Messenger Puppet

So, it’s halfway through your sophomore year (or what would be your sophomore year if you had survived your freshman year):  Road trip

On one ill fated trek to Ann Arbor, Birdy will introduce you to her roomie, who is exactly like Angelina Jolie. (In the sense that they are both alive human females. After that, the resemblance sorta breaks down.)

Run away.

Seriously.

Right now.

The roomie will think you are charming, in the way that cats who are hungry think little bunnies are cute – as an appetizer. Ignore the subtle signals from your friends like being told to “stay the fuck away from her, you moron” or a, ahem, shared history.You will forgive the unnamed person whose path crossed hers before you, because holy crap was he drunk at the time. Plus, you may need to use the blacked out drunk excuse at some point in the future, so you gotta let this slide. You have also deduced, and rightly so that she will indeed boink you if you play your cards right, which means (mostly) staying awake and at least pretending to listen.

In your 18 or 19 long years of sophisticated, cosmopolitan, urbane existence, you have learned all the studly moves. And you paid attention watching Phid score pretty much at will since the 4th grade. Plus, you do read Playboy for the articles.* Occasionally. You are a fricking gigolo, dood.

* – This means you can make merciless fun of Phid’s (8′s?) roomie (Matt?) who refuses to muffdive. Man, what a loser! All the cool dudes in Playboy know how to please a woman doing this.  (Secretly, you hope there is not a quiz as to what exactly is involved in this mysterious activity.)

So, hire a car, dress to the nines, and take this princess to a supper club. Or, with all the grace of Richie Cunningham and the relaxed, progressive, happy go lucky savoir faire of your tight-ass Scottish grandma, don your lucky yellow sweater, take the Fury and drive this girl to Red Lobster for whatever she wants under $12.95. Including drink. And tip.  Nothing says loving like cold stale hush puppies.  The Sky’s the limit tonight, Fabio!

Later, through blind luck and patience [Ed.: and unfathomable amounts of charity/pity on her part], you are in a position to score, PeeWee. Eventually, it will get late. Birdy will finally stop trying to stand between you and the biggest mistake in your life so far (as far as she knows), and will abandon the dorm room with some token excuse like, “I have explosive diarrhea.”  Birdy will also remind the chosen one to take her pill. Yes, that pill. This is a bad sign. Ignore it, because you’ve just spent a BK Lounge paycheck on this girl, so you won’t stop until there’s a “no.” Or a “WTF are you doing to my stuffed animals! I’m over here!”

Like clockwork, the university will conduct a fire drill at exactly 1 minute before the Love Train boards for a trip to an unknown end of a suddenly awkward metaphor. (You will have been “exactly 1 minute before the Love Train boards” for about an hour at this point, desperately trying to remember what you read about how to do this thing you think you’re about to do.)  The tension of not knowing what the fuck you were supposed to do next is thankfully broken by alarms going off in the hall,  the 30 degree outside air, and the tension of having mistakenly grabbed her clothes to wear outside in front of a thousand “not so open minded as we pretend to be, dress boy” cranky college kids while you wait for the drug sweep fire drill to be over.

MERE MOMENTS LATER…

The fire drill? Over.

The shitty “sex.” Over, too.

Thank god.

Virginity? Technically over. Sort of. You think. You hope.

The utter humiliation, confusion, dread, regret – all that Oprah shit that comes from not knowing what the fuck you were doing? Man, that is all yours, and will be for a long time, you manwhore. In an odd foreshadowing of other incomprehensible clusterfucks (the bad kind), you will claim “Mission Accomplished” to your frat brothers as you declare victory. You are a MAN!!

No. Not really. Come back in about three years when Madonna enters the picture.  You get credit only for an attempt.

The best thing about the dorm chica is that you will see her only a few more times trying to prop up this relationship thing you think you are niow supposed to have, and only recreate the unmitigated disaster above one additional time. You now understand why people join the monastery. You wonder how long the wait list is.

The other best thing about your “girlfriend” is that, over the summer as your imagined “relationship” circles the drain and you are torn between seeking another piece of ass, trying to get to the ending you’ve heard so much about, and running as far away from the related brain fucking you’re getting in return, you discover that she shares a summer apartment with a hottie who never wears bras. So, there’s that going for it. Which is good.