure that anything I have to say about the details of my own rather humdrum existence is going to intrigue anybody besides the terminally bored. But hesitatant introduction aside, I'm still going to go through with it. Prepare yourselves, people; I'm going to be talking about a subject which'll be rolling up your socks instead of knockin' em off. Relationships, of course. Specifically, mine. More specifically, one of them. And may God have mercy on us all.

It all began in the frosty Rocky Mountain House November of 2003. I was working one evening when a rather striking young woman came into the store to purchase some milk. She came up to the counter and we exchanged the normal customer/cashier pleasantries; the typical comments about the weather and somesuch. She was smiling at me the entire time, which I took to be rather odd, because hey, its me we're talking about here. After I gave her the change, she asked if I worked a lot. I replied that I was pretty much there every evening. She gave a coy smile and said, "Good. That means I'll be seeing more of you." My friends know that when I'm in a situation such as this my face turns beet-red and my mouth turns to my brain-signal-ignoring jelly. And of course, this time was no different. She must have thought it was cute, though, because she started chuckling as she waved good-bye.

I saw her a few more times through the end of November and the first half of December, which culminated in her asking me out to lunch. And so we went. During the course of my meal I found out a lot of things about her that would make a lot of normal guys salivate; such as her affinity for fast motorcycles and sky-diving, and the fact that back in her native Indonesia she was the lead singer in a pop-punk group. My side of the conversation was rather sparse, the only thing sparking interest in her being my then-recent conversion to vegetarianism (which has since ended.) After we had finished we then went to my place where we watched "Jackass: The Movie" on my computer. Never underestimate the romantic appeal of buffoonery, I guess. We made a date to hang out together New Year's Eve, which was the next week.

And so, it was December 31st. We renting xXx (goodbye, braincells) and settled in for a rather uneventful night of movie-watching at her house. Her family phoned after I had been there for an hour, leaving me to contend with her 3 year old son. His idea of a fun game was whacking me in the knee with a plastic hammer. I tried to play along for a bit, but I had to end it after he went to grab a REAL hammer. Oh, aren't kids grand??? The rest of the evening went smoothly, but I was struck with the notion that Something Wasn't Quite Right with the whole picture. After all, we have a single mom who just moved to Canada and has no job, yet she was somehow able to afford a swanky new house and a brand new SUV. I inquired into what job she had back in Indonesia to be able to afford all this, and she said she was in PR. Having no idea what the average flack makes, I left it at that.

2003 began. I was at her house almost every single night. We even took a trip to Red Deer together, where I was subjected to her singing in the vehicle. Please note: If you have a heavy Indonesian accent, it's not a good idea to sing Celine Dion. Ever. Don't. However, she was beginning to act strange. She would get wistful and intimate that she wanted nothing more but to run away with me, because she was in l... and then she would stop. I knew what she meant, and it sent chills down my spine. Not because I have a phobia of the l-word, mind you; but because 1.) I'd only known her for a couple of weeks and 2.) she knew absolutely nothing about me. I could describe every detail of her life story to anyone who cared to listen, but besides the facts that I worked in convenience store and I didn't meat, she knew zip. This was partially my doing, of course, because I've learned nothing ruins a relationship quite like me opening my big mouth. However, she didn't appear all that interested, anyway. The notion that Something Wasn't Quite Right swelled up once again.

It came to pass that one night I was able to get off work earlier than I expected. So I went home, and decided that I would phone her. I dialed her number and was surprised when a man answered the phone. I asked in a fairy nervous fashion if she was in, to which he grunted angrily and passed off the phone. When she answered I rather jauntily asked who that guy was. She rather nonchalantly replied that it was her husband. Oh. It turns out he was working in Russia the whole time, and every trace of his existence was cleverly erased from the household. She said she wouldn't be able to get in touch with me for about a week (for obvious reasons) and we'd get together later. Hoo boy. The pieces had come together. I don't think I ever talked to her again, but that wouldn't be the last I'd hear of her.

I was quite the babbling fool for the rest of the evening. I had visions of some fearsome fire-and-brimstone Relationship God slamming his palm on the earth and bellowing streams of invective at me. In an instant, any good relationship karma I had built up immediately evaporated. "The Other Man" by Sloan suddenly took on a deeper meaning. O Foul Temptress! Lead astray by your wickedness! These thoughts kept on until I was informed rather briskly by an acquaintance that I should suck it up and recognize that it was mostly my fault for sensing something wrong and doing fuck all about it. Quite true, I have to admit. Although in my defense my gut usually has shit-for-brains, and I take anything it tells me with a grain of salt. Eventually, the only thing I was really mad at was the fact I left my copy of The Royal Tenenbaums over at her house. What was I going to do, knock on the door and say, "Hey there! I'm the guy who turned you into a cuckold! Can I have my movie back please?"

And that's not the end of it. Yep, there's more. It came to pass that several months later my roommate spotted her driving past our house numerous times one day. I didn't end up getting stabbed, thank goodness; but her husband was rather shocked to come back home from Russia one day to find out that she had fled the country with their son.

True story.