Should I regret my mistakes?
Dear Dale:
You’ve become quite philosophical recently. What’s that about?
Signed,
Please go back to bashing women
Dear PGBTBW:
Age, I guess. Nothing like the rapid approach of the Grim Reaper to make you wonder: was getting wasted every day of my life the best use of my time on this planet?
Maybe I should’ve a career. Worn a tie and ass-kissed my way to the top. Bought an overpriced house, subscribed to The Wall Street Journal and invested in pyramid schemes.
Like Steve, my landlord. He’s a lawyer. Lives upstairs with his wife and kids. Comes home dead tired from a hard day defrauding widows and orphans, gobbles down his dinner and listens to his wife complain about how boring it is to be a housewife. You’d think it would drive him to drink but it doesn’t. Just works more. Pulls out his laptop and works late into the night. What’s worse, he’s proud of it. Always bragging about all the hours he puts in.
I’d feel sorry for him but we’ve never gotten along. He’s always on my case. Little things, like recycling. Asked me to stop hurling my empties at the bin. Something about liquor bottles flying overhead makes him nervous.
(He obviously doesn’t go to the same bars as me.)
Also asked me not to urinate in his yard when drunk.
(When else would I do it?)
Especially under his daughter’s window.
(How was I to know? The blinds were closed.)
And he’s still pissed off at me for teaching his son to play beer pong.
(The kid was five. It was time he learned.)
Our relationship would be even worse if he knew I was banging his wife.
(Is it my fault he goes on business trips?)
Fortunately, I’m a gentleman. Almost always use a condom. So I doubt he’ll catch any of my diseases.
Okay, sure. I’ve made mistakes. Dropping out of school to become a carny probably wasn’t my best choice. And I’m still feeling the effects of that LSD challenge: a hundred hits in a hundred hours. And that was decades ago.
Asking a biker to be my AA buddy didn’t work out at all. We drank more. And he got me into hard drugs.
(So much for court-mandated sobriety.)
But my biggest mistake was getting married. I had no idea what I was getting into.
(Does anyone?)
I was in a bar and the bartender cut me off for punching him in the face.
(Love tap, really. I still don’t get why he was so pissed off.)
So I asked this woman to buy me a drink. Turned out she had just been dumped. Which explained the tears streaming down her face.
They had it all worked out: marriage, kids, house, retirement and a condo in Florida for their golden years. Right down to what kind of stone they wanted for their graves. But then he met some young hottie and broke it off. Told her in a bar surrounded by strangers. Figured she’d be less likely to make a scene. Talk about mistaken. Not only did she throw a beer in his face, she upended the table and started pelting him with pool balls.
(My buddy was playing at the time. Despite being down several balls, he still insists he could’ve won and wants his dollar back. Figures since I married her, it’s my debt now. Brings it up every time he gets drunk.)
I met her moments later. Most people were giving her a wide berth but I’m good at dealing with crazy chicks.
(The trick is to be even crazier.)
Besides, like I said, I needed a drink.
A few months later we were married. I have no idea how that happened. One day, I was drinking wine in an Italian restaurant. The next, I was looking at wedding napkins. I don’t think I proposed but she swears I did.
(I have no memory of it but that’s no guarantee. My memory is like one of those old maps with huge empty spaces where explorers will someday die. People are always coming up to me on the street, clapping me on the back like old buddies or pissed off as hell, and I have no idea why.)
Either way, I went with it. For one thing, she had a house.
(Much nicer than the dump I was living in.)
And she cooked. Real meals, with ingredients and everything.
(As opposed to fast food and instant noodles, which is what I was living on.)
Yes, I thought, I could get used to this.
Thing is, there was a catch. For one thing, she expected me to spend all my evenings at home. Without alcohol! Now, once or twice a week is fine — you got to give your liver a fighting chance — but every night?
And I had no idea that marriage meant being sexually exclusive. That was quite a shock.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those guys who’s always bitching about his ex-wife. She was alright. Did a lot of nice things for me really. Got me out of construction and into the city.
(I’ll never have to work hard again.)
Taught me the importance of smell.
(My success rate with women skyrocketed after I started using deodorant.)
And the sex was good too.
(Never underestimate the prim ones. It’s a different world behind closed doors.)
No, we were just too different. Like most people, we went into marriage with certain unspoken expectations.
I saw it as a stabilizing force, something that would allow me to get drunk every night and still have a place to sleep.
She, on the other hand, was all about the future. Kids, especially. Lord only knows what made her think I was family-man material. Maybe she thought marriage would change me.
(It does, a lot of guys. And kids, once you’ve got them. The hormones take over. Make you loopy. Some guys, they’d even die for their kids. Go figure.)
Not me. I’ve always been a full-steam-ahead kind of guy. People say to me: “Dale, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. The rest of us stopped doing that shit years ago. When the fuck are you going to grow up?” I take it as a compliment. A testament to my ability to stay the course. It’s one of my strengths.
Unfortunately, she didn’t see it that way. Believe or not, she saw it as a bad thing. Kept talking about some program I had to get with. Thought she was talking about TV at first. One of those bullshit shows where they talk about how to be a better person. Like anyone would want to do that.
But it could’ve happened. The kid, that is. Never went at it so hard with a woman as I did with her. And we never used protection. What’s the point? Not if you’re married. Way I look at it, you bring a disease into a marriage, you might as well share it. For better or worse, after all. Romantic, I know.
No, it was the acid. Doc was amazed. Told me he’d never seen sperm so deformed. Even got a grant to study it. Published a paper and everything. Created quite a stir. A lot of people thought he faked the data. Impossible! they said. No one could do that much acid and survive.
But I did. My claim to fame. That and my Special Customer Certificates from Slee Zees, my favorite strip club. Most lap dances in a month.
(I’ve got dozens of those.)
We also had trouble communicating. She wanted to. I didn’t. Just because you have feelings doesn’t mean you have to express them. No one wants to hear about it. Better to bottle them up until the pressure becomes so great you explode in a murderous rage. That’s the manly way.
I don’t know when she gave up on me. Maybe it was my third DUI.
(I’m on a first-name basis with all the local cops.)
Or when I vomited onto her friend’s wedding cake.
(It had layers. They could’ve just taken the top one off.)
Or when I slept with her sister.
(Oh, right. That was it.)
Whatever the case, bit by bit, her face sank into sadness. In the beginning, she was often angry. By the end, she was just tired. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when she filed for divorce.
But I was. I thought we had something special, something that could survive a bit of prison time. Turns out I was wrong. Her patience, unlike my appetite for alcohol, was not limitless. And so we parted ways.
I won’t lie: I miss her. Just because I’m a tough guy doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. And we still speak. Mostly about her ex-boyfriend.
(He’s had some tough times. The recession killed his business, the feds got him for tax evasion and that hottie he married took the rest.)
“Dale,” she’ll say, “did you hear about Brian? He was arrested for lying drunk in a park with his fly open.”
The way she speaks. It’s like a cat being stroked.
At least she doesn’t talk that way about me. Despite all the bad things I’ve done, she hates him more. So that’s something.
As for my health… the clock is running down, no doubt about it. Lord only knows how much longer my liver can hold out.
People say: Dale, there’s still time.
I say: For what? A few years of sobriety? I’d rather go out in a blaze of glory. Like Elvis. With a heart attack on the can. Or Jim Morrison. Drowning in your own puke. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me too.
As Frank says: regrets, I have a few. But working myself to death sure isn’t one of them. Everyone runs out of time, money or luck eventually. Even if you do everything right, you’ll still get old and the only cure for that is death but it’s a hundred percent effective.
So don’t look back. It’s probably just the police. Crack another beer instead. If they’re going to get you for open liquor, it might as well be worth it.
(I keep a case beside me and replace them as I go. That way the bottles don’t roll around under my feet while driving. Safety first.)
Keep going. Even if you are on the wrong path. Make the same mistakes over and over again if you have to. You might end up in prison or the loony bin but that’s just the chance you’ll have to take.
Life is short. Don’t waste it doing safe sensible things like bungee-jumping.
(Straps are for sissies.)
Or sky-diving.
(Real men don’t use parachutes.)
If you’re going to jump, go for it. Don’t pull your punches with protection.
Instead, start several feet back and then run like the Devil, screaming all the way as you shoot into sky. Yes, your flight will be brief and your landing, less than smooth, but you’ll enjoy it all the more knowing it’s only going to happen once. Do it. You’ll be glad you did. Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Dale
Hi. If you’ve made it this far, you probably liked the story. So why not check out some others at my Medium page? https://medium.com/dear-dale
