i forgot how these things work

Home Teaching: a priesthood duty.  Being the church's first source of help to families and individuals.  Called upon to visit {at least monthly} and serve those you are assigned to by your bishop, and take such single sisters on dates.
      Wait. . . that's not in the pamphlet. 

Tuesday Night, 10:45 p.m:
My phone rings.
     It's my home teacher.
          Huh.  Way to be on the ball, setting up an appointment and we're only half way through the month!   

"Hello?"
     "Hi"
         Random chit-chatting for a minute,  laugh a little (which is odd, even though we're friends-ish)

Slight awkward silence.
      Okay home teacher man, what is the purpose of this call?  I know you didn't call to just chat. 
           This Sunday would probably work for you and your companion to swing by and teach us lovely ladies.

"Do you have plans Friday?"
    "No, I don't think I have anything going on"
        Friday night?  That doesn't seem like it would be convenient for anyone to home teach or be home taught.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go to the Volleyball game with me?"
      Oh! . .  A date!  It's been so long I forgot how these things work.  Hurry brain, process a reply! 
                   . . . . . . . 
          "Oh.  Sure.  What time?"
               Is this even allowed?  Home teacher and home teachee... Is there a rule against this? Probably an unwritten one.
                "Seven.  Want to get food before?"
                     It's definitely a date. 

. . . Yata yata yata . . .  

Yeah, I was ToTaLLY caught off guard.
I think we'll have a fun, grand, casual time.


But I'm slightly dreading it.  Because my roommates hypothesized, after I hung up the phone and informed them I had just been asked out by our home teacher, "what if you mess things up?" -- I do have a slight track record of doing such a thing-- because if I mess things up with this boy it's not like I'll never see him again.  I will.  At church, and when he comes to home teach me and my roommates to fulfill his priesthood responsibility.  What have I agreed to?! 

Oh well.  Worst case scenario it's awkward for 15 minutes, 20 max.

Wish me luck!

*unrelated side note: my 75 year old co-worker, Jesse, approached me at self-checkout today.  He draped his arm around my shoulder to give me a side hug, said "I just wanted to tell you I love you", and kissed my forehead.  He's so darling! Made my day.

*another unrelated side note: today at work I was called: doll, punkin, honey, sweetheart, and baby.  By customers, mind you.  Gotta love the Depot.

run away, run far far away

Rejuvenated and Refreshed.  A little R and R.  That is the glory and purpose of a vacation. This past weekend I went to Bear Lake with 4 of my 5 roommates. Vacationing at Brandi’s beautiful lakehouse was fantastic, and not only the most darling “cabin” I have ever seen but the perfect atmosphere to do some serious bonding and recharge my emotional batteries.

In the beautiful yellow room I was privileged to call my own for 3 days I acquired adequate sleep—a first since Christmas break! The ladies of Northwoods 4 shook off our sleep with Yoga for Athletes, nourished our bodies with delectable German Pancakes and candy galore, bundled up in 4 layers to speed along the windy lake shore aboard 4-wheelers, entertained ourselves with several card games and Scattegories, and looked through old pictures from the 80’s laughing at the fly-away bangs, shoes that tie over socks, as well as floral leggings and outfits I cannot even begin to describe the ridiculous-ness of. We talked and laughed and talked and laughed, and took some great pictures.

Sunday I felt ready to face Provo. I can handle this! Just 5 more weeks. I am feeling phenomenal, ready to handle all the couples of Provo, my major meltdown of last week seeming an eternity away and my concerns and troubles inconsequential.
Even pulling into the parking lot I felt content and happy to be back at my apartment-- a real first, I will have you know.

And then… I walked through that maroon door.

I still felt cheerful but… I was not ready for my vacation to be over, in addition to the fact that I am a terrible person. Truly. I have tried to be kind, I have prayed for charity beyond what is reasonably comprehensible for a person to pray for. But there are some situations when your environment has such a huge impact that you have to run. And that’s precisely what I did. Because the grinding of my roommate’s voice and the echo of her laugh and her odd platonic-but-not interaction with her 37 year old fiancée magnified the oppressive feeling I can’t help but feel being around her, and the positive feelings of the weekend were nearly driven away in an instant. I had to leave. So I unpacked, repacked, and headed to Sandy.

Blogging really is my outlet—so here goes. I love, dearly and deeply, my roommates. They are wonderful and funny and caring and so fantastic to be around. I lived with them last year, as well as this, and we have never had drama or problems. They are my support system in Provo and I don’t know what I would do without them. Seriously. We have made so many memories that, cliché as it is, I will treasure forever. We’re the roommates that 20 years from now we’ll leave our husbands and children and have a weekend get-a-way, a roommate reunion! Love them!

There is one… that has made for a challenge to live with (mentioned earlier, 2 paragraphs up). Living with her was not by choice, and as luck would have it she’s my room roommate. We’ll call her Shannon. She is one person that try as I might, I have extreme difficulty getting along with. It’s not that she’s disagreeable-- No-- it’s that she has no personality, or at least not one I have been able to decipher in the 7 months we have shared a room smaller than my freshman dorm room, because she does not interact on a competently social level, with me or any of the roommates.

I have tried. How I have tried to extend an effort at establishing some sort of roommate-relationship. I have tried to open up, tried talking, tried to be supportive, tried to be excited that she got her Masters and got engaged, and prayed like crazy. I have tried everything I can imagine, and yet… I have no warm feelings towards her. Thus, the reason I am a terrible horrible person. She is non-responsive. And I don’t know quite what to do with that. I’m still trying to figure it all out, 7 months after our initial introduction. Our biggest conversations now-a-days revolve around the girls we visit teach. Our longest conversation on record is probably 40 minutes. And that was a miracle.

She’s always in the room. Always. I don’t even feel comfortable in my room besides the rare occasion I’m alone. I avoid it as often as possible, praying she’ll leave and go be with her old-man lover.

There is a routine, every morning: her alarm goes off. She sloowwwllllyyyyy turns it off. She sniffles—not a regular sniffle, a nasally sniffle that continues for at least 10 minutes until she blows her nose. Then, she opens her computer and the gentle hum of it rings in my ears and drums at my sanity. Sniffle. The clicking of her mouse and the pitter-pat of the keyboard, the opening of the blinds and swinging of the door open and closed repeatedly and loudly causes me to pull my polka-dot covers over my disheveled bed head in an attempt to block out the sound, praying I can fall back asleep until my alarm goes off, silently pleading I can get decent sleep. Sniffle. But then it gets really hot huddled beneath those covers and I realize in my half-dream state that I’m starting to suffocate, so I reluctantly lower the sheets and endure the sounds until she finally leaves. And then my alarm goes off. Yes, every morning.

Which leads into the meltdown of last week—the big major sobbing meltdown of the year. My mother, the wise woman that she is, got to the root of the problem-- recognizing the toxic (harsh word, but true) effect of my environment and the resultant oppressive feeling that seemes impossible to shake, coupled with extreme sleep deprivation. She sympathized with the reality of bad roommates (fortunately only one in this case, I love the others) and encouraged me to limit my interaction for the next 5 weeks as much as possible. She’s not going to change, but I can do something about it. So that is my new resolution-- sleep over in Sandy, study at the library, sleep on someone’s couch, on my own couch perhaps, go shopping, stay far away and just get through the next 5 weeks in one piece. Run away, run far far away. Fight or flight—I am choosing flight.
A quote from our beloved quote wall freshman year has been running through my head as of late:
           ‘I could be that girl you read about in the newspaper— “Roommate Kills Roommate”.’

Funny as this was at the time, and I’m 99% positive everyone can reflect that sentiment at some moment in their life with regard to a roommate, sibling, or spouse, I do not want to be that girl on the front page of the newspaper. Thus (I love that word) to counteract the natural man I am going to do everything possible to endure the last 5 weeks of the semester before moving into a NEW place with my own room and a swimming pool! Yes, I can do hard things—I can do this.

I will not be a product of my environment.
I will rise above and conquer.
I will not kill my roommate.
And I will try, try, and try again to love her and not be such a horrible person in my flight.

the quiet stealth of indifference

Indifference: The state or quality of being indifferent.

Indifferent: 1. Having no particular interest or concern; 2. Having no marked feeling for or against; 3. Being neither too much nor too little; moderate; 4.  Not active or involved; neutral. 

There is a moment.  Everyone encounters it.  Before that moment the logical processing of your brain is skewed and you think something will be great, something will fix everything that's wrong, something will make you happy.  Even though your true rational knows this is not true, just before that moment you want to believe it is.  In the actual moment, in the very midst of that moment, is when you acknowledge that you just conjured a logical fallacy and, what's worse, you're indifferent.

You know you should have more interest and concern, you should have marked feelings, you should have too much or too little, you should be active and involved rather than Switzerland! For heavens sake, you need to have a feeling one way or the other!

And yet... you can't help indifference. No one can.  And that's the stealth and danger such neutrality springs on its victim.
I am indifferent, thus I am dangerous.

statistics-- 100% probability i detest it

I have been awake for 20 hours.  That can not be healthy.
I woke up at 4:45 this morning to leave Sandy by 5:15 to make it to work by 5:45 where I worked until 11:45, and then proceeded to shop at Old Navy for an hour before studying all day where I bought a darling white eyelet skirt {$15!}-- my other one is too small and bordering immodest-- it was most necessary, and then I drove with the windows down blasting OneRepublic, which really isn't music you blast but I'm no Cholo so I blasted it away-- because I don't care about Provo boys with their windows half down staring at me belting out OneRepublic with my hair whipping wildly in the wind. Whew.
That was perhaps the world's longest run-on sentence, except maybe in the scriptures because I swear there is nearly a full page without any punctuation to signify the ending of a sentence.  I suppose that's what happens when you're too tired to sleep and you write to unwind-- long run-on sentences.  Regardless, the real purpose in my run-on sentence was to lead into Statistics.

I'm in Psych 301-- Psychological Statistics.  Yes, it's just as gross as it sounds.  Perhaps my most un-favorite class of all time.  Keyboarding with Miss. Graham was better than this; Career choices with Mr. Stark might even have been better.  Why do I hate Stats?  Because I feel dumb, in a very depressing give-up-now there's-no-point kind of way.  
I am not a math girl-- I have accepted that fact of my life and moved on.  Obviously I am not a math major.  BUT for my major of psychology I'm forced to endure statistics.  And it's not my professor that makes the class terrible-- if anything he makes it less putrid and almost bearable with his jokes and random tangents-- it is the subject itself + the impossibility of my mind to comprehend linear regression and binomial whatevers and understanding the "sign test"-- which, by the way, can we please stop the use of double negatives, dear statisticians? It just complicates matters worse.

So today... I studied stats for-EV-er.  I had a minor freak-out about Type 1 and Type 2 errors, so I called my Papa.  As I'm telling my dad that I don't get it, this Asian boy next to me laughs. At me.  The nerve.  I wanted so badly to say, 
"Hey! Not only am I not Asian, I'm a girl too!  If you do the math the odds of me being a brilliant mathematician are stacked WAY up against me-- so stop laughing". 
But I didn't say that.  Because that  little outburst would result in being shunned by library personnel and students, and it would require energy that I did not have, energy that was being supplied by the slowly dwindling effect of Diet Coke in my system.

Well long story short after hours and hours of studying I felt quite prepared and confident marching to the testing center... until I got my exam-- then I realized that I cannot regurgitate a math textbook on paper.  Let alone reason which is the correct answer out of A, B, C, D, E (A & C), N (all of the above), P (none of the above), or Z {let's just make designs with the scantron bubbles and blow this joint-- this test cannot be worth all the tears and torment and torture}.
And computations-- ooooh don't even get me started!  This test has been a source of much stress and 3, count them, 3 major break-downs Sunday alone.  Some computations I totally owned-- I even knew which equation to use out of the 15 in the formula bank!  Some meaning like 5 out of 20.  The rest I just stared blankly at the page or wrote Ross, my professor, notes of how I was really trying but after attempting 3 equations on one problem and still coming out with the Correlation equaling well above 1, as in the ballpark of 250, I was giving up.  I also left him a note on the next problem, where I was suppose to use the answer from the previous question-- guess I'm going to miss those points too.  Then at the end there was a glorious BONUS question! But... as luck would have it, the bonus question related to the two problems I knew I missed earlier and had left notes on-- to keep with the trend I wrote him another note -- "My mind is not made to understand statistics, I'm sorry." 

 Maybe he'll give me points for trying hard and being witty.  I did show my work, even if it was wrong.
Disgruntled and near tears I trudged downstairs fully expecting to see a 18% next to my student I.D number... and by some miracle I still can't fathom {most likely due to my fervent prayer and pleading, or the wild possibility the computer is dyslexic} the screen flashed an 81%!
There I stood with my head cocked to the side, oblivious to others coming and going as I stared at that screen, trying to process that, "yes that is my ID number.  And yes, that does say 81%, not 18%".
After the long, excruciating, nearly-tearful but ultimately surprising test I felt incredibly incredibly relieved.

In a little over a month I will never again need to compute Z scores or determine when to use the addition or multiplication rule regarding probability- not ever ever again! {I'm crossing my fingers!} So although there is a 100% probability I detest statistics, one day when I'm in grad school I'll look back and laugh at my gigantic anxiety over stats and sigh with a smile that that is one phase of my life past and gone.

here's to little old men

I believe the world is wonderful, in part, because of little old men. These darling  crinkled gentlemen are charming and endearing, sweet and goofy. The twinkle in their eye can't help but cheer your heart.  Their wrinkled worn elbows, quick grin, and leisurely walk focus your gaze and soften your heart.  At times these dear aged men mumble a compliment or flash a smile that ebbs away the storm clouds and allows sunshine to radiate through to your soul. One such little old man said to me, unhurried and matter-of-factly:

"Becky, you're too cute to work at Home Depot. You need to quit and move to Hollywood where you can make some real money".

So here's a toast-- to all the adorable ancient men out there-- thank you for being so darn cute!

today

today I saw huntman.

today i saw a cowboy with wranglers, boots, and a hat.
i saw his jawline and sideburns, his nose.
i saw the curling of his smile.
i saw his broad shoulders.
i saw his strong hands.

today i saw a perfect stranger. today that perfect stranger resembled huntman so much I thought it was him. i did a double take, and then a triple. and then i stared. when my rational caught up with my senses it hit me that hunter is half way around the world.

today my heart felt raw. this young man who might have been his twin stared right back, no recollection of who i am because we have never met. and yet, for a split second I expected he would, that he would know me, what i was feeling and how much he looked like huntman. but he did not, he could not.

“dear john” is not the movie to see right after you thought you just saw the man you love who you have not seen in almost 8 months. no. that is a terrible terrible thing to do. because the characters have long absences from one another, because they write letters, because they talk about missing each other so much it hurts, because these actors convey an inkling of what i am feeling. because watching them made me remember things I have not allowed myself to think about in 8 months, things I have shoved so far back into my subconscious Freud would have a hard time recovering them: promises before i left wyoming, our final hug, kiss, and glance, his voice, how I feel completely at home and safe when i am with him.

today i am not okay. most days i’m tough, i’m strong, i’m independent.

today i am not.
today i just miss huntman and want to be with him. today i want these 2 years to be over so i don’t have to wait anymore.

tomorrow i will be okay. tomorrow will be better. and after 500 and something more tomorrows, hunter will be home.

thai food... you complete me

It appears my blog has been somewhat cynical as of late. Mixed in there's a wee bit of wit and my brand of humor but definitely bordering (okay, way over) the line of dripping with sarcasm. So I thought I would write about something which I am completely genuine about-- food. Specifically, Thai food.
My love for this ethnic food is... perhaps indescribable. If I had to eat one meal every day for the rest of my life (other than Saltines) it would be yellow curry for the entree and mangoes and sticky rice for dessert. If you haven't experienced Thai food, whoa! You are missing out and need to rectify that sore grievance pronto! Thai food has this quality of spiciness and sweetness. And, *Bonus*, not only that it’s high percentage of vegetables used and coconut milk means it is, in fact, somewhat beneficially healthy as well as delectable in your mouth and tummy.

CuRRY

Curry is my favorite. Wherever I go I must order curry, or at least ensure someone else will (since we usually eat the dishes family style). My frequent-Thai-eating friends know me well in that I always always order yellow curry. Always. There are 3 "colors" of curry: yellow, green, and red. Yellow is the bomb.com and more on the sweet mellow side. I really can't get enough of it-- it always tastes perfect to me. Green is spicy and very flavorful, typically with lots of bell peppers (it's my second favorite). Red... I'm not a huge fan but it can be good. To me it just seems spicy and not very flavorful. There are endless combinations and types of curries: pineapple, masaman (its base is peanuts, giving a nutty quality to the taste), panang, and many others. Curry is best with chicken as the meat, in my opinion, because it doesn't overpower the flavor but adds protein.

oN The MeNu
There are many stir-fry type dishes when viewing a Thai menu. Some restaurants have close to 25! Vegetables are a huge part of every Thai dish. The sauces have a wide range and rarely disappoint. Noodles are another part of Thai food dishes. I do like pad-thai but, don't hate me, I am not a gigantic fan of pat-si-ew. The taste is wonderful… but the texture of the wide-egg noodles gets to me, quickly.

JaSMiNe

Another factor in the amazing-ness of Thai food is the prominence of jasmine rice with nearly every dish. I use to think “rice is rice”. Oh no. It is not. Compared to Rice-a-Roni or minute-rice, Jasmine slaughters them all. Only if you’ve truly experienced the subtle hint of sweetness can you fathom the incredibleness. Ah. Just thinking about it makes me happy. I could eat the rice plain.

DeSSeRT
Perhaps the best part of Thai food is the dessert. Oh. My. Heavens.
1. Mangoes and Sticky Rice: a sweet juicy ripe mango is cut in slices, served atop sweetened specially cooked rice (I think they combine sweet and condensed milk with coconut over the rice). There is always room for this dessert in my belly.

2. Coconut Ice Cream: creamy coconut milk is incorporated into pure ice cream, topped with slivers of real coconut and raspberries. Divine!

3. Roadies: crepe-like pancake tortilla thing drizzled with sweet and condensed milk or nutella. Gloria!

The other thing about Thai food is that I never get sick of it. Ever. My brother went to Thailand for medical school research and upon his return not only got me hooked on Thai food but taught me how to make a few dishes. One week during the summer I went a little crazy and had a curry binge, making and eating it 5 times within 7 days.
Also, I don’t get full. After a bowl of spaghetti or an enchilada I’m good. But Thai food I can shovel down like there’s no tomorrow, and still want more. I’ve mastered a smidgen of self-control over time and can tell when I should stop before my stomach explodes, but it is not an easy task.

To close I have recommendations of Thai places to try:
1. Spicy Thai. Provo, UT (on University Ave. up north by Magelby’s, before you hit Riverwoods). My brother and I went there earlier this week and it’s the best! Seriously. The curry was ah-mazing—spicy, good consistency, and well priced. They have lunch specials but dinner isn’t bad. For a bowl of curry and rice it was around $8.00. The mangoes and sticky rice was divine. The best I have ever had. Mmmm.
2. Thai Ruby. Provo, UT (south east of BYU campus). The great thing about this place is it’s within walking distance of my apartment. The food is good and atmosphere is seemingly authentic and cool. Unfortunately it is a little pricier, with dishes being around $11 or $12.
3. Simply Thai. Sandy, UT (by Seagull Book and Tape, off 10600 South exit). The owner of this place is adorable. She is the mother of one of my brother’s medical school friends so she loves when my family comes in. The curry is thicker but delicious, and you get a WHOLE lot for around $13. It isn’t as spicy as other Thai places I’ve tried and is slightly “Americanized” with sugar. This is where they have the coconut ice cream that makes you want to die and go to heaven. Or at least take another bite.

stupid boys

I like to think that women in general have discovered the universal phenomenon that BOYS ARE STUPID. Plainly stated, that’s how it goes. Most of us came to that realization on the playground while primped in our flower dresses boys threw mud and taunted us with cooties, chucked paper planes and gum into our hair, and later found out it was because they… liked us?... But I digress… back to the “boys” in our lives who are of comparable ages: dense, cocky, perverted, hypocrites… etc.

Now I’m not talking here about the male species in general—please don’t misunderstand. No no no. We love the “actual men” who have learned to curb or extinguish the idiosyncrasies which pop into their manly minds and emulate genuine respect to the women they are surrounded by whether it be acquaintances, friends, or potentially a girlfriend or wife. They are wonderful, they are charming, they give us hope that little boys will one day grow up and stop throwing dirt clods and snapping our bra straps.

My observation, as of late, has been that although there are those magnificent men in the wide world (seen most observably in the form of our fathers and other such gentlemen who generally have had more life experience), some boys just never quite grow up. And if anything, they revert past their playground days to who knows where by establishing un-amiable attributes.

Example #1: Depot Boy
My bestie Chelsea recently transferred to another Home Depot store. At her work there is a lot attendant by the name of Tony (who instantly triggers an image of a dirty greasy Italian man). Anyways, he was consistently pestering my dear bestie to be set up with one of her “hot single friends”-- which I supposedly qualify as being. Following her plea to go on one date with this “winner” in order for him to leave her be, I acquiesced to let her give him my number.

She warned me he’s been inactive for a while and just recently started coming back to church, as well as the fact that he has gauged ears and a tattoo—totally totally not my thing! In fact, gross (on the gauged ears thing—tattoos are a little bit cool). BUT I figured, “Hey, I should get out every once in a while and one date won’t hurt, right? Maybe he’s a really cool guy. Maybe I can be a good influence”. Yata. Yata . Yata. Ai carumba being the end result.

So while I am working an 8 hour shift Chelsea is giving me the updates: “I gave him your number”, “He added you on Facebook!”. Of course I have to wait to see what he’s like, according to Facebook, for several more hours to ensure he’s not a complete crazy. Then I get the text of “Hey stranger”. Long story short, Tony and I text for the remainder of my shift trying to get to know each other through texting (I know, right? What is the world coming to?!) and he promises to call me the next day and we can set something up. Okay, whatever. I’m pretty indifferent to the whole thing. I check out his profile on Facebook since he “requested me as a friend”… and I just can’t see a date with this boy going well. I don’t hear from him all weekend—which honestly is fine by me, I’m the one dodging the bullet here.

THEN at lunch today I say to Chels, “You know I haven’t heard from Tony”. Apparently, once he found out I worked at Home Depot, he didn’t want to take me out. Wait a second. He works at Home Depot… Huh… Doesn’t that classify him as slightly hypocritical? Weird? Strange? Dumb-boyish-ness shining through? I think so.
As I let my mind wander I hypothesized Tony probably envisioned some dainty blonde cheerleader who googles over his muscles and can’t lift a gallon of milk. Once he found out I worked at Home Depot he was intimidated by the sheer ginormity of my arm muscles from lifting gallons of paint and packages of concrete and fertilizer. Or maybe he doesn’t like his girls in orange. . .

Regardless, to end this little fiasco and not let him get away with that complete load of crap I sent him a little text to end things the way they began.
I haven’t heard back. Peace out, Tony dear. Maybe one day you’ll be able to take out a Home Depot girl, but today is not that day and I am not that girl!

Example #2 Perverted Engaged Boy

There is a boy who epitomizes what every mother hopes their daughters never come across. A pretentious pervert who doesn’t think before he speaks and most certainly doesn’t think before he acts. No censorship on the mouth of his… he’s only got one thing on his mind. And I mean, one thing. Even the most innocent of girls can tell what that is by the way he stares you down and the innuendos he slips into conversation. Dirty dirty boy. He never quite outgrew the mud stage and decided he had better taint the rest of his life with filth.

My first encounter with this boy was several months back at my work. I had seen him around but hadn’t paid much attention. I went in one evening to check my schedule, therefore I was not on the clock. He called me into Tool Rental as I passed by. I sympathized; I know how boring work can be, especially by yourself on a week-night evening when there are all but 7 customers in the store. I did not know what kind of a boy he was or I never would have subjected myself to such an encounter.

He began the conversation by asking if I was single-- some people apparently had wanted to know. He then asked if I was a virgin. Um… not a typical question to ask during a first conversation… I promptly replied that yes, yes I was and yes I will remain until married! He pushed with a leer of “well, how good of a Mormon girl are you?” I don’t drink, do drugs, or have sex! Nor have I. By now I’m more than creeped out. I change the subject—inquiring about the ring he was wearing on his freaking ring finger!

He sighed, “Yeah... I’m engaged. Getting married in the SL temple in April”

Sweet. He’s engaged. This is good. I can run away now.

He then proceeded to tell me that he was sent home from his mission early for having sex with one of the members! (and no, this is not the girl he’s marrying) Keep in mind, this is well within the first 5 minutes of our conversation. BUT, he rationalizes, that it was because he had been “Dear Johned”, and his companion just “happened” to not wake up, and one thing led to another and… Ohhh… how do you react to that? If I recall correctly, isn’t there a rule you’re not really suppose to bring up past transgressions? And being sent home from your mission early by disregarding you own and another person’s chastity is not really something to be bragging about or telling some wide-eyed girl in your first conversation with her.

Then he says, and I quote:
“You know, if I wasn’t engaged I would so totally be hitting on you and we would so totally be going on dates”.

That’s when I giggled nervously, excused myself, and ran away from Tool Rental.

He still waves at me every time I go past and complains that I don’t come visit him. And just WHY would I subject myself to that again? After a time he stopped being completely creepy—you would just notice it as he stared at you and everything else female that moves—even though, might I remind you, he’s engaged!

Then on valentine’s day, that joyous love day, I was working. Sitting in the break room eating some Ritz, he came in to clock out. I decided I should take the high road, be nice, since it was Valentine’s and all. We began a casual conversation about the sugar cookies they had bought for us employees, specifically about the bright blue frosting on one of them. He was saying how sugar cookies were so rewarding. Mmm yes I mused.

“Do you know what else would be rewarding?... (eyebrow raise)… a lap dance from you”
“What?!?!”
“Nothing nothing…” and he clocked out and ran away.

Per. Vert.

How did we go from cookies to lap dances? One thing, and one thing only, I tell you is on his mind.
A few days later he brought in his fiancée. I was so tempted to say, "Hey, did you know your fiancee is an unmitigated disgusting little boy who basically requested a lap dance from me? Oh yes, and also that he hits on girls who are underage-- as in high schoolers?!? Yeah, you're planning on being sealed to him.  Might want to rethink that one". 

One more comment and I’m going to HR because he is ridiculous. Stupid perverted engaged boy.

Extreme examples? Perhaps.  But boys are stupid.  Men are wonderful.

We're far past kindergarten-- we can stop being jerk-faces, little boys.  Want to be a man? Respect women by curbing crude thoughts that spring from your lips and extinguish the little lies you love to tell us. Be wonderful and charming-- maybe one day we"ll classify you as a man rather than a digressing little boy.