A TRAGI-COMEDY OF ERRORS:

“A tragedy has happened.” That’s how the man I have dubbed “Dude” in previous posts started the conversation when he called off work for the week. He didn’t define the nature of the tragedy, a fact that could only cause a person with advanced OCD like EFB to go crazy with speculations.

She is, after all, his direct supervisor and considers him to be a friend on some level I find difficult to fathom. When it comes to women like her, it’s often difficult to tell if they are genuinely concerned for the person or just looking for “juice” to get them through the day. In this case, I’d say it was equal measures of both.

Dude made the call on a Tuesday, claiming he would be in later that week to provide further and complete details. EFB couldn’t wait for that. She needed to know now. She even started coming up with lame schemes to find out. EFB is one of those people that wear their OCD like a badge, as if it’s something to be proud of and adorable all at once. It is, of course, neither, except perhaps to guys who forgive any transgressions when they come from an appealing face.

Dude didn’t tell her or anybody else that day. He did call her on her cell phone and tell her what he’d left on her work phone’s voicemail and insisted he would tell her later when his mom wasn’t in the car with him.

This set EFB’s gears to whirring a mile a minute! Was it a family tragedy? Did someone die or wind up in the hospital? Was there an accident? The endless speculation forced me to blank her out and start singing cartoon theme songs in my head.

Besides, who the hell says “There’s been a tragedy” at our age? I mentioned that to her and she criticized me for not having grown up around the “right people.” Everybody she knows talks that way and, besides, we’re not exactly youngsters anymore.

“I don’t know any old people that say stuff like that!” I said.

She had to laugh. Inside I think she knew I was right. This guy is like something from the 1950’s, even his hair. Or maybe a little further back, because all I could picture was a scene from some 1940’s film noir where the leggy dame enters the tiny office of the cynical P.I. as a ceiling fan rotates slowly above their heads:

He- What can I do ya for?
She- There’s been a tragedy! A real tragedy!
He- yeah, I can tell you’re all broken up. Who was the lucky fella?
She- How dare you? I haven’t done anything!
He- Remains to be seen, doll. Nobody does nothin’ ‘till they do somethin’.
She- You’re a bitter man, mister! That’s the real tragedy.

OK, I had a little too much fun writing that scene. But my point is that I’ve never heard anyone refer to something as a tragedy the way he did even in cases where a loved one has died. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case at all, but it was probably the next worst thing.

Before I get to that, let’s take a look at EFB’s shining moment. Her patience wearing thinner by the day, she complained repeatedly about how he hadn’t shown up to fill them in on what had happened. I felt the need to remind her that by law he isn’t required to tell her anything of a personal nature, especially if he isn’t being paid for his time off. As soon as I got off work Wednesday, a text message came into my phone instructing- yes, INSTRUCTING- me to call Dude and find out if he was OK. No problem, but that second part about seeing if I could find out what happened was unacceptable. This was the predictable moment where EFB started ripping into me via text about how she has always been there for me and I haven’t ever been there for her and I’m the most selfish man alive and barely a man at all, actually, and blah, blah, blibbidy blah…

Comments like that used to hurt a little back when we were a couple and that sort of thing mattered to me. Nowadays it simply provides me with a platform to say, “Ready to sell the house when you are.”

I did call Dude, but only because I had a feeling I knew what he “tragedy” was all about. He sounded OK, I guess, although his words were rather cryptic and vague. He tells me he told EFB’s boss but didn’t get a chance to tell her yet and he seems to think I already know. When I tell him I don’t, he tells me he will call back later. His wife is in the car and he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about it. That’s two family members he doesn’t want to speak in front of now.

I let EFB know what I know and she flies into a fit of self-righteous fury. HOW DARE HE TELL HER BOSS BEFORE HER? HER BOSS HATES HIM AND HAS MADE HIS LIFE A LIVING HELL!!! All those years of special treatment and he doesn’t have the class to tell her first or at least when she told him? Well, that’s it! No more exemptions!

The “E” in “EFB” now stands for “Egocentric.” It seems more appropriate.

Now that she’s written off her so-called friend because he chose to advise the actual head of their department before her, I endured text after text a about what a piece of shit he was. It got old fast and I told her so which, of course, made me an utter bastard.

An hour or passed with relative peace and quiet, eventually broken by the blaring sound of the trumpets of my Star Wars ringtone. Dude had finally told her what happened. I insisted she wit until she got home to tell me. Not because I was looking forward to it, but because I love fucking with her OCD.

I can’t say I was shocked by the gist of the tale she spun when she walked through the door, but there was one part that came awfully close. For those who have never read about Dude and his wife before, allow me to provide a brief recap.

Dude is my age and his wife is a good ten years younger. She is also from Canada, which some U.S. citizens think instantly makes a person more backwards. I disagree but whatever. The point is she was backward and weird and very child-like. But Dude was desperate to be married because every other woman his age was. He brought her to the U.S. and tried to make a grown woman and a responsible wife out of her. In return, she maxed out their credit cards whenever she felt blue, hung out and got drunk with her friends both male and female until 5 in the morning, and curled up in a fetal position whenever he got angry.

Yep, they were basically the Cleavers without the kids. One day a nosey old man who rides around their neighborhood on one of those electric wheelchairs spotted her all dressed up & hoochie fabulous He followed her to the end of the street, where a car pulled up and she got in. Dude thought the old guy was full of shit.

Many moons later, Dude walks into the shower while his wife is in there and does what I can only assume was a quadruple take. I imagine him standing there, mouth wide open, unable to move. I imagine her also standing there, a look of utter fright across her face as the water cascades down her pregnant belly.

They hadn’t had sexual relations in at least one year.

I don’t like to imagine what happened next, but it couldn’t have been pretty. Dude’s wife wound up admitting she’d been cheating on him for quite a while with a Mexican guy who also happens to be the son of the owner of the gourmet taco establishment where she works. And when I say cheating, I mean on and on for a long period of time.

Regular readers might remember earlier posts about this couple and her obsession with her pet bunny that died. If we follow the timeline, her infidelity seems to coincide with the rodent’s death, since Dude was out of town with his boss on a huntin’ trip. Apparently the Canadi-skank needed some consoling…over and over and over. Also, she was obviously so distraught that she forgot to make this Third World lothario with a rep for boinkin’ the ladies wear protection.

Dude, ever the forgiving sort, asked her if she would keep doing this guy if he came back and her reply was all he needed to hear…”I don’t know.”

Dude filed divorce papers the following day with a family friend. The land-shark, I mean “lawyer,” took special care to ensure that her 7-month pregnancy was included in the paperwork. When asked if it was seven, she replied, “Um, I guess!” I think we all know what that means. She may drop any day now. There is a little known Michigan law that’s been on the books since the 1800’s that states if she has that baby while they’re married and living under the same roof he will be responsible.

Needless to say he is transporting her ass back to Canada as we speak. The saddest part is that Dude had just been bragging to EFB about how she’d been acting like a real wife for the time for the past few weeks. Guilt, perhaps? I doubt it. She was probably just buttering him up for the eventual delivery day, hoping he'd keep her around and watch the kid on nights she needed to fuck Paco.

I still can’t understand how he didn’t know she was pregnant. She was a fucking beanpole!!! He mentioned she was putting on weight a bunch of times but damn!

Anyway, he plans to take a trip to the restaurant to inform Paco’s mama sita that if this kid comes anywhere near him or his soon to be ex-wife, he’s going to “Fuck him up.”

Stay tuned, vultures!

The tragedy might just be starting~