it's a small world and it smells funny

[the_siobhan]

The Epic Purge (A phrase that, now coined, immediately reminds me of one of elixxir's euphemisms for one of her bowel movements) continues to eat the house. I have stacks of things sitting around in massive Don'tTouchThatI'veJustSortedIt piles that must be skirted carefully so as not to fall over and eat the sofa. I keep telling myself the piles are getting vaguely smaller. I've been posting dozens of items to a couple of the local freecycle groups, craigslisting more stuff and Goodwilling the rest.

One of the things that has been driving me mildly around the bend that so few of the Freecycle people show up to claim the items they claim they want. It's free, get off your asses people.

I admit that I tend to be a lot more understanding about delays when the item is something large, bulky or hard to transport - like the desk I just gave away. It was still sitting on the porch when I came home from work the day it was supposed to be picked up. I got an email that night from the woman who wanted it saying she had come by with her boyfriend to get it but that it wouldn't fit into the car he was driving. His SUV would be out of the shop in a few days and she would come back.

So they were in the neighbourhood today and she rang my doorbell. I helped her haul it down the stairs while the boyfriend - who apparently suffers from a herniated disc - waited in the car. As we were wrestling it into the rear hatch he got out of the driver's seat.

The Evil Ex and I looked at each other and said, "Oh.

...

Hi,"

Once we had the desk in the car we made the barest minimum of polite chit-chat before I bolted back into the house. Which is a shame because she seemed quite nice, but I wasn't sure I could maintain the facade of not calling him an AssNugget in front of her for more than a few seconds. As I was leaving he called out that he would email me. I agreed - mostly because then I could call him an AssNugget not in front of her and make it clear that No I Don't Want To Hang Out With You, No We Are Not Friends. Quite frankly I would prefer to do it in person, but I have social rules about bitching people out in public.

Mind you, she could probably tell. Poker face is not one of my super powers.

(For people who have only recently entered the ongoing saga of my ridiculous life - this post is about the Evil Ex.)

Comments

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Someday, perhaps decades from now, this may become funny... In the meantime, you can content yourself with admiring whatever karma gave him a herniated disc.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think it's pretty funny now.

It occurred to me several times when I was writing crazy_boat that it's easy to call this particular guy the Evil Ex because of all the bad relationships I've ever had, he was probably the least bad. He just never really had enough power over me to do anything that painful. Mostly he was just a huge embarrassing mistake.

That probably only makes sense to me.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Nah, it makes sense. This is one you win.

[melete.livejournal.com]

Damn. Having that happen to me is one of my worst nightmares.

Poker face is not one of my super powers.

Nor mine. I keep telling myself it is a skill I should learn.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is a small world.

You should buy a new one, if you have the money.

At least he didn't puke on your lawn.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Excellent point. :-)

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Good lord. Change your email, NOW!

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

Blocking him would be so much easier.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

True, true.

[mathochist.livejournal.com]

Never mind the email. He knows where she lives, now.

[spikella.livejournal.com]

jeez... sounds like something that would happen to me.

I'm curious to hear how he's The Evil Ex if he's the least bad.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Exhibit A: He asked me to marry him when I was high on E, and then tried to hold me to it when I was high enough to say yes.

Exhibit B: The story linked at the bottom of the post.

Exhibit C (http://community.livejournal.com/dramatards/13081.html)

Exhibit D (http://community.livejournal.com/dramatards/13462.html?mode=reply)

Exhibit E (http://community.livejournal.com/dramatards/13702.html)

Seriously, it was all about the embarrassment factor. I had one friend who used to just point at me and howl whenever EE's name came up.

[spikella.livejournal.com]

good

lord

...clearly i joined dramatards too late in the game because these are gold
wow
you must have been so happy to see him get out of the car

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

You know, the scary thing is that i can see a little of my younger self in those stories - not the actual scenarios, jealousies etc, just the "so insecure i can't help but be a cockhead and not even know it" aspect. So glad i'm not that me any more.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I suspect - even though we've never met in person - that you would be at least be open to the possibility of discussing your behaviour and getting input from the people it's affecting.

One of the reasons I mock EE so much is that he never admitted fault or responsibility for anything in the entire time I knew him. He once hit a post or something while driving and the first thing he did was turn to the person in the passenger )who just happened to be my mother) seat and say, "That was your fault."

[(Anonymous)]

The very idea of someone saying that to your mom makes me very angry. Then again, I can see her bitching this guy out, and that makes me smile.
Glenn says he can just picture her saying something like "..so I had to kill him."

Jenn*

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

yeah, they were Not Friends after that.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Ah, denial - first line of defence for the chronically insecure. Been there, try not to revisit.

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

Well, goddamn.

Y'know, that's probably going to happen to me someday...and I'm probably not going to be cool enough to not lose my shit and tell him exactly where he can go and how he can get there. I'll even provide directions if necessary ;)

Who needs poker face anyway :)

[sola.livejournal.com]

I swear to god, one day this is going to happen to me with Gabriel's (actuallY) Evil Ex, and i am going to come to in a ring of cops.


On the other hand, that's the most hilarious damn thing i've heard of this week. And yeah, the piles may get smaller on the top, but they're breeding at the bottom, under cover of darkness.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Shush you. They are getting smaller! They are!

It's truly ridiculous just how much crap we've managed to accumulate. We've only been here for four years.

[dali-muse.livejournal.com]

I think that part that most horrifies me is the drunken plea to his Mother to let him in the house! (It's also making me laugh the loudest.)

What an absolute child! Talk about kissing a lot of frogs before you find a prince!

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I just realized after re-reading that I didn't mention he had no ID with his parents' address on it - he hadn't bothered to change anything to his current address even though he'd been living there for almost a year by that point.

Of course I found that out when the cops showed up.

[death4breakfast.livejournal.com]

I have this curse about never being able to avoid exes. They were absolutely unavoidable when I lived in Colorado. I pretty much couldn't go out without running into an ex.

When I moved to Kentucky from Colorado, I was sitting home one night, watching TV and going, "Thank god I have no exes to run into here," I wound up seeing my first ex gf on HBO's Real Sex. Talking about something we'd done.

A few years later, I saw her in an airport while I was flying home to Wisconsin. (We did not speak.)

About seven years ago, I happened across a set of nude pictures of another ex in a Usenet binaries group.

These days, I try not to leave the house or turn on the television if I can avoid it. :)

[mathochist.livejournal.com]

Once, during an insta-filk panel at a con, a song was written about me.
The song was entitled "I Have Too Many Exes At This Con."

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

In your case I would definitely feel that I had at least one too many ex at that particular con.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of ex's in Toronto that I am quite happy to run into. (And in fact I need to get off my ass and give my ex-husband a call, he's going through some really bad stuff and I've been really sucky at keeping in touch with him.)

I have a couple of genuinely bad ex's who would be more problematic, but I figure I'd deal if I had to. And quite a few who I honestly would not care one way or the other.

This one is a pain because it's a) embarrassing to admit that I ever dated him and b) every time we do run into each other he pulls the "We should get together for coffee" shtick. I gave him the benefit of the doubt once and talked to him for about 15 minutes before I realized that he hasn't changed one little bit and coffee with him is not going to happen.

I suspect it's all really about him thinking I can still do stuff for him.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

One reason I am so glad my exes all live on a different continent than me!

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

While I'm tremendously chuffed to be remembered, like ever, it should pain me that my legacy in this world are my dumps right?

Wow. Universe. Crazy shit, that. Ha. There I go mentioning my bowel movements again, entirely by accident that time.

I'm not well.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Hang on. Some woman whom you've never met sees your ad on Freecycle, shows up with her bf to pick up the desk and the bf turns out to be your EE? I mean, holy crap, what are the odds?

I'm glad that he's just a clueless ex and not a malicious or dangerous one. I just hope he doesn't start thinking that "dropping by for coffee" is a good idea.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

No shit, eh?

If he does show up I'll have no reservations about telling him to sod off.

I concur with your freecycle woes

[inyou.livejournal.com]

Recently we moved about 30 miles away, from a podunk nowhere college town into the North end of a town that could actually be called a "city" even though there isn't much on the way of PIB nightlife.

When arranging for people to come pick stuff up for miscellaneous furniture that we had accumulated that we no longer needed, and needed to get rid of because we were downsizing to a 2-bedroom apartment instead of a 3-bedroom house with a garage, there was one person in particular that gave a response of "oh I didn't realize it was so big" when the dimensions were in the freecycle posting in the first place.

Another person ended up taking a mattress for a bed and was going to pick up the rest and then my wife got an email back that "my husband says we can't take the bed frame, so do you want me to bring the mattress back?" So we tell her yes because there is a little girl in line next for it that will put it to use. We then hear back in about a day or two's time that "a skunk wandered by a sprayed on the mattress so we won't be bringing it back." BULL! Skunks don't just randomly spray on things. If you were saying you were just going to keep the damn thing just be honest.

Good luck with the purge...

I'm just glad that I think I have gotten my two EE's out of the picture. One from high school; and one shortly after high school where there were awful problems of an abusive step-father and running away from home to escape it and then finding someone online and leaving me for him without telling me in person there was a problem with our relationship.