Wednesday, May 14, 2008

School is for learning, not for living!


I met Dave* on a dating website. I know, I know...crazy, right? But I'm a teacher, and teaching is tough on the social life. I mean, you don't meet too many desirable bachelors at PTA meetings or the prom! Mr. Right isn't going to just happen to walk into a high school class room. I tried Oprah's suggestions of hanging out at home improvement superstores and joining interests groups, and I always met Mr. Right Now or Mr. Right For Someone Else or Mr. Right For My Gay Best Friend or Mr. Right Now I'm Married But Unhappy. Sooooo desperate times call for desperate measures. I turned to the internet....hey, I have YET to go to a speed dating function...so I'm not too hard up just yet.

Anyway, back to Dave...he and I met on this dating site. He lives in another large metropolitan city approximately 600 miles away, so obviously we didn't set up a hot date. We did, however, become fast friends in the cyber world of instant messaging. We had just too much in common for it not to be destiny!! We were both high school teachers (of the same subject) with similar degrees and backgrounds. He understood the struggles I faced everyday in the class room and with the education system. This meant so much to me, as my career had become my life, and to have someone understand, was ideal and a little bit like heaven.

I was prom coordinator for my school, and we needed a DJ in a bad way. And as luck would have it, good ole Dave was a DJ on the side. He was working on his own DJ'ing business and planned to take over the world of proms, dances, and step shows one scratch at a time. See how destiny came my way in this man?? He agreed to work our prom for a damn near steal! Our first meeting was the afternoon before the prom. Can I tell you that I may have been visibly drooling when I saw this man's biceps in his sleeveless T-shirt? OH. EM. GEE. SEXAY!! We hit it off automatically. He was almost as sexy in his suit he wore to the prom....sigh.

As time went on, Dave and I developed a long distance "friendship", in which we spoke on the phone often, and I would see him when he was in town to visit family. It was nice with very little pressure. After about a year of this "pressureless" arrangement, we decided to turn it up a notch! He invited me to come to his city to spend a few days with him. Since I'm usually down for a roadtrip in the summer time, I was all for it!

As soon as school was out and I was off for the summer, I hit the road. I had mapquested what route I would take, and it looked like he had given me a business address. When I questioned him about what must have been a mistake, he stated that he had given me the address to the school in which he worked. He would meet me there, and I could follow him back to his apartment. He said this would be the easiest way, and I believed him. I'm sure you know this was "believing" part was a mistake, by now! At this point in my life, I had made the decision to trust more though.

Nine hours on the road and 2 tanks of gas later, I made it to my destination. I called him along the way to update him of my whereabouts. Once I got to the school, this fool made me wait for him approximately 45 minutes. So here I am sitting in a high school parking lot in No Man's Land all alone for 45 minutes on a Wednesday night. When he finally made it to the parking lot, I got no "hello" hug...dude didn't even bother to get out of his truck!! I followed him through the parking around to the back of the school to a parking space next to the loading dock. WTF??? Did he have to take care of something at work really quick before we went back to his place? Did he forget something in his class room? No and no! Dave got out of his truck, without looking at me, and walked toward a non-descript back door to the school. As he unlocked the door, he looked back at me (still sitting, confused, in my car) and waved me to come that way. I got out and walked toward him, asking him what we were doing here. He replied, "This is my apartment." HUH????? What tha...??????????
Somehow, Dave had procured an actual apartment that was built into the school!! Um...ewww... He explained that in his county all the schools had apartments in them that a chosen teacher was allowed to live in for free for a year. The purpose was to provide incentives for the teachers and "security" for the school. The problem here was that he had lived in this one for about FIVE! The apartment looked and SMELLED like a school...all dusty and moldy! It even had cinder block walls...ugh...the last thing I wanted to do during my summer break is spend some vacation days inside yet another school! Sigh.

Not only did ole Dave live in the school, Dave had lost all his manners! He still hadn't hugged me, didn't offer me a drink or something to eat. Actually when I asked him if he wanted to go get something to eat, he told me that he had just eaten. WTF???? He had NO FOOD in his school-apartment. So he took me to the drive thru at Chick-fil-a....yay... So we got back to the school-apartment, and I relaxed on the bed (due to the fact that there was no table in the school-apartment) to eat my chicken sandwich and delicioso waffle fries. Dave left me to go to his "home office"....I mean how can you have a home office when you technically have no home?? He was in his "home office" mixing some music for his upcoming DJ gig that weekend, and he yells out to me that he must go to work the next day after all (he was supposed to be taking time off during my visit) and that he also landed a last-minute DJ gig for the following night. So basically, I was to sit ALONE in the school-apartment 600 miles away from home for the ENTIRE day! Beam me up, Scottie...I wanna go home! Dave hardly spoke to me the rest of the night, but of course, when bedtime hit, he wanted some of my sweet goodies! And before you even ask....HELL NO, HE GOT NONE OF THIS HERE!

The morning came....wanna know how I knew it was morning?? I wasn't awakened by the sunlight or the sound of birds singing. I was awakened by the stereo (in the bedroom) turned up full blast and the sound of Dave singing (yelling) in the shower....ugh...did the dick forget he had company??? Right then and there, I told myself that I was driving my happy ass right back home that day, 600 miles be damned! I would swim across the ocean to avoid spending yet another minute with this self-centered, no-tune-carrying bastard!

I pretended to sleep through the obnoxious party in the room that morning...mostly just so I could avoid cursing that man out! I've never felt so cheated and unimportant in my lifetime!! He finally left for his day at work (saves on gas when you live where you work!), and I jumped in the shower to get ready for a day of driving!

*Names have been changed to protect the self-centered.

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