'ruth'

Okay so this is really random and doesn't relate to anything, but it popped in my head as I was having a conversation with myself about someone else. Yeah, I talk to myself, but it's like thinking out loud. Nothing crazy about it. I've come across many people in my day who I would characterize as ruthless individuals. Let's deconstruct this word morphologically. Think back to middle school. The suffix -less means without. So the word ruthless means without ruth. Now what he heck does ruth mean? Have a great day.

Why Am I Blue?

This just in: Don's post on Sunday was heads above the rest. Nothing but the truth! If you haven't read it, get over there and check it out. Now we continue with our regularly scheduled post.
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I'm just a country boy from the south who's him* is a preacher. We went to church on Sunday, Bible Study on Wednesday, service twice on Sundays for special programs, Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, Choir Rehearsal on Tuesdays, Easter practice--suffice it to say church was a big thing growing up. When I was younger I didn't really like going. Somewhere around age 14 or 15 I started liking to go to church. Even now I enjoy going. It's because I was able to develop a personal relationship with Him. It's really not so much about religion; it's more about having a relationship. Don't think that you have to do all that form and fashion stuff that people do at church under the pretense of being religious. If you have a relationship with Him, it'll show in your daily life. (If I'm preaching you can stand up and say Amen.) Have you ever encountered someone and you just felt like there was something different about them? Some sort of presence or an air about them that is hard to describe, but is very much so tangible. They had that it. Even if you can't describe or articulate what 'it' is, you know it's definitely something different. I submit to you that those are the people who truly are trying to walk the walk. Turn with me, to Proverbs the fifth chapter---just playing.

Anyway, church was a big deal. How do you find out more stuff that you can add to your church? You to go the church conference/convention in another state where a bunch of other church people get together and teach each other new buzz words and practices that are popular in their neck of the woods. It's like if no one in your church was speaking in tounges, if you go to the church conference and find out that that's what everybody else is doing, then when you come back to your home church you start doing it first and everyone thinks you've gotten closer to God and then they try to do it to because you're not gonna be closer to God than they are. Church people are like that. I've been around it all my life.

So this particular year we went to a church conference in Delaware. My parents already knew the pastor who was over the conference. I don't remember how they met, but they were already well acquainted. The conference might have lasted three days but we just stayed the rest of the time until Sunday where our church from home came to Delaware to have a joint service with the church in Delaware. Our church provided the music for that particular service.

The pastor and his wife were very hospitable. They introduced us to some of the members in the church who also entertained us during the week that we were there. My siblings and I ended up almost everyday hanging with this one family. Let's call them the Mitchells. The mom was so sweet and thoughtful. You should see her praise. She'd stand on her high heels and go from side to side like she's two stepping and make circular motions in the air with both her hands palms facing inward toward each other. The dad was a humble man, very mild mannered. He would shout like he was doing the funky chicken. There were two daughters in the family. One about 23 and one about 16. I'm around age 16 at the time. So yeah I wanted to get at the 16 year old. Let's call her Jennifer. (That was actually her real name). In order to get a girl to notice you on the 'church circuit' you have to act like you're really into church. Each night after the conference there is a evening service that starts around 6 or 7. What we (the guys) would do is find a girl who you like. When they call for the altar prayer, we'd go down front and get special prayer. That would encourage the girls to come down front and stand with you for moral support. If you got a girl to come down and stand with you, then she was yours. Other tactics included crying during the service. That whole "I'm sensitive" thing worked oh so well on those fast ass wholesome church girls. You only needed to shed a tear though if you were in her direct line of sight. If you couldn't be sure that she could see you, there's no point in crying.

So anyway, the Mitchells would come and get us during the week and we'd go to the beach or out to eat or to their home. One particular afternoon we went to one of the Mitchell's friends house. We were left alone and the adults went to town to shop or something. So at the house was me, my two brothers, and Jennifer. The adults trusted us to just play video games and hang out and whatnot. Where was Beyonce then? *singing* You must not know 'bout me..*end singing* When they left I was like, yes!! Let's paint a picture. I'm 16. She's 16. We're home with no adults. And you want us to just play video games? Uh...okay. If that helps you sleep at night. If all we ended up doing was playing video games, it wouldn't be for lack of trying to engage in other, more gratifying activities.

At first we were all downstairs because that's where the video game setup was. My brothers were 14 at the time and were heavily into video games. I still played but that was not what I had planned to use that time for. I started my plan. I asked Jennifer to show me the rest of the house--mainly the upstairs. She agreed. So we looked in the people's bedroom and at the other rooms upstairs. We went into one of the bedrooms to just chill. I asked her what she wanted to do. She's like I don't know. I'm thinking to myself, well I have an idea. Before I jumped into anything I was trying to figure out how much she had done at this point in her life. So I asked some probing questions. Basically I determined that she was a virgin and was scared to take the leap. I didn't even press that issue. I decided that I should just seek some oral pleasure.

I asked her to do it. She acted like I asked her to slap her mom. She started on this tirade about how she thinks that's nasty and blah blah blah. I was blowed, but more than that I couldn't think straight or clearly because a good bit of the blood that oxygenates my brain had rushed elsewhere. I was hornier than a mug! It was so bad it was about to start hurting. I needed to skeet bad as hell. At this point I'm thinking to myself why the hell would you follow me upstairs if you gonna be acting crazy? This ain't Flip That House. I don't give phuck about what the house looks like. I'm getting desparate at this point. I'm still trying to convince her. I'm bargaining for smaller increments of time like saying just for a few minutes and stuff like that. Still a no go. I needed to be touched so badly that I made a last ditch offer for her to just let me put it on her neck. I don't know where that came from but I just needed to touch something. I was so brick and horny I might've skeeted on her neck as soon as it made contact. She wasn't feeling that either. Needless to say I was deeply disturbed. Good thing we didn't really jump off into anything because it wasn't long after that the adults returned. They questioned us as to why we were upstairs and not downstairs with the boys. We gave some flimsy answer and all was forgiven.

On the ride back home (Ms. Mitchell was driving me and my brothers back to our hotel. About a 40 minute ride) Jennifer asked me if I was mad at her. My reply was simply, "Don't talk to me." I mean, how you gonna play with a sixteen year old boy's horniness like that?

In case you read this, Jennifer, you owe me. You got off the hook that time. Maybe that's why some people end up (finish my thought).

Oh yeah, the thing yesterday, I cussed (cursed) somebody out at work. I have absolutely never cursed someone out. I always say stuff like, "I ought to curse him/her out", but i'm never really serious. First time for everything.

Forgive Me

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I always mention it in causal conversation. I've threatened to do it before, but I was never serious. Today I actually went there. I can't believe I did it. She shouldn't have pushed my buttons. That's still no excuse. Maybe I'll apologize tomorrow. Maybe not. She kinda deserved it, but that still does not justify my behavior. I usually don't let things bother me, but she caught me at the wrong time. I guess it was just a matter of time before it happened. Words have power. Having romanticized it in the past, I gave life to that deplorable wont. On some level I'm ashamed. Though I carry myself with piety, my behavior today was sanctimonious. Inexcusable. Inexplicable. So out of character. It was like an out-of-body experience. Maybe the next time she'll keep her dang mouth shut, so that it won't happen again. Actually, no, that's the wrong way to look at it. I'm the only person who can control my behavior. It's really not her fault. I did it because I wanted to. The dragon within was incensed and awakened and spewed a venom so potent that she left like a wounded lamb. She almost had to be carried out. It was her brazeness that made it so harsh. I wonder what my supervisor is going to say.

Real post coming tomorrow I think.

Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!

Remember the friend, and I use the term loosely, who I wrote about who tells these ridiculous lies? No? Okay, maybe not if you're new, but that just means it's time for you to do your homework. Dig in the archives. I was reading some stuff from last year (and I realized I missed my blogiversary) and I had my own self laughing. Some of the stuff made me mellow, but it allowed me to see where I was and where I am now.

Let's call this friend Angel. She went to Minnesota to stay with her boyfriend's family. To me that's pretty serious stuff. You're going 1000+ miles away from home to live with your significant other's folks for about two months in their house. Well while they were there she'd call me from time to time just to let me know how things were going and whatnot. Most of the time I'd ig her calls because if I'm not in the mood to hear a bunch of stuff that I don't find credible or relevant I just won't take your call. Sometimes if I know you're gonna tell me a bunch of lies and I'm not in the mood to hear a bunch of lying, that might get your call ignored as well. Hear me clearly. I like to be entertained, so many times I'll take the call just so I can see how many lies she's going to tell this time or see if I can get her to change/modify/enhance a story that she's already told me before. I know she's a chronic liar, but every now and then just to be JayBee I'll call her on a lie and watch her squirm and try to back peddle and use a conjuncting lie (just made that up) to try to make all the divergent stories converge.

At some point over the course of these two months or so she called me and told me her boyfriend, hereinafter Wayne, was being controlling and mean to her. She claimed he didn't want her going out during the day by herself. Mind you he had to work during the day along with his parents so basically that left her home alone with nothing to do. I guess she could watch t.v. and vacuum but how much of that can one person do before they are bored out of their mind? This went on for a while and on one of the calls she told me she went out during the day without his knowledge and he found out. Well that caused an argument that turned physical. Because of her noncompliance with his directive he told her from now on she'd stay in the basement while they were away at work. The basement locked at the top of the stairs so basically she was a prisoner in their home.

After the lockup she'd call me whispering telling me what was going on. Sometimes she'd abruptly hang up the phone and call back in a few minutes and say things like she thought she heard someone coming. I left this out. Somewhere in all this mess he told her she wasn't to talk on the phone while she was alone either so that's why she was whispering.

Here's what's wrong with the whole my-boyfriend-abused-me-and-locks-me-in-the-basement story. First of all, if someone has become physical with you and you choose to stay, there ain't no need of telling anyone about it. The persons with whom you share your story are going to look at you like you're crazy especially if that someone is me. I know the damaging affects of abuse. I can in nowise condone you staying in that situation waiting on it to happen again. I am a 99.8275% firm believer in the if it happened once it'll happen again thing. Maybe 0.1725% of the time there might be an exception.

There has already been a word coined in the English language that labels the concept of someone holding you somewhere against your will. It's called kidnapping. If you expect me to believe your story, keeping in mind that your credibility with me is zero, why the phuck are you calling me? I'm hundreds of miles away. Call the freaking police. They are the ones who are trained to deal with situations like this. Not me. I'm just a school teacher.

If Wayne has you locked up, why the hell did he just not take the phone out the basement? In that way he could ensure that you had no contact with the outside world. Unless he thought you were scared to death of him, why be so brazen as to risk you calling the police or your family or JayBee who could give a phuck less (if you've never heard that expression, it's worse than not giving a [whole] phuck; it's less than a phuck)?

Unless his parents are from Venus, I don't think they would condone their son locking you in a basement for nine hours a day. When he let you out of the dungeon, I'm thinking dinner time, you never once said anything to his peeps about what Wayne was doing to you everyday?

Of course not, Angel, because it was all a lie. And just like the other gross lie, (if you didn't click the link read the other story) it made absolutely no sense. There were too many holes and unanswered questions. It's actually kinda insulting when someone tells you a lie and hasn't taken the time to think through all the questions they might be asked so as to develop plausible answers. It's like oh, so you think I'm as stupid as you, huh? Surely you don't believe down in your tortured soul that I believe this crap. Let's say it was true and I'm totally off on thinking you're being untruthful. You should have called Ghostbusters. They're real too.

Close Call

What do you do when you leave the club late at night and have nothing else to do? Before you go grab something to eat with ya peeps you get someone arrested. Whuh? Ya’ll didn’t do that? Oh, so it was just me and my friends? Well, here’s what happened anyway.

A group of five of us decided to go out. We chose this mixed crowd club in downtown. The thing I liked about this spot was it wasn’t as hot as the sweatboxes that we usually go to were and you didn’t have to worry quite as much about bouncers/popos coming through the party cause somebody done started some ish. If you don’t know, and I’m not generalizing this is a fact, white girls love to dance on a pole, especially if they’re drunk. Talk about laughing and having a good time watching them drunk white girls make their best attempts at twerking. You could find a couple of nice ones who have some melanin too. Good times to be had by all.

Anyway after we left the spot this particular night we were driving around downtown because were started to hit one more club before we called it and got something to eat. You know how downtown they have those one way streets and stuff and you have to go over a block or two and loop back up to get where you’re going? I mean, it’s like that in a lot of the cities that I’ve vistited. So yeah we were navigating and saw this white boy in the middle of the street. From what I remember he was about 5’9” 150 lbs with some matted brown hair. Nothing that really stands out. Twan was driving and said casually, “I’m bout to act like I’ma hit ‘em.” Although he said it casually everybody knew, well at least I knew, that he was definitely going to make good on his statement.

He accelerated and slowed down when he got close to the guy. I think he waited a little long to start decelerating but I guess that was to make the ‘scare’ more real. The white guy—let’s call him Scott, doesn’t flinch. He stands there in an altered state of consciousness and then begins to verbally assault us. He let’s loose a string of expletives and like a tree planted by the rivers of waters lets us know that he shall not be moved. This of course pisses Twan off so he backs up and says this time he’s not gonna stop. I’m like oh hell. What in the world? I hope Twan doesn’t hit this dude. I don’t remember what we were saying in the car to Twan but everybody was kinda indignant that Scott didn’t move from in front of the speeding vehicle since he was after all standing in the middle of the street. I mean it was late at night like 2 a.m. and even though there’s very little traffic, when you see cars you need to Ludacris.

Twan puts the car in drive and picks up speed towards Scott. Even though it wasn’t that long of an amount of time it seemed like a while because we continued to get closer to him and I didn’t feel the car slowing down. Eventually I was like slow down man don’t hit him or something like that. Twan was like no this ma phucka needs to move. Twan slams on brakes when it’s almost too late and the car appeared that it was still gonna tap Scott. In a fit of desperation and seeing that his life was probably about to take a turn for the worse, Scott jumped in the air and landed on the hood of Nesi (Twan’s nickname for his Nissan Sentra), ran up the windshield onto the roof of the car and made a dismount once he reached the trunk. When he stepped on the roof of the car the roof caved in near my head. I felt like I was in danger because he could have stepped on top of my head and hurt my neck or something. It was at this point that I felt Scott had gone too far.

It was clear to us that Scott used his spare time to partake of some of the sniffable organic stuff that the plants on God’s green earth provide. This dude was stoned—I mean so high it didn’t make any sense. Twan was silent. Not a good sign. He and I are alike in that regard. As long as I’m still bitching at talking to you, I still care and you still have a chance to win me over. If I stop talking leave it alone. All hell could potentially break lose cause at this point I no longer give a phuck. Twan broke his silence and was like oh phuck no. This ma phucka done walked on Nesi. He put the car in reverse so that he could get out the middle of the street. Meanwhile Scott is kinda meandering in the street all the while shouting more curse words and pretending that we were trying to hit him. Clearly stoned.

Twan exits stage right from the driver’s door to go to his trunk. Still on stage (inside the car) we’re all discussing what just happened and how wrong Scott was for jumping on the car yada yada. Twan is loading his gun. Right about this time a police officer drives by. I beat on the back window to alert Twan and he slowly closes the trunk. Mike gets out of the car to flag the officer down, who I’m sure was gonna come over anyway to see why these black dudes and a white dude were in the street with the white dude shouting at the group of black dudes. Twan approaches the officer and tells him how the guy just ran up on the hood of the car.

Scott is standing near too so he’s trying to over talk Twan and keeps telling this ridiculous story about us trying to hit him and all this nonsense. By this time I’m out of the vehicle too because I feel like a victim cause he stepped near my head. I suggest to the officer that I think the guy is high and needs to be tested. I mean I don’t know much about drugs but I wanted to plant the seed if it wasn’t clear to the officer that this dude is on something. The officer didn’t respond to what I said. I don’t know if it was because it was already obvious to him or if he didn’t agree with me. The officer is trying to get the whole story and Scott gets so loud and obnoxious that the officer has to cuff him and put him in the back of the police car.

At some point during this whole information gathering session T took Scott’s shoe and dropped it down a storm drain. The shoe came off when he ran on top of the car. Scott saw T drop the shoe down the drain and became even more loud and belligerent and told the officer that T dropped the shoe down the drain. When the officer shifted his focus to the car to see if there was any truth to Scott’s assertion, T acted indignant. He was like what shoe? What are you talking about? That sent Scott over the edge. He started hollering even more and eventually kicked the window out the back of the police car with his shoeless foot. Only a stoned out fool would do some ish like that.

The realism is that that’s just what we needed to convince the officers that Scott’s story was bogus about the attempted hitting and to believe that he was high. That could have went either way because from the officer's point of view there were five black dudes and one white dude. It could have appeared that we were doing something wrong. The officer was like he’s definitely going downtown now for destruction of property. The officer dismissed us and said he’d handle it from there. We drove off relieved that everything went our way and grinning because we definitely were culpable in what happened. What did we do next? Waffle House foo! Nothing like some omelets, orange juice and laughs to end the night. Especially since none of us left the club with anyone.

Update

The work stalker, as Rashan so eloquently put it, just texted me to tell me he purchased a phone just like mine. Oh brother.

Tag - You're It

I'm a tag virgin, but Pocahontas tagged me. Since her hair is so luxurious right now, I had no choice but to oblige.

Here are the rules:

1. Link the person who tagged you…

2. Mention the rules in your blog…

3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours

4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them

5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Here are some unspectacular quirks about JayBee:

1. One of my pet peeves is hearing people mispronounce words. If you want to raise my ire just say aks instead of ask. If you committed this cardinal sin of mispronunciation, someone I used to know would say, “If you aks me I’ll die, but if you ask me I can answer.”

2. I’m allergic to shellfish. I’ve never been able to successfully ingest anything with a shell on it. When I’ve attempted in the past I gag horrendously and my throat sometimes swells.

3. I do not like excessive amounts of noise. The only exception is when I’m hanging out. Sometimes even then I think the noise level inside clubs and bars is too much. In the classroom any noise other than the calming sound of my voice is not welcome. That includes, but is not limited to, talking, tapping, beating, sniffling, coughing, laughing, etc.

4. I’ve only been in love twice. You know they say the third time’s a charm. Maybe the next time it happens I’ll be crowning the future Mrs. JayBee. That is of course if everything checks out (including the credit score).

5. I’m a mild control freak. I don’t like for other people to drive because I think I do it better, plus I trust myself more than you. I don’t like to be absent too much from work because I don’t trust anyone else to do my job as well as I. I pretty much like people to agree with me even if they don’t agree. I reward people when they do just as I’d like them to.

6. When I go to funerals I give “awards” for most dramatic presentation. No, I don’t relish in peoples’ grief. I just like to be entertained. I like the you-ain’t-dead-daddy-take-me-with-you type performances. At my grandmother’s funeral no one really ‘showed out’ as we like to call it. If I had the day to relive, it would be acting a monkey fool at the funeral. I’m so serious. At the recessional when the funeral was over I did start to grab at the casket when it rolled by just to set it off. I didn’t do it. I wish I had.

So there ya have it. Some uninteresting quirks about me. I’m tagging:

Chris, The girl that I never had, [Pop That]Cherry, This Crazy Monkey, Da Vinci, and M.E. – maybe she’ll post something now