Stupid Things I Have Done (and Witnessed Others Doing), Part III

As an undergrad, I had one main love, but we had a rocky relationship one of my close friends referred to as "the soap opera." Neither of us really wanted it that way; we just never got on the same page at the same time. Oddly enough, we remain on good terms to this day.

In one of my escapes from the soap opera, I dated an English major who was a self-proclaimed feminist. Always beware of men who espouse feminism, ladies: They are usually fishing for pity and control. This guy had a really nice apartment, and we shared many surface interests--cooking, world music, literature--but there was always something manipulative and fucked up about our interactions. He loved putting me down and demonstrating how foolish/crazy/lost I was without him. And the sex sucked, too. I was too naive at the time to know what true love and support meant, or to recognize how I chafed, until I had done so much undermining of our relationship that the end came. He dissed me for my housemate. I hooked up with my soap opera hero again, and we had a year of ridiculous youthful bliss.

I hated English Major, unlike any other ex I've ever had. He still repulses me. I told him on no uncertain terms to stay away from my room in our house, which had multiple entrances. Of course, he could be in her room if my housemate so desired, but I asked him to stay away from me, especially because he lived only a block away. They could just go to his much nicer place, right? But no. He insisted on walking right past my windows or usually open door on a regular basis for the next semester. Finally, I clocked him one, slapping him so that his glasses flew across the room.

He then called my mom, telling her I had "struck him about the face." (God, what a prick.) This was my first and last foray into English major abuse, and the stupid thing mentioned in this post's title. My mom, bless her, responded with, "So, what do you want me to do about it?" The conversation went downhill from there.

The summer before this stupid drama unfurled, I lived with English Major at the apartment of one of the art department's profs. It was in a lovely, creaky old New England clapboard house. The downstairs apartment was occupied by other students supposedly holding down the fort for some history prof, the kind who likes strapping young men in his spaces. These boys had a deep love of two things, as far as I could tell: drinking copious amounts of beer and floor-shaking stereo volumes. Their favorite songs, in fact, the only songs they seemed to play after midnight were "Buffalo Soldier" by Bob Marley and "Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi. These songs would play on repeat, as objects bounced across our bedroom floor in the wee hours.

That summer, in addition to slogging through a stupid relationship, I was working ridiculous split shifts at the university cafeteria. My first shift started at 5 am. So I had little patience to deal with meatheads yowling, "I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride..." etc.

One night was particularly bad. I told English Major to go talk to them, but they paid no attention. Cursing idiot men in general, I was about to go down there myself. Then the music stopped. Some quiet chortling began as the door downstairs slammed shut. Good, I thought, it's over.

Then, I heard a noise, a thud that shook the entire house. Another thud. Another. I stumbled into the dining room and looked out the window, down onto the street below. Quickly, I picked up the phone and called campus police. The conversation went something like this:

Operator: Campus police.

Me: Uh, hi. I live at so and so. I'd like to register a noise complaint against my neighbors.

Operator: What seems to be the trouble?

Me: They're throwing a big bunny at the house.

You see, the meatheads had previously pillaged a local mini golf course and stolen a large fiberglass rabbit. It had stood downstairs for a few weeks. That night, it seems the boys had had the brilliant notion that it was high time they tossed the 5 ft tall creature against the side of the house. As they did so, they screamed, "Die, big bunny! Die! Die!"

The police arrived, despite their skepticism. The boys ran back inside--no idea what they did with the remains of the bunny--and the more sober ones fled out the back door and drove away. They left a clueless, shitfaced friend downstairs standing stunned on the front porch. The officer asked what he had been up to, as a complaint had been made. His fantastic response: "Uh, I don't know. I was just standing here picking popcorn off my toes."

Indeed. Touche! There's the ultimate defense. The old popcorn-toes alibi.

Soon, the summer was over, the relationship was over, and I was over it. But the memory of the death of Big Bunny lives on.