I was terrified of women until I was twenty-one.
For some reason I knew I was the ugliest man to walk the face of the earth. Only Rocky Dennis had it worse than me. I’m not sure where this idea came from. I mean, stupid Lisa Gulick rejected me back in seventh grade and I think that I just extrapolated out to every woman. It’s just good science.
Growing up my mother told me all the time that I was handsome. I couldn’t hear it. I had a big head and big crazy blonde hair. I knew better. I was an uggo.
It wasn’t until my first girlfriend in college (at age twenty one) Lisa told me she thought I was really good looking that I started believing I could actually attract a woman. But this story takes place well before Lisa hit the scene.
It was summer break after the first year of college, 1995. I had a job where I was a security guard at a Jewish retirement home. It was not exactly the most dangerous post in the dispatch. Once I spent a night guarding a bread factory in the heart of the ghetto in Peoria. A driver had been held up by gunpoint just the week before. That was scary. I just sat behind a desk and smiled at the nice residents. And secretly wished I was Jewish. For the food. You understand.
One of my friends, Adam lived at his grandmother’s condo. His grandparents were well-to-do and had this nice three bedroom place. It was well-decorated and modern. Adam always had women hanging around him. Whereas the opposite sex scared me silly, they excited him. He had no problem talking to any girl he fancied. Plus, he made a lot of friends with the women at our high school.
Adam was having a small party at his place – just a typical summer soiree. There were maybe ten of us in all. Three guys and the rest girls. Some beers, burgers, that sort of thing. We were nineteen and lived for these afternoons. No real responsibilities or consequences. We all had crappy jobs and either our parents paid for college or we had loans. Either way, it was an easy life.
I was thinking about how great life was at the very moment I fell through the glass table.
I had been sitting on a thin glass table on a tiny balcony having a drink. Not the best idea, because within seconds the glass broke and I fell right through. Blood starting spurting from my shorts and quickly covered my khakis. It was pouring down my leg, too. Since I immediately went into shock, I didn’t notice any pain. It was just like, “Wow – so that’s what blood looks like in bulk!” I hit the ground.
I looked down and around my side and noticed a big shard of glass sticking out of my butt. That was kind of cool. Also, didn’t hurt.
What freaked me out though was everybody yelling. I was on my knees and the party had come to a screeching halt. Since I was afraid of girls, to have them hurrying toward me with towels to mop up my fanny was pretty humiliating. We called the hospital and luckily it was directly across the street from the condo. I watched from the balcony as my ambulance was dispatched from the hospital.
I realized I was going to the hospital and starting thinking of things like, “Can I get arrested for having a few beers? Are the cops coming? Did I have grass in my car?”
I did have grass in my car.
I dispatched a friend to go retrieve the nickel bag of ditchweed and the KISS pipe hidden in my armrest. My parents were going to have to drive this car home, most likely.
From the balcony I watched the ambulance pull into the wrong cul-de-sac. I started yelling trying to alert them than I was in the condo building on the next street over. They looked up at me and realized the gaffe. Then they made their way to over to me.
It was the gurney that I was most concerned about. I didn’t want the seven women to see my bare ass. Well, I did want them to see my ass, but not in this capacity. I was humiliated.
Part II Coming Up!
