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What Did I Do To Deserve This? before/after I sat in the farmer bar as the racous crowd mucked around. The regulars peered at me from underneath John Deere hats with unkind eyes. People wore full NASCAR regalia. Rob grabbed a white-trash man ass, then, inexplicably, started screaming five minutes later. Days later he'd tell me he'd had a blackout, and didnt remember anything, let alone the hours worth of confrontational bullshit to which he subjected me. I lost my temper twice. I wondered what I did to deserve this. Rob screamed as he racked the pool balls, whacking them with the cue ball, each one, with force. In the middle of the bar were three attractive, somewhat urban girls who were attracting the majority of the farmer-boy attention in the bar, who seemingly wanted to talk to me. The boys nipped at their heels, yapping like jackals, trying with failing strategies, all. It was interesting to watch, the communication divide, the disconnect between these girls and the guys. They ended up standing together, with their backs to each other, as if cornered by hungry, if inept, wolves. And the guys wouldnt stop yap, yap, yapping. Some just trying to wear them down, others with false bravado, as if anyone is going to say or do anything profound in a farmer bar that should take precedence over anyone else's conversation. It never dawned on the guys to just be nice. To sit and be quiet. To not be annoying. Some guys just never get it, sometimes the more you talk, the more you talk yourself into spending the night alone. So I sat, quietly, and watched the spectacle. All night Rob had been needling me about a girl, his girlfriend's sister, "Go talk to her, or you'll be spending the night alone." And just watching, people watching, I knew what to do. As I finally settled down, back from the pooltable, sitting and quietly watching, they flocked to me. How could they not? Any safe port in a storm. Still the guys tried what they could to interject, but it was folly on their part. I was Not Annoying. Sure, maybe I have qualities that might outweigh being Not Annoying. But sometimes you just cant beat a guy who knows when to shut up and not be an ass. Still, I went home alone. I wasnt trying to get laid, and Rob was really mean to his girlfriend's sister. I think he has machinations of fucking her by proxy through me, some sort of repressed thing because his pseudo-wife has become a serious celluite victim. Heading towards morbidly obese. Past the deuce. Way past. Deuce and a half, easy. He likes to call it 'pregnancy weight', but as I sat and played cards at their house on Saturday with him, her, and her sister, she packed away the chocolate like it was nobody's business. It was a fix up, as they say, for me and her sister, but I didnt cotton to her especially well, to use a rural colloquialisim. She was pretty, and smart, but had trouble holding my eye contact. I dont know. I like the pretty, if shy, girl I have been dating in recent weeks.
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