Revisionist History - Podunk Summer Pt. 8

 By the time the conversation was over things were sorted, Sharon would be coming up the next weekend for a night which was all she could swing due to her summer job. Of course every time this happened i was quite sure that she (and her mother) were harboring some sort of hope that this would be the re-start of our love, a love predestined from a time long before either of us knew but one that was obviously "meant to be." There are no three words in the English language that i loathe more than the words "meant to be." What the fuck does that even mean? Granted one could say that it's just an extension of, say, Buddhist philosophy and that it meant things just happened but that wasn't what it meant at all. The words were loaded with intent and leaned toward the mystical or religious, as if some grey bearded old man had waved his hand and deemed it so. What horseshit. In fact one of the main reasons i ran fast and far from Sharon (excluding the casual sex thing) was a conversation our mothers had. Her mom had mentioned to my mom that Sharon would really like a ring for her graduation. A ring? what kind of ring? You know was all her mom said. At 18 this lady wanted me to buy a ring? the lovely suburban "pre-engagement" type thing? Fuck that! I didn't want to inform Sharon's parents that i was cool having sex with their daughter but after that my interest sorta diminished... quickly. Besides the fact that i was also very much interested in fucking any other willing female who might take a fancy to me, you know free love and all that sorta thing and one could say that my morals or ethics (or lack thereof) were not in line with the Sharon clan. 

But in the short term my problem was solved. I had female companionship on the way and so i began the work week with a spring in my usually hungover step. Lars was now fully onboard with slacking and we even began to have conversations about things, mainly music or politics and though Lars was most definitely a dweeb it was cool to shoot the shit while getting paid and fucking off. We soon found out that our supervisor, Peanuts, often forgot where we were, would forget to pick us up and take us back to the shop, and so thus began an even more casual approach, if that's even possible, to our job. 

One of the many perks of said job was the fact we had to go through all the drawers in each room to make sure they were empty and while one might be surmising that our rather perverted hero here was hoping to stumble upon a drawer of lace undies (i did) the fact was i was looking for more practical items. Unfortunately one of the drawbacks of being 6'4 is that i'm taller than most regular sized people. Upon entering each room the first thing i'd do is test the drawers on the desks and bureaus, if anything was loose or completely off or if i felt it needed fixed i wrote down the room number and let Peanuts handle it. For the most part i found nothing but usually once a day or so i'd find a drawer filled with clothes. I'd take out the clothes, toss them on the cart and they'd be left in a box near the Resident Directors office to do what they would with them when they returned after summer break. When i found the lace undies i couldn't help but fuck with Lars and so i draped them all over his cart while he was watching the telly. When i heard a "what the hell!" i could barely contain my laughter as i heard Lars and his cart heading towards where he thought i was... i usually did a fine job of not letting anyone know where i actually was and so i popped out of the room i was in laughing heartily while i explained to Lars i thought he might like those for later while making the universal sign for wanking. Lars turned red, said i was real funny and turned to head back to the television lounge. I should add the undies never ended up in the lost and found, i checked, and could not be located henceforth. I let it lie, a card in the deck in case Lars ever got a bit too full of himself. 

The jackpot came on sunny midweek day when i opened up a drawer and found it filled to the top with shirts and a couple pairs of jeans. I pulled them out and realized that they might actually fit and so i locked the door and began trying the jeans on. The shirts were of the Polo/ dress shirt variety and since this was the height of grunge and i had a wardrobe that consisted mainly of flannel i passed on those but the jeans fit great. A bit baggy ala the Happy Mondays and as i looked through the stuff it dawned on me that i may have knew the guy who left the shit here. There weren't a lot of people my size on campus and since the shirts were rather colorful i had a pretty good idea. I tossed the shirts into the lost and found and stashed the jeans. The next day at lunch i walked home with my new duds, ripped a bong hit, had a beer and then walked back to work... 15 minutes late of course but since no one was around the powers that be were none the wiser.

So while i was flipping through the mental Rolodex of ex-girlfriends to call i was also surveying the lay of the land for a summer babe. Problem was there weren't many females around and even those that were around were only here for a summer class, a couple of weeks most likely and then back home for the duration The only real prospect of finding a girlfriend lay in the guise of Julia. Julia was a local girl who had come to Podunk from one of those tiny specks of population that didn't even warrant a dot on a map. Her family owned the local television repair and video store (probably wise of her to get a degree as the family business would soon be obsolete) and so she elected to stay in town, take a class and work. She was a sorority girl, not something i was all that into, but there was this mutual attraction yet hesitation between us to pursue anything. Honestly i believe the whole "Greek system" had something to do with it as there was some sort of strange rule that somehow forbade sorority sisters from dating those GDI's (god-damned independents for the uninitiated) but being as i was in what was commonly referred to as The Art Crowd i was viewed somewhat different. 

It's a strange thing these little castes and cliques that separate humans from one another. People always talk how shit like that ends in high school but it does not, it continues in the halls of higher education and beyond. The VP is never caught eating lunch with the lumpen-proles (unless it's some corporate team building non-sense) and the sorority sisters were not to sleep with the GDIs. Society, is and always has been, fucked up. That being said Julia and i did the dance. 

Podunk's main source of recreation was the Rock. A gigantic rock located near a bridge over the Podunk River, a  surprisingly deep river where one could do stupid things like jump off said bridge into the water. I'm not sure anyone knew how high the bridge was but it was high enough to make your nuts shrivel up a bit and one definitely wanted to hold one's nose unless of course the sinuses need a good clearing. If you didn't hold your nose water would basically shoot through every crack in your head and it was always a laugh to watch some greenhorn jump off and come up coughing and hacking and spewing water. There was one large rock on the shore and another large rock 25 yards away which people would hangout on and drink and get stoned. The bridge being in perfect position just out of the jurisdiction of the town cops and on a stretch where the state boys didn't really feel like bothering with, mainly cuz all "contraband could be easily hidden or tossed. 

Julia was a svelte blonde who looked rather fetching in her bikini. We'd hang at the Rock, i'd share joints and beers with her, she'd show up at the apartment for our almost nightly parties before heading to the bar. We'd talk, we'd laugh, she'd lean against me as we sat on the couch passing joints or bongs or bowls, and yet somehow there was this wall... but this week i was not to worry as i had company heading in for the weekend and Julia had mentioned she'd be away. Somehow i didn't want to appear as the player, when the reality of it was i was just a shit preying on the feelings of ex-girlfriends. I wanted to pursue things with Julia but i also wanted to get laid... the latter more than the former apparently and so i went about me week like that once famous song from the 80's by Loverboy, working for the weekend... (to be cont.)