To Hell in a Handbasket

Yes, I know, it's been forever. Don't be too mad at me though, it's not all my fault.

First off, if you didn't already gather, we moved. The hubby, Our Bum and I now have a huge apartment and it's awesome. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths, washer and dryer, dishwasher. We really couldn't ask for much more. Moving pretty much sucked though. We got approval on a Wednesday, packing by Thursday, rented the U-Haul on Saturday and had everything out of the old place by Tuesday.

Right in the middle of things, I tweaked my back pretty good and found myself damn near in tears every time I had to bend down to pick something up. We were all tired and sore but we got it done, without a word to Li'l Mama or a dollar to our old Managers. I've been working on unpacking, it hasn't been the funnest task. It truly is a shock that we were able to fit all of this crap into that tiny old apartment, because once you spread everything out here, it's impossible to believe it could have been done.

Settling in, relaxing, readjusting and we were able to have our Thanksgiving celebration the Monday before Thanksgiving. We made a bunch of food, breaking in our new kitchen, and all our friends contributed at least a little to the cause. There were fifteen of us, something that could have never happened in the old apartment. Alcohol was abundant, but it was no biggie because it had already been prearranged that some people would be crashing on our living room floor.

This is where things went sour. Are you sure you want to hear the story? For sure? Really? Alright, you asked for it.

Like I said, there was a lot of alcohol. People started heading home, leaving the current floor dwellers and a few friends who live close. I head up to bed (yes up, it's a townhouse, hehe) because I had one too many drinks and didn't want to end up spinning. Everyone was left in the living room. Everyone being: Tall, Sassy, their buddy (all prearranged to sleep there) Our Bum, as well as two of the waitresses from the hubby's work.

As for the waitresses... I need to come up with names for them, I've already mentioned one several times and the other is sure to be mentioned quite a bit from here on out considering she is our new neighbor. I think we'll call the one I have already spoken of Brat, military reference, not personality reference and the other we'll call... Betty, an old biddy name to represent a wisdom beyond her years and experience.

Anyway, back to the story. Here, I'll add a few side notes to help the understanding of some of these people's mindsets. Our Bum had a thing with Brat, then didn't want anything to do with her. Our Bum then decided he likes Betty, really pissing off Brat. Our Bum had used Betty to make Brat jealous, Betty didn't know this. As far as everyone else, the hubby was drunk, no denying that. Tall was pretty far gone and Sassy hadn't been feeling good all night so she was going back and forth between happy, moody and asleep, and their friend was half passed out, half rolling on the floor mumbling.

Remember this is all stuff I found out after the fact, all of the stories match up and I believe that it did all happen this way.

Sassy woke up, went out on the patio for fresh air. Our Bum laid down on the floor so Betty could pop his back (this is a common occurance, she has done the same thing for the hubby and several others.) Betty bent over, right in front of the hubby, and he goosed her. Sassy freaked.

The next morning before Our Bum, the hubby and I woke up, Tall, Sassy, their buddy and Brat all left. (Making quite a racket with the front door, waking me up unapologetically.) Brat, by the way, was not supposed to be spending the night. Not only had she crashed on our couch the night before, but she only lives two blocks away. How drunk do you have to be to not be able to make it two blocks?

Sorry, sidetracked. After that, Sassy's MySpace status was confusing. “Why did she have to see what she saw,” kind of bullshit. I had no clue, I thought maybe Tall did something, or the buddy that had gotten drunker then she had ever seen him. Coworkers started approaching the hubby at work, asking weird questions about Betty stealing Brat's boyfriend and a couple of other odd things.

This all happened Monday night, Wednesday evening, I get a message (a MySpace message even) from Sassy. She needed to talk to me, it was real important and she didn't want the hubby to know. Whatever it was, was a really big deal, she didn't know whether to say anything and it was turning her stomach just to think about it. Needless to say, I kind of got freaked out. At this point, I still assumed that it had to do with Tall or something, no clue. I sent her a message back, waited for quite some time for a response and nothing. I texted her, no answer. I called her, no answer. I texted Tall, he said he was pretty sure she didn't have her phone on her.

Hours go by while I let this sit in the pit of my stomach with not so much as a peep out of anyone, so of course when the hubby got home, I told him about it. He had no clue what it could possibly be about but it started freaking him out too. No response all night, nor the next morning and still no one could be bothered to answer their phone.

The hubby, knowing how bad this was getting to me, called Tall from a pay phone at work, the only way we could get him to answer thanks to the modern miracle of caller ID. He told him what this was doing to me and that he needed to know what it was all about.

“____ saw you grab ____'s ass.”

Oh, that! That's what this is all about? Are you kidding me? The hubby told Tall to let him tell me what was going on, knowing that Sassy would only make it worse. Sassy took that as she was being sworn to silence. Tall said he wanted to stay out of it until it all (whatever “it all” is) blew over.

Thanksgiving Thursday I finally get a message back from Sassy. She'd been asked to stay quiet. It was heart wrenching and she knew how I felt. There was nothing she could do now, the ball was rolling, I'd know soon enough. Considering I still had no clue what was going on, this only freaked me out more. I asked her how she could talk to me this way and it be at all fair? If she had something to say, say it. She wouldn't say it. I texted the hubby. He knew what was going on now, but didn't want to try texting it, he said he'd tell me when he got home. Brat knew about it too.

Freaked out and frustrated, I was near tears, and the topper on the cake was that my mom was on her way to come pick me up, great. My mom showed and we headed down to the hubby's work for dinner. He still didn't want to tell me, feeling weird about saying any of it in front of my mom. He said he'd tell me when he got home.

I have to say, knowing what I know now, all the procrastinating only made things worse. My stomach hurt, my head hurt. Somebody should have just said it.

The hubby got home a while after I had gotten home from dinner and we headed upstairs to talk. He told me. Blink. Are you kidding me? They put me through hell for that? My hubby goosed a friend and coworker, oh dear god it's the end of the world. Oh wait, SO? If I got upset, every time the hubby goosed a friend and/or coworker, playfully, harmlessly, then I wouldn't have much of a marriage, would I? Hell, he has goosed Our Bum more times then I can count this week.

We had conversations about this type of thing, even about Betty specifically. I am not threatened. There is a difference between uncomfortable and threatened and I am certainly not threatened. To be honest, the last time I actually felt my relationship threatened that way was like eight years ago in the early days of dating. I'm uncomfortable with him being close to any girls, but I'm also not psycho, I get that he has no interest in anyone but me and I'm not going to fabricate problems where there is none.

I sent Sassy a letter back saying I knew what had happened and it wasn't that big of a deal. I told her that I was disappointed in her lack of faith in the hubby and I, with all the conversations we have had over the years. I told her she should have come to one of us if she was so uncomfortable, so we could have told her that it was no big deal and we are perfectly fine. She assumed the worst and didn't give anyone the chance to convince her of any different.

It took her a day to respond, and when she did, I can't say it helped any. She assumed the hubby had lied to me or not told me the whole story because of my deflated reaction. Without actually saying the words, she basically called me a forgiving fool and the hubby an asshole for hurting me this way.

The messages kept going back and forth this way, her not believing everything is okay, yet still not telling me what was so horrible to make her assume the worse. I told her she was throwing our friendship away because I wasn't responding the way she wanted me to. I told her that I was an adult in an adult relationship and I am handling it like an adult, which means not throwing my marriage away over something as trivial as what it was.

Tall and Sassy apparently thought we were going to break up, shows a lot of faith, doesn't it? The best part is, with all this going on, neither of them could be bothered to actually be our friends, let alone some of the best friends we have. What if something serious really had been going on? Neither of them would answer their phones, calling or texting. Three years of history with Tall, two years of history with Sassy, and neither could just be our damn friend. Nah, it looks rocky, we're just going to sit back and wait for it to blow over.

My computer ended up crashing in the middle of all this. After a couple days I was able to use Prissy's cell phone to check my MySpace. Two letters from Sassy. The first, more of the same, I must not know the whole story, blah, blah, blah. The second apologizing for the first sounding so harsh but she's still right and I'm still wrong. I sent her a short message saying that my computer crashed so if she actually wanted to talk to me, she had to call. She never called.

People all over the hubby's work knew what had happened, plus about a few things that didn't. Brat was the obvious spreader of these rumors, though she denies it. It even made it beyond the hubby's work, a friend who used to work there and had left Monday night before anything happened, knew the whole story and there is only one place it could have come from. The twisted thing is, Brat actually told Sassy not to make such a big deal of it, but then she turned around and did the exact same thing, plus added a little drama of her own. (Claiming Betty stole her boyfriend, even though he never was her boyfriend, and that Betty was all over him, whatever.)

It took days of nothing from the people involved before the hubby walked down to the gas station near by and called Tall. He didn't answer, but he did call back on the home phone. The hubby told him everything that was going on, or more so the lack of it. The hubby told him he was offended, years dude, what if we really needed a friend. The hubby actually went to see Tall at work and they talked for like an hour and a half. Tall didn't know half of what Sassy had been saying online.

We went one Monday, where we only invited those who didn't create or add to any of the drama. It was a quiet night and it was pretty nice but it was sad that half our group wasn't there. This Monday we told people it was back on and most people showed, including Tall, Sassy and Brat. No drama really. Tall is perfectly fine. Sassy showed up in a bad mood and really didn't socialize and Brat and I had exchanged a few messages talking about not taking advantage of our hospitality and what not so things were decent there. I have the feeling things will never be the same though.

New drama. Our Bum and Betty. It's probably none of our business but at the same time it is. She turned him down, yet they keep getting closer. It makes the hubby and I uncomfortable. She's our neighbor and friend. If and when things went sour between them, that affects us. She's young and the hubby was actually asked years ago to look after her. He may not be a big brother, but he sure knows how to fit into that role. Think of the long term. We could be neighbors for quite some time, and the hubby works with her daily for goodness sakes. Shouldn't that be taken into account?

Anyway, enough of the drama, I have other things to worry about. I still have to figure out what to do about my computer. Hairy is who usually fixes it but he left his Windows disk in Washington and isn't planning on going to get them for a couple months. I'm currently running off a Linux disk that without installing it, can't be used for much other then surfing the internet, and as far as installing it, I think my hard drive might be shot so that narrows my options a little. New hard drive? What if the motherboard is shot too? New computer? That's awfully expensive considering we just moved and dropped nearly every dollar we had on the deposit. I don't think Santa is going to be quite nice enough to help me with this problem.

Anyway, this post is like the equivalent of six pages and there are other people in the room so I had better go. I'll try not to let it be so long before I make it back again.