The Sandra Situation

One thing before I start... as an addendum to the Lenin statue debacle... Gruber printed out a petition to get rid of the Fremont Troll, and posted it outside his office. It now has 10 signatures. MacDougal's still has only three.

---

So... things advanced with Sandra... which was sort of what I expected. I don't have extreme powers of deduction, but I had a feeling something was up. My plans for Columbus Day Weekend included cleaning the house (once again), and shopping around for a new area rug and a plasma TV. These plans were shot all to hell when she called me late Friday night. She needed someone to talk to who was "detached" from the situation.

The situation is that she wants to break up with her boyfriend, but is either afraid of doing it, or trying to push the onus on him using passive-aggressive breakup strategies. She had three goals for Saturday: to vent her frustration about Adam, to get really really drunk, and get it on with me. Unfortunately, perhaps for both of us, I have a particularly chivalrous nature. As she made drunken advances on me late Saturday night, I explained to her that I wasn't going to take advantage of a drunk girl, nor was I going to sleep with someone who had a boyfriend. Sober up and dump the chump, however, and I'm all yours, I said. She cried for about fifteen minutes and then passed out in my arms.

Sunday morning she apologized, then went off to break up with the guy. Again I planned to buy a TV and a rug. Didn't happen. She went over to his house to break up with him, saying that she slept with someone else last night (which is technically true, though not in the way the euphemism is typically implied) and that she was happy that she did and that she didn't ever want to see him again, except that he had a bunch of her stuff and she wanted to get it. I'm sure there were other topics covered, but I wasn't there, so I'm just relating the gist of it. Well, he wanted to know who she slept with, and when she wouldn't tell him, he grabbed her cell phone, started looking through the calls, found my name as the last one on the list, and dialed me up. Of course it showed up as her, so I picked up. At this point, the story switches to present tense, because it's more exciting that way.

I am immediately challenged to a fist fight. Yeah, this guy's a real winner. But it gets better. After I figure out who he is and why he has the bug up his ass, I tell him that I'm not about to drive all the way over to Phinney to deliver a case of whoopass. He insults my manhood. I again decline. He puts her on the phone. She tells me that he won't let her leave the house, and she's worried he might hurt her if I don't come over and stop him.

Great.

I really have no interest in being a white knight here, and the fact that she somehow allowed herself to get involved with this chump is beginning to shake my faith in her severely. This dude is clearly an ass, but chances are that she's loco as well. But there's another issue at hand... unless this guy is somehow trained in self-defense, which I can almost guarantee he's not, I have to be very careful what I do. On the off chance that it gets to fighting, I can't fight on instinct, because if I do, I'll kill him very quickly and without very much thought.

Naturally, being an idiot, I drive over there. "Why didn't you just call the cops?" you ask. Because I am an idiot. Yes. Today, reader, we have replaced American Jones with a Folgers' Crystal Moron. Let's see if you notice the difference.

I get over to the place, which is actually a spectacularly nice place in a nice part of Phinney, and he's already waiting at the door. He sees me coming, smiles, and comes at me hard. I get about halfway through saying "Now hold on a second" before he throws a well-telegraphed right. His plan must have been to land that right and go from there, because when I dodge it, he's totally off balance. Amateur move. I knock him to the sidewalk with an open palm to the right side of the head, and shout "Stay down." Of course he doesn't, opting instead for some kind of shoulder block technique you'd see Ray Lewis use against a running back. It probably works well against tackling dummies, but this is because they don't have effective countermaneuvers. I drop him again, and once again recommend staying down.

Prick doesn't stay down. He pops up and starts bouncing around like Sonny Liston. His two signature moves didn't work, so now he's going to box me. He's throwing shadow punches in an attempt to intimidate me. I'm trying really hard not to laugh. "C'mon," he says, "let's go." I just sort of gesture in a "take your best shot" sort of way, and he comes at me with a left. Again, telegraphed it. Easy dodge. And this time I bury him with a fist. He's on all fours, groggy; my fist doesn't feel too well either. "Would you just stay the fuck down?" I plead with him. He starts to get up again, so I throw another one into his head. We're 30 seconds in and I've already had it with this guy. He makes one more attempt. I flatten him, and as if on cue, Sandra runs out of the house like I'm her hero.

I ask her if she's OK, and she wipes away some tears and nods, and I suggest that we both vacate the area. She wants to come home with me. I tell her that's not such a good idea, especially since I'm not too happy with what has transpired and what she insinuated that caused said events to transpire. She asks if she can call me later to talk things over, and I say sure. I help her load up some stuff she says is hers, and tell her to go home.

Meanwhile, the poor chump is still lying on the sidewalk. He's conscious... he just has little interest in moving. And the dude's neighbor, who was pruning bushes, watched the whole thing go down. So I go to my car and scribble down my contact info, and I explain to the guy that I'm not going to sit around and wait, but on the off chance the cops show up and need to talk to someone, this is how they can get in touch. Then I squat down beside the ex-boyfriend and explain some truths to him, which I will now paraphrase.

"Listen. I didn't have sex with your girlfriend. I didn't even kiss her. She told you that because she didn't want to be your girlfriend anymore. Think about that for a while. And while you're thinking about that, consider the ass kicking you just received, which was based solely on your own aggression and was totally avoidable, and imagine the similar asskicking you'll receive if it's discovered that you're even considering retribution on either of us. And one more thing... the Khmer Rouge ruled over Cambodia, not Thailand, you schmuck."

---

Now, aside from the quip I delivered at the end, which, if it's the last contact I have with this dude, will be an excellent parting shot... I'm not particularly proud of my actions. Did I stop Sandra from getting hurt? Possibly... I'm not sure what he would have done... he always struck me as an ass, but there's a very big difference between being an ass and being a domestic abuser. But I don't particularly relish the ass-kicking I delivered... I gave him several chances to get out of it. I hope he takes the warning seriously and doesn't come looking for it again. And I hope he doesn't file assault charges, because civilian lawyers and local law enforcement equals cash settlements and loads of paperwork and stern lectures.

That's it for this update. But there's a lot more to be written about the mundane domestic life of American Jones... and it looks like I might have an actual assignment soon. In the meantime, stay tuned for a discussion of plasma TVs, meeting etiquette, and fruit flies. Yeah, fruit flies.