Ugh what a long trip. I picked up Sandy Thurs after work and we headed out. Drove to mid-state city and picked up John and his son. We drove for about 5 hours and stopped somewhere in Alabama for the night. We ended up getting a "suite". Sandy took 1 room, the boys another. Nothing juicy.
The next day we were down at breakfast. Sandy was on the phone most of the time with bf. I excused myself to grab my gear and load up the truck. When we met back up, there was a "new" plan. Evidently the bf flew the redeye from some place he was working and was driving 4 hours to meet up with us. This really irked me. Not so much because they were meeting up. I mean, really I have my place and it's not even at the table so to speak. I'm lustful. She's a tease. That's my place. But what irks me the most is her line of BS. I sent my application off for this match not long after the NC fiasco. She had pretty much pissed me off with the whole "yeah we can get a room... then completely back out the night before to fly somewhere with the bf thing". When I sent my app off for this one, I didn't say anything about it to her. We had talked about it before. But I decided she could go or not and it's not going to affect me one way or the other. SHE opted to send her app in. Then she went on to make a point of telling me about a conversation she had with bf about it. Something to the effect of him: "I don't really like that match".. her: "ok.. but you're not invited".. him: "some indignant response". At least this is what she tells me. Then in the end he shows up for a booty call anyway. I said it with Taylor, and I'll say it about Sandy, I hate hate HATE mind games. I don't CARE if they are hooking up. They SHOULD be hooking up. These trips are one of the few times they can. Hell I'm MARRIED and having sex with Mrs. Sandy and I aren't even doing anything anyway. So why does she have to BS me? Does she think I won't want to hang out with her?
Anyway, he only stayed 1 night (booty call). The next day we started the match. I started STA-RONG. Then things went downhill. I had an equipment problem that really hosed me on one stage. In fact, it cost me 1st place in my class. I went into the next one all keyed up from the previous fuck up and had another fuck up. John said he had pictures and I was clearly jacked up on adrenaline and most likely caused the 2nd malfunction just from gripping the gun like I was trying to squeeze the life out of it. I went into the 4th stage pretty bummed about the whole deal watching any chance of placing go out the window. Had another minor problem on that one. By the time I made it to the 5th (out of 10), I had pretty much given up. Let me rephrase, I had given up on winning anything. So I just said "fuck it, let's just have some fun and learn something". And that seemed to make the difference. I ran the next 5 and placed either 1st or 2nd in my class on all of them. It was enough to squeak me into 3rd place of 22 in my class. My first time ever bringing home a trophy (and a little check) for one of these.
That night we went to dinner. There is a guy, Randy, who we see at a lot of these matches. I got to know him a little bit back in November. The best way to describe Randy is... NUT... CASE! I think I generally have a quit wit and often times keep my friends laughing. But this guy puts me to shame. I have never laughed so hard in my life. He rode to dinner with a couple of guys who evidently put the fear of God in him with their driving. He refused to ride back with them. So we gave him a ride. My truck was actually pretty full, so Sandy hopped in my lap (I had handed off the keys to John) for the ride. Randy sat behind me. The whole trip back he was telling the story of getting kicked out of a strip club for getting a little handsy with the dancers... as he was sitting behind me.. he demonstrated... ON ME... with Sandy in my lap. He said (in backwoods Alabama accent) "I jest leaned into her and gave her the hawt breth on the neck" leaning up to me saying "haaaaaahhh oh Tom" (he thought my name was Tom and we never corrected him). I was squeezing Sandy for all I was worth alternately cringing and crying (from laughing).
John needed to hit a pharmacy for some sinus medicine. Randy said "I need me sum beer" and jumped out of the truck leaving me and Sandy alone. I wish I could say something good happened but it didn't. Not 1 minute after they got out, Randy came skipping out of the store (yes.. skipping). He stopped... looked at my truck... and launched at it climbing up on the hood doing his best stripper crawl shouting "Oh TOOOM!!!" and clawing at me through the window (also leaving me a dent in the hood damnit!!). Then he jumped back in the back seat and started molesting me again "TOOM I missed you!!" stroking my ears breathing on my neck again. I just tried to curl into my happy place. Finally, and none too soon, John came out and we went back to the hotel. We pretty much crashed after that. No idea what happened to Randy. We lost him somewhere in the lobby.
We actually only shot the first 8 stages on Sat. The last two for us were on Sunday. We stuck around for the awards because there was a good chance we all would place. Plus they had a prize table with some really good stuff on it. Everyone was guaranteed something in a random drawing but you had to be there to get it. We didn't get on the road until almost 3pm Miss. time. 12 hours later after dropping off John and his son in mid-state city I dropped Sandy off at her car. I finally crawled into bed around 4ish.
During the trip between mid-state city and ours, in between napping, Sandy talked to me about another match coming up in Sept. It is far far away from her BF but not so much us. She started talking about going up for it and getting a room. I'm so confused. She implied together, but I can never tell with her. I'll stick to my same game plan. I'm going. She can go or not. Room with me or not. Don't care. I have a much less stressful time that way.
And that was my trip. Now onto
TEEE EEEEM IIII TOOOSDAY!!!1. How many credit cards do you own? Are they paid off?Ugh.. I used to only have a debit card. Then I got a CC for work trips. I had it safely locked away. Then when we moved into the new house and C was in the horribly expensive school it started getting use and now has a balance. I am vigorously paying it off, but it did build up over a couple of years so it's going to take me a bit to get it down. Mrs also got us Amex to use to get points. We were going to use the points for our trip to Cali to see my sister (we did). I used it to go to Miss. so there's a balance on it right now.
2. Can you be in love with someone you don't trust?Read above. The heart wants what it wants. I don't think you can control who you fall for even if there is no logical reason to be in love with them.
3. Should prostitution be legal?Hell yeah!!
4. On a scale of 1-10, how good of a lover do you think you are? (1 is lowest, 10 is highest)Oh geez... I guess a 5 or 6.
5. What are three mistakes someone could make on the first date with you that would automatically make you turn down a second date with them?1. Lie to me
2. Talk on the cell phone at dinner or worse, talk on the phone several times over the course of the date. You're with me, not the people on the other end of the phone. Work and urgent issues will trump that of course. But chatting with your BFF while you're out with me.. not so much.
3. Get political. I'm dating you, not your party.
Bonus (as in optional): Tell us about your worst date ever.Ironically it was my first date with Mrs. We met for dinner at a quaint/nice little restaurant. During dinner I got paged for work (see number 2 above). At the time, I supported literally life and death systems. We had just reorged the department and I was the only person on that team. So I was on-call 24/7/365. I had to take it. Rather than talk in front of her, I excused myself and went outside. The person who paged me is.. well.. dumber than a box of bricks... no nice way to put it. So the conversation took about 15 minutes to have with her. I came back apologizing profusely. The rest of dinner was kinda nice.
Then we went to a movie. I drove us from the restaurant (since we met there). We chose "The Haunting". The movie was ok. We got to the scene where the "guests" were meeting for the first time. Catherine Zeta Jones was introducing herself to Eleanore Vance and there was some strong... girl on girl vibes going. I said "aaaAAWW yeah" and make the bwow chicka bwow bwow sound. But it was more like the chawcka chwacka sound at the beginning of Voodoo Chile (Jimi Hendrix). Mrs looked at me, then turned in her seat so that her back was to me. She sat that way through the entire movie.
After, I drove her back to her car thinking "well this was just fucking great". I pulled up next to it and we started to make the awkward "date is over and we won't do it again but we're polite" chit chat. She said "interesting movie". I said "yeah.. and Catherine Zeta chawka chwaka (making the sound again)". She said "Ok... what the hell is that". I said "What?".. she replied "That noise you're making". I thought the question was pretty ridiculous... I answered in that "duh" kind of way "You know.. 70's porn music". She laughed and said "You are SO off the hook". I replied "Off the hook?! I didn't know I was on one". Still laughing.. she said "I thought you were making gross SEX noises!!" We both laughed. If only she knew. Hell sex noises are a daily staple in the pluff household! She started to get out of the car. I remembered about road construction going on. I lived on an Island with 3 bridges to get on or off. The main bridge was undergoing construction. We happened to park right between that bridge and another. So it was really 50/50 which way she could've gone. So I said "Oh.. btw, they are working on the XX bridge". She said "Oh so what you're saying I have to stay with you?" But she said it like she was serious. I gave an exasperated sigh and said "Jesus you're a pain in the ass. No I was TRYING to tell you you may need to take the YY bridge. Turn right instead of left. See you later" and pulled away.
She called me a couple of days later apologizing and asking for a second chance. The rest, as they say, is history.