Four Stories
I had my weekly date with David last Friday, and we did not discuss any of my jealousy or relationship neediness, even though I had prompted this with an email that said I wanted to talk, but “don’t worry-it’s nothing bad.”
His response to my conversation request was something like, “Damn, I’m really curious,” but he had a bad day on Friday so we avoided the serious subjects, downed a bottle of Riesling, ate chocolate ice cream, and watched Love Actually.
During the movie, he asked me three bits of trivia (in relation to what we were watching), and I bombed his quiz. In all honesty, I should have scored 2/3, but I second guessed myself and really only answered one question correctly. And even that required him to give me the answer in French, so I’m not quite sure I scored any points at all. Let’s see how you do.
1. What is/was Margaret Thatcher’s nickname?
2. What precedes the line “Silence is golden” in the famous proverb?
3. What do you call the musical instrument that looks like a set of pipes in a row and that you blow into?
I told him to stop asking me things that I don’t know, to which he responded, very playfully, “Well, know them.”
But it’s such a male thing to quiz people like that. My dad does it, Kosta does it, Fouad does it, and Dirk does it.
And, incidentally, here are three stories about three of those four individuals.
Kosta: I am so pissed at him right now. I wrote last week that I went to see The Dark Knight with him and Amy, but what I didn’t say was that he was supposed to meet me at 7:45 (for an 8:30 movie) to pick up our reserved tickets. When I got to the theater about 7:40, I couldn’t believe how long the line was. I wasn’t sure if our reserved tickets would’ve allowed us to bypass the line, but I figured I would get in line and wait for him and then one of us could check it out while the other held the spot.
At 7:45, I tried to call him but he didn’t answer. This is something that really annoys me about him. Because we have different phone services (mine is Vodafone and his is T-Mobile), it’s a little pricy to have a call. So whenever I call him, he doesn’t pick up because he doesn’t think that I should pay for such an expensive call (mind you, it’s my money and not his). This irritates me because I only call when I need something and it's my decision how I spend my money. I hate when he's so damn parental.
Eventually he sent me a text message to say he was running late and would meet me at the nearby McDonald’s after I bought the tickets.
30 minutes later, I was finally through the line and went to McDonald’s. He showed up 5 minutes later, and Amy arrived about the same time. This is when he tried to pay me back for his ticket, only he totally ripped me off. Instead of giving me the cash, he gave me these stupid-ass coupons. He said that I can use them to buy movie tickets and at lots of stores and the stores are on the back of the ticket, and I didn’t really bother to look at them because it never would have occurred to me that my friend was trying to screw me.
But the truth is that you can’t buy movie tickets with those coupons. They only work at travel agencies, a water park, and a couple of eyeglass shops. Why did he give them to me? Because he’s a fucking douche, that’s why. Honestly, there was no way he was confused about them (and I showed them to some Czechs to verify that I was, in fact, screwed over), because he is too sharp for that.
This comes on top of him not paying his full share the last two times we ate a meal together. One of those occasions was my birthday, and I sort of didn’t mind that he didn’t pay his half (his was maybe 20 crowns more expensive than mine) because I chose an expensive restaurant. But he threw out his 320 crowns on a 900 crown bill and said, “That covers me,” and I gave him a look like, “No it doesn’t.” But I just paid the other 600 anyway.
I am so naïve. I have just never encountered so many users as I have here, and I think I am done trying to be his friend. If he contacts me again, I will talk to him and I will ask him about those stupid tickets. But I am not going to bother getting in touch with him. That’s just bullshit.
Fouad: Similar story, total user. He asked me out for coffee, and I knew as soon as he ordered honey cake that he expected me to pay for him. It was one of those cases of ordering more than you normally would when you think you’re not footing the bill.
Anyway, he is married and he has residence in the EU for the next five years. And to that, I say, “Well done!” Because I really don’t know how he pulled it off. He can only hold on to a job for a couple of months and then spends the next couple of months unemployed. So I really don’t know how he paid that off.
But now that he has it, he wants to go back to visit his family in Algeria.
So he asked me for $2000.
Which he amended to $1000.
I shook my head and made him pay for his own damn coffee and honey cake.
Dirk: Actually, there isn’t much of a story here. But he’s been a very good friend to me this past week, which I’ve needed. I’ve been very moody, and he’s talked me through a couple of crying spells on the phone. Tomorrow, I fly to Germany to visit him. I return on Monday. I haven’t seen him since November of 2006, so it should be fun to see how the two of us have changed.
His response to my conversation request was something like, “Damn, I’m really curious,” but he had a bad day on Friday so we avoided the serious subjects, downed a bottle of Riesling, ate chocolate ice cream, and watched Love Actually.
During the movie, he asked me three bits of trivia (in relation to what we were watching), and I bombed his quiz. In all honesty, I should have scored 2/3, but I second guessed myself and really only answered one question correctly. And even that required him to give me the answer in French, so I’m not quite sure I scored any points at all. Let’s see how you do.
1. What is/was Margaret Thatcher’s nickname?
2. What precedes the line “Silence is golden” in the famous proverb?
3. What do you call the musical instrument that looks like a set of pipes in a row and that you blow into?
I told him to stop asking me things that I don’t know, to which he responded, very playfully, “Well, know them.”
But it’s such a male thing to quiz people like that. My dad does it, Kosta does it, Fouad does it, and Dirk does it.
And, incidentally, here are three stories about three of those four individuals.
Kosta: I am so pissed at him right now. I wrote last week that I went to see The Dark Knight with him and Amy, but what I didn’t say was that he was supposed to meet me at 7:45 (for an 8:30 movie) to pick up our reserved tickets. When I got to the theater about 7:40, I couldn’t believe how long the line was. I wasn’t sure if our reserved tickets would’ve allowed us to bypass the line, but I figured I would get in line and wait for him and then one of us could check it out while the other held the spot.
At 7:45, I tried to call him but he didn’t answer. This is something that really annoys me about him. Because we have different phone services (mine is Vodafone and his is T-Mobile), it’s a little pricy to have a call. So whenever I call him, he doesn’t pick up because he doesn’t think that I should pay for such an expensive call (mind you, it’s my money and not his). This irritates me because I only call when I need something and it's my decision how I spend my money. I hate when he's so damn parental.
Eventually he sent me a text message to say he was running late and would meet me at the nearby McDonald’s after I bought the tickets.
30 minutes later, I was finally through the line and went to McDonald’s. He showed up 5 minutes later, and Amy arrived about the same time. This is when he tried to pay me back for his ticket, only he totally ripped me off. Instead of giving me the cash, he gave me these stupid-ass coupons. He said that I can use them to buy movie tickets and at lots of stores and the stores are on the back of the ticket, and I didn’t really bother to look at them because it never would have occurred to me that my friend was trying to screw me.
But the truth is that you can’t buy movie tickets with those coupons. They only work at travel agencies, a water park, and a couple of eyeglass shops. Why did he give them to me? Because he’s a fucking douche, that’s why. Honestly, there was no way he was confused about them (and I showed them to some Czechs to verify that I was, in fact, screwed over), because he is too sharp for that.
This comes on top of him not paying his full share the last two times we ate a meal together. One of those occasions was my birthday, and I sort of didn’t mind that he didn’t pay his half (his was maybe 20 crowns more expensive than mine) because I chose an expensive restaurant. But he threw out his 320 crowns on a 900 crown bill and said, “That covers me,” and I gave him a look like, “No it doesn’t.” But I just paid the other 600 anyway.
I am so naïve. I have just never encountered so many users as I have here, and I think I am done trying to be his friend. If he contacts me again, I will talk to him and I will ask him about those stupid tickets. But I am not going to bother getting in touch with him. That’s just bullshit.
Fouad: Similar story, total user. He asked me out for coffee, and I knew as soon as he ordered honey cake that he expected me to pay for him. It was one of those cases of ordering more than you normally would when you think you’re not footing the bill.
Anyway, he is married and he has residence in the EU for the next five years. And to that, I say, “Well done!” Because I really don’t know how he pulled it off. He can only hold on to a job for a couple of months and then spends the next couple of months unemployed. So I really don’t know how he paid that off.
But now that he has it, he wants to go back to visit his family in Algeria.
So he asked me for $2000.
Which he amended to $1000.
I shook my head and made him pay for his own damn coffee and honey cake.
Dirk: Actually, there isn’t much of a story here. But he’s been a very good friend to me this past week, which I’ve needed. I’ve been very moody, and he’s talked me through a couple of crying spells on the phone. Tomorrow, I fly to Germany to visit him. I return on Monday. I haven’t seen him since November of 2006, so it should be fun to see how the two of us have changed.