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Monday, May 08, 2006

A visit from The Boy

I was doing work-related stuff on&off all weekend, so I don’t feel guilty about writing this at work during this boring Monday team meeting. Now that it’s evening, I’ll be doing more work stuff shortly.

The Boy came by yesterday for a brief band practice. Along with his other issues, he’s been suffering from a leaky tire, which turned out to be leaking around the rim. Too bad he can’t use his inflated ego to fill it (sfx: snare roll, symbol). I’m not sure if the bead is bad or there’s a problem with the rim itself, but it looks like there might be some junk caught up in the rim. After suggesting he get a can of fix-a-flat, that he has no money for, I found one in the garage. Lucky him... to an extent. There turned out to be three leaks, and the goop sealed up two of them. So close.... We put his slick fake spare on. Pray it holds up until he has enough money to fix the regular tire. Perhaps to keep up with the tire, he put another hole in himself, piercing his lower lip and putting a ring in it. Now look: I have a ring in my nose, but at least it’s metaphorical.

He quit the job at the mountaintop lodge (idiot) and now he’s doing landscaping with Big V’s husband, or so he says... I’ll have to check into that. (The pay is one thing, but I can’t wait until he finds out how much he has to pay for his meds without the co-pay.) He was living with his old friend J-zoid for a while, until he had a dispute with J’s mom late last week and he moved out. At the moment, he’s bouncing around from one friend to another, and claims to be looking into buying a house and partially funding the payments with rent from friends. I didn’t even bother telling him he would get laughed out of every bank he goes to, but suggested he keep at least a month’s worth of mortgage payment handy so he’ll be able to manage when his pals come up short. Which they would.

He’s mentioned (on several occasions) bringing some chow over for a cookout some time, but he’s already done a no-show on us twice. He didn’t ask about coming back to stay, probably knowing the answer would be: Sure. If you scrape off your druggie pals, get serious about getting your GED, and be home at a reasonable hour through the week. ... plus anything I’ve left out that Mrs. Fetched would want. Too onerous, I suppose.

After talking about this & that for a while, he snapped, “I don’t know where you got the idea my girlfriend is giving me drugs.” Um... we got the idea listening to you tell your friend she was getting them, ding-dong. “There’s more than one Ashley in the world, you know,” he managed to respond. “Her family’s redneck.” Which can mean lots of things, including growing their own weed. Color me thoroughly unconvinced. His girlfriend is 17 and is taking night classes instead of school. I suggested he do the same... he claims to be doing a self-study for the GED. Pull the other one, boy, it’s got bells on it.

Turns out that one of his band members used to be in a trance outfit; we had a great time chatting about different artists and the trance scene on this planet (or total lack thereof). Both of us turned out to be Aura fans. He also told me, quietly, that BJ wanted us to call him... which suggests he wants to tell me something about The Boy. I got wrapped up on work stuff after that, so I never got around to making the call. I’ll do that after hitting send.

4 comments:

  1. He's a hard nut to crack isn't he? Seems he would rather go down in flames than admit he's wrong on just about everything.

    The tire issue is a easy enough fix, just take it to a shop have them break the bead, clean the rim and clean the tire. He probably was running it low to begin with and got into some soft dirt. Happens all the time.

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  2. It gets better... his spare already blew on him. I'll write some more about it (and your painfully accurate assessment) tonight.

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  3. Boy it just gets better doesn't it.

    I remember those days when I was his age, walk out and have a flat and your friend asks you if you have a spare, and I say, "yah it's on the right front."

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  4. Yeah... it helped oh-so-much that he threw away a good job because it was crimping his style, to work with Big V — who is having to sue her client to get paid, so chances are The Boy isn't going to see any $$$ from that job for a while (if ever... Big V isn't the most reliable debtor out there).

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