Alone Came Me

Like this old man, I once saw a movie by myself.

It was "Along Came Polly." I wanted to get away from things so I went to the midnight showing, but not before I went to the nearest gas station and bought me some cherry skoal tobacco. (I know you are probably thinking, ew that's disgusting, and I agree. The memory of it alone makes me nauseous.) Anyway, I bought my ticket and proceeded to the respective floor in the palladium movie theater where my flick would be shown. I aggressively approached the concession stand and asked for a water cup to spit in from the pimply faced, generic, 'I hate my life' guy that always seems to be working behind the counter there. He got a solo cup, handed it to me hesitantly with a peculiar look. Like I wanted to give him a urine sample or something. I thought about it, but I decided not to pee (R. Kelly) on him.

I walked to a seat in the last row in front of the projector, whipped out my tin, packed it, opened it, and put a pinch behind my bottom lip. I slouched in my seat and let the juices kick in. I wanted a buzz and some Ben Stiller/Jennifer Anniston action to help get me away from what was a rough patch in my life. Syracuse was 0-2 and I recently found out one of my friends "woke up naked" next to my main squeeze at the time.....

Let me elaborate on the latter.

It was the morning following a party. I was sleep-driving to a baseball game early in the morning when I received a phone call. I have no recollection who the call was from. Either a really good friend, or someone who wanted to sabotage my game because the call could have definitely waited until around noon, a normal weekend time. The conversation went something like this:

"I have no idea what happened and I hate to be the one to tell you this, but _____ woke up naked next to ____ this morning."

I was wide awake now. "Really? Well, we're not dating, but thanks." I started to laugh. "That funny slut. You know she blew me earlier in the night? Then she goes and sleeps with another guy after I leave? Does she have no shame? Welp, good for her I guess. Thanks for telling me. Later."

I played surprisingly well that day and was surprisingly mature about the situation. Normally, I probably would have burned her house down or started a really nasty and unforgiving rumor. Instead, I merely went to school the following Monday and confronted them both. 'My friend' lied to me about it, claiming it was true they woke up naked in the same room, but it was innocent and nothing happened. I believed that about as much as I believed that the Easter Bunny was delivering Christmas presents that year because Santa Clause had SARS. I looked to _____ and her cheeks blushing as red as the cherry she lost some years ago was the only confirmation I needed. I laughed and walked away. End of that story. No grudge or anything. In fact, throughout the rest of the year, I continued to talk to both of them as if nothing ever happened.

I'm not heartless, though. I'm a human being with feelings and by golly it stung. She was cool and we were having fun. However, to be fair, we weren't officially dating. Facebook didn't exist to make it official and I would hardly call weekend guitar lessons and tonsil hockey a firm base to build a healthy relationship off of.

At the same time though, it (the mysterious naked wake up) didn't sit right with me. We weren't in LA or Vegas where any type of sexually deviant behavior flies as a societal norm. Or so I think. My thoughts exactly are: If you put your lips around one dick at 10:30 PM, you don't put them around a different one within 24 hours, much less within a couple hours. It's not right, and probably not healthy. Way too much protein.

So this obviously perturbed me and naturally, I needed to see a good ole' fashioned RoCo (Romantic Comedy) to get my thoughts in order. At the time, there was no better way to do that then by getting fucked up on something as disgusting as tiny fiber glass filled tobacco pieces and a movie by my lonesome. (The movie was great by the way).

(Little disclaimer: I'm not the only person in America to see a movie alone. In fact, my buddy witnessed Kobe Bryant at "Harry Potter" by himself when the Lakers were in town to play the Pistons during the 2004 NBA Finals. PeeWee Herman once saw a movie by himself too, but that was to 'grope his rope.' That's a completely unrelated story, though.)