Close But No Cigar

Take one part used car salesman, one part tight rope walker and one part magician. Add a dash of blind luck. Blend well and serve with ample amounts of youth and alcohol. I wouldn’t say it was Gina’s favorite dish, but she sure ate the hell out of it for years. If she was going to stay with me, she didn’t have a choice.

Let’s face it; long term, I wasn’t a very good boyfriend. Don’t get me wrong, I obviously had my good moments; why else would she have stayed with me for four years? Let’s just say, I was a bit of a challenge.

I’m usually not a big fan of chronological order, but in this case, why not? I met Gina in my senior year of high school through my fulltime, part-time girlfriend Nicole. A quick side bar: When Nicole and I were not seeing other people, we saw each other; primarily because she wanted to marry a doctor and I was headed to premed in the fall, but that is another story entirely. Anyway, Nicole worked with Gina and Nicole decided to play matchmaker. Gina was perfect for me. She was blonde, smart, had big boobs and went to another high school. Good looks and couldn’t watch me every second… perfect.

Gina and I got along fantastic for the first six months. Then, shortly after graduation, her ex-boyfriend started snooping around and Gina made a colossal mistake. She decided to be honest with me. Gina said she might still have feelings for him, but she was also in love with me…blah, blah, blah. Fuck that, I was out. I don’t compete for women. You want him; you can have him because, in a couple of weeks, you’ll realize that he’s the same asshole you broke up with several months ago.

Gina was a little hard-headed, so it took her more like six weeks. But my phone rang never the less. By this time, everything changed. I was and will always be a rope feeder. I will feed and feed and feed the rope to someone, just to see if they will hang themselves. They almost always do. Gina hung herself with her ex-boyfriend. Now I had card Blanche. We would get back together, and I could do whatever I wanted because my trust in her had been irreparably broken. So let the games begin…

Gina and I had got back together by the end of July which was a month before we were both to move to Columbus to attend Ohio State University. I was going to live in a dorm and Gina was off to a scholarship house because she actually cared about her grades in high school.

Around the time we got back together, I had to attend the university’s two-day freshman orientation in Columbus. I spent the first day of orientation trying to remain conscious while faculty member after faculty member were paraded in front of a couple thousand of us, each member reminding us what a great university we are attending. Guess what? We already got that part; that’s why we’re sitting here.

After the ‘timeshare seminar’, we were shuttled off to a questionable dinner and then pretty much left to our own devises. Everyone was being housed for the night in the Towers, the biggest dorm on campus, with guys and girls separated by floors. After dinner, I was planning to head back to my room and crash with a book for the rest of the night. But shortly after I entered the elevator, my plan changed.

The elevator doors opened, and there were two guys, who looked to be my age, each carrying a twelve pack of beer. They introduced themselves as Eric, who was here for orientation, and his older brother Jason, who was not. They invited me to their room for a few beers, and who was I to decline their hospitality? We sat around, drank beer and shot the shit. As it turned out, Jason was a recent grad from Ohio State, and he came along to show his little brother the ropes. And ‘the ropes’ didn’t mean we were going to waste our night sitting around with a bunch of guys on an all male dorm floor; especially when there were all female floors a few feet above us and below us. We were quiet for just a second, and I distinctly heard the girls calling our names.

Jason laid out the plan. First the bad news, all the girls’ floors were chaperoned. Then the good news, the chaperons were all Resident Assistants. All we needed was one RA who was prone to a little bribery. We grabbed up the rest of our beers and headed for the elevators.

The doors opened and since we were there to see our ‘sister’; we were only three beers lighter when we grabbed the few open seats in the living area occupied by a bevy of the fairer sex. It was hell. We were three poor guys hanging out with a dozen women, most of whom already had their pajamas on for the evening. We were a big hit. And the fact that we were passing out beers faster than weed at a Dead concert, didn’t hurt our popularity in the slightest.

Halfway through the evening, I struck up a conversation with Allison, a tan, long-legged blonde from Houston Texas. We were getting along great, almost too good. I looked up, and everyone was gone. Allison and I were the only two still sitting in the living area. She invited me to stay and who was I to decline her hospitality? I’d probably never see her again anyway. Ohio State is a big place.

By the end of August, Gina had moved into her scholarship house. A week later, I had moved into my dorm. Frankly, I wasn’t in any hurry to share a room the size of a walk-in closet with three other guys any longer than I had to. My parents had driven me up and, fortunately, my dad was able to talk my mom out of going up to my dorm room and helping me unpack. The same could not be said for one of my roommates, afterward, forever known as Gurn. We ridiculed him mercilessly for his mom’s caring gesture.

I got settled in and called Gina, so she could come over and see my new digs. She said she would be right over and maybe we could walk back to her place, so I could check out her new home. Sounded good to me. Shortly, there was a knock at the door, and it was Gina; with another girl. “Honey, I’d like for you to meet my roommate…Allison.” Oh, shit…

Stay tuned…it ain’t over yet.