Crying Over Spilled Beer

“Don’t cry over spilled milk. It could have been beer.”~ Author Unknown

Last night, I traveled to Waco, Texas because #1- I can and #2- I was invited to attend a show there which headlined the band, P.O.D.

There will be a full blog post about my travels and experiences about that much later.

I wanted to focus on a group of people that I had the unfortunate displeasure to have crossed paths with.

Although as they say, when it becomes a thing of the past and you look upon it then you will just laugh and laugh and laugh.

I ain’t laughing yet….. that much!!!

As I was familiarizing myself with the venue, I had the sorrowful duty to attempt to manage to get myself around as best as I could while dealing with rather THICK carpeting.

I had turned the corner and hadn’t been talking, hadn’t bothered anyone, and I passed up a group of gentlemen.

Suddenly, my arm and chest and all the way down to my hip felt wet and very cold.

These “gentlemen” were a group of friends and were involved in a serious match of horse play when one of them spilled their beer all over me.

Now I realize that they didn’t simply just THROW it on me or DUMP it on me, nevertheless the guy’s glass was empty in a fraction of a second and I was dripping with the contents of that glass.

Suddenly their incessant giggling and immature shenanigans came to a most abrupt end and conclusion. So much so that they pretty much kept to themselves quiet the rest of the night…. even after I had moved.

I looked at my coat sleeve as it dripped of nasty and cheap beer from the forearm to the hand and down the fingers to one side of my lap.

Looking up slowly, I saw three or four faces frozen in shock and in horror. And best of all: fear.

I didn’t say a word. Not even a grunt or a peep. I turned away from them and kept moving on.

The rest of the night, the guilty party continually came up to me after it was all said and done, apologizing, begging for forgiveness, and apologizing some more. I continued to stay quiet. 

Here’s the inside scoop on this story and probably the REAL reason as to why they were so adamant about being sorry and letting me know about how sorry they were:

The photograph of the jacket is called a “BDU” in the military.

I was wearing one. My brother got one for me while he was serving in the Army.

I had my name across it. I had military patches and other insignia up and down the sleeves. It looks legit even though it is not. Because I am not a Colonel, nor enlisted in the United States Army. I do however, like the insignia and symbol of the rank of Colonel.

Eagles, anyone?

These guys convinced themselves without any help of anyone else of the outside world, that a beer had been spilled upon a member of this country’s military veterans.

The next thing I know, they were offering to buy me drinks the rest of the night. They were wanting to take me out to eat. They were willing to purchase expensive band merchandise. They even offered to bring me to the next big show and pay for my ticket. All of this, without my consent or approval.

I honestly believe that these people were fearing some kind of massive retribution on my behalf as a consequence for their immature actions. And they were attempted to mend the wrong with showering me with gifts, to ensure that retribution would not be received.

The sad part is that people are going to believe what they want to believe. It does not matter whether or not you attempt to right their mistakes, they will do and believe what they want. No matter how many times I tried to tell them to just drop it… they insisted. And no matter how many attempts that I gave to explain that I was not in the Army, and that it was just a jacket… they believed what they want.

Am I former military? NO.
Was it okay for them to have done what they did? NO.

So, there’s fault on both sides. And it appears that both sides were stuck with attempts to right the wrong in vain.

Chances are… I’ll never see these guys again. That’s just the way the world works. But I literally had these guys scared to death the entire rest of the night up until the time that I left the venue to return home.

This could be a lesson for people as well.

Of course I could have screamed and cursed and attempted to pick a fight with these guys. I would have been justified in doing so because of what had happened. But I think the best retaliation was to let them stew in their own individual minds about what they were doing and what they did do and what had happened, to punish themselves about it the rest of the night.

Are they thinking about it now-today? I doubt it. But they sure as hell thought about it last night.

Return Of Penelope Soto

 

Penelope Soto

“America’s criminal justice system isn’t known for rehabilitation. I’m not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.”~Steve Earle

If you will remember ohhhh, about nearly 325 posts ago, maybe a year ago, I wrote about the viral story of Penelope Soto and her unusual rise to viral fame in a Florida courtroom.

Since her viral story, I honestly lost interest in it because I believed that what the judge had ordered against her as judgement was fair and right.

But little did I know that there would be more to this story. The things that DIDN’T go viral which actually makes the story have a “happy ending” of sorts.

VERY quickly and VERY shortly after Soto flipped off a Florida judge, did she return to court and apologized for her actions. Then she explained that she was on drugs (the very same that she was being charged with possession of) and said that’s not who she was. The judge then accepted Soto’s apology, dropped the 30 day jail sentence for her finger action as well as the drug possession charge altogether.

Since then, I have read that Soto has been subject to random drug tests. All of which she did pass. And she returned to court to follow up on her case. But this time smiling, even cracking a joke or two along with the judge.

So now she lives her life allegedly drug free.

Don’t get me wrong… all in all, I am very happy to see that Penelope Soto has decided to stop doing drugs. But the personal levels of frustration set in because I know that if I was on Xanax as she was, and I was in court as she was, and I did the same exact thing to a judge that she had done… I would be locked up.

And as I said, this “revelation of an update” was already one year ago or more… I just never heard about it until now. Oh well!!!

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/01/31/drug-charges-dropped-against-teen-who-flipped-off-judge/

Even Your Sorry Is As Fake As You

There I was the other evening, having to contact someone that I hadn’t spoken to in over a year and that was by my own choice.

Nothing that I was overly proud of doing, since knowing that the person I had to contact had thrown me under the bus, then ran me over with a series of army tanks. But I was able to keep my composure until the very end and separate the point of my communication with them from my own deep hurt personal feelings.

When it had seemed that the business side of things was over, I slipped out of my mouth my curiosity if ever I and that person would ever be friends again.

And I remember feeling not all that sincere when I had asked. Still feeling or at least remembering the ragging burn that I experienced from their grand deception.

But they sensed something wrong. I mean after all, I hadn’t spoken to them in well over a year. And then they literally had the balls to ask if I felt that they had done or said something to wrong me.

I don’t feel that you did, I know you did!!!!!

A series of apologies came sprouting from their lips like the Bellagio Fountains of Las Vegas.

The first apology being:

Whatever it is that I did or said, I apologize. 

Umm, excuse me?!?!?????

That right there, is NOT an apology. That is a CYA.

That is “Oh shit. I did something wrong but have no idea what it is but I will apologize just to get this person to shut up.” 

Really people??

Sometimes the apology is just about as fake as the people who give them. The actually took no responsibility for their actions. Probably because they didn’t see any bad or negative actions.

They clearly had no idea to what I was talking about. And that told me that their dumb actions from long ago that I felt were wrong, they didn’t think that they had done anything wrong.

This actually caused the opposite reaction to happen. Instead of calming my doubts, my fears, my insecurities, and my questions… it re-fueled the anger and re-lit the flames that were once dead. Actually dead but then brought back to life.

The next thing that I knew, was them asking if sex would be something that they could do in order to make things better. Uhh. NO!!!!!

It was honestly no surprise to me that they were more than willing to talk about something else and change the topic as fast as possible. I could’ve talked about the most disgusting things on the planet, and they would have been more willing to discuss it than their faults that they had yet to atone for.

I could categorize it as “If you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all.” but I do not think that fits this situation. What I do think is that this pre-emptive apology was quickly delivered so that they could gain something. Probably my forgiveness or probably just me shutting up about it and letting it go. But that didn’t work.

I’ve ceased communications again. And it appears as if there will no longer be any, for the rest of days.

I don’t get how people can think to apologize without knowing what they are doing it for. Or it might be that I do not understand how they think others will or should accept an empty sorry.

Sometimes I feel like these people should forfeit living on this planet. But then again, I am not the one to judge that.

So the next time someone is confronting you with an issue and you don’t know what they are talking about, ask them. More than likely since they gathered the courage already to talk to you about it… they will tell you.

Stop making empty promises of sorry and apologies. Act and be mature. Admit your mistake when you make one. Be sincere with others if you want them to be sincere with you.

 

Fade To Black

“I can’t remember anything. Can’t tell if this is true or a dream.” ~ Metallica, “And Justice For All”.

This post is absolutely unplanned, and very much unscripted. But there’s a story that I want to share. Something that has me scratching my head and making me say “WOW!” for the past full hour now.

My original thought for a new post was going to be about memories. How we have them, how do they come to us, and what makes us have them. But my thoughts are still not satisfactory to the point where I want to write.

But this ties in. There was a song that I heard just yesterday that caused me to remember a time about ten years ago in my life. I’ll give you a quick history and then move on to what I think is just so shocking and perhaps a bit funny. But I’ll let you decide.

Ten years ago, I was corresponding with a young woman whom I had the biggest crush on at the time. It was nothing real, just a really big cyber crush. Someone that I had been chatting with on the AIM program and exchanging e-mails. Eventually, I felt at one point she had done me wrong by keeping secrets from me about what she was telling her family about me, and how she might have truly felt about me at the time, just hoping that it was reciprocation. It wasn’t but let’s move on.

I came to the point where I had made plans to move to Texas and I told her. Things really went south from that point. Once I moved, that was pretty much the end. Our time of nearly two years of chatting and corresponding every day had come to a close. All ties had been broken. All communication was over. That chapter in our lives was finished.

My infatuation of her (or at least the idea of her) held on for a bit longer, but it was battled by the fact that she had these secrets about me. Eventually that too, would die.

It had probably been about three years later that I decided I was going to contact her. Not knowing what she was doing, what she might say. I had figured that her life moved on just as mine had. I was actually anticipating that she was probably married and had children.

During that time that I did not speak with her, I saw my faults. I knew I had done her wrong at times. I was human and very immature back then. But I could see those errors that I had made that had caused the trauma between her and I. That actually was the intent of contacting her again. I was hoping for an opportunity to be able to apologize to her for being so irrational towards her life, her ways, and her actions.

Well, I found her. She contacted me back asking how I was doing and mentioned that it had been a long time. I didn’t mix words with her and went right for the throat, so to speak.

I went into detail about how sorry I was for my immaturity and asked her to forgive me. She turned around and said that she wanted to apologize for hurting me. I could have sworn but I think that we did forgive one another. And then just within a few e-mail exchanges she said she had to go and I didn’t bother her any more.

She was married as I had expected, and was pregnant with her first child. On this, I congratulated her.

Fast forward nearly seven years later until yesterday evening where I had heard this song, which is actually a male-female duet. I started having the memories of using AIM to chat, having a microphone there and talking with her. I would play the song on my stereo and turn the volume way up so the microphone would catch the sound and I would sing the male part and she would sing the female part.

Not the kind of memory that I feel would be resentment or anger back. But rather something that was pleasant for the both of us at the time.

So with the invention of Facebook since the last “encounter” for lack of a better term, I looked her up by using what I thought was her e-mail address. I would be successful in finding her yet again.

I sent a message saying that I had heard the song that she and I had sang so many, many, many years ago and it brought up pleasant memories.

How quickly she wrote back, saying that she was stunned and surprised that I would even still remember her. She took the time to apologize for hurting me, even though she acknowledged that it was probably something she didn’t really need to do. And I reminded her of the time where I had actually contacted her and we both forgave one another.

She went there, that fast!!! What was going on in her head that she would resort to the feeling of needing to apologize??

Then she admitted that she really had no memories of the time that she and I had spent chatting and corresponding. She was being honest and I let it go. Not everyone has a great memory like I do, I understand that. Plus it was just her “moving on”.

A few more exchanges and then she said that she had to go to bed because she now had two children and they would most likely have her awake pretty early in the morning. There was really nothing more to be said I suppose. Or maybe she was scared and went into a panic. After all, she has been married for the past seven years.

I sent her an ending salutation and waited to see what she was going to send as her ending salutation.

Several minutes passed and I thought it would be best to remove the message thread out of my Facebook inbox. It wasn’t necessary to hang on to. So the moment I went into the inbox, something went down. Something that I found extremely shocking.

She had blocked me.

The conversation was not filled with bitterness. It was not filled with anger. It was a very small conversation, which I realize now that was mainly about her, her marriage, and her two small children. And now she blocked me.

For her to do that seems a bit hypocritical of her lifestyle that I knew she had even back then. I don’t think that I did anything threatening towards her. I was not even entertaining the idea of trying to add her to my list of friends on Facebook. I merely was thinking about her because of this song that I had heard, and wanted to let her know about it … hoping that life was treating her well.

I realized several minutes after comprehending the block, that perhaps she did not grow up as much as she had claimed. It wasn’t making sense.

It’s getting to the point where I am laughing about it now, but the brain still is saying “WOW!! How cruel. There’s no excuse.”

So I suppose that’s going to be my highlight of the week in general. Perhaps time didn’t heal all of her wounds. Perhaps she was just trying to protect herself from the Inquisition of her husband of the past seven years, should he find out that she was corresponding with me. It could be any thing for any reason at all. It was just behavior I was not expecting out of her, based on her “love one another, forgive and forget”  lifestyle.

At any rate, I’m going to continue my research about memories and why we have them and what brings them up. Once I have everything that I need, I will be posting about them and I hope that you as the reader- enjoy it.

You can bet your money that the song that had caused this memory to come up about her will not be listened to or heard for a very, very, very long time. Instead of a pleasant moment in my past, sharing a duet over the Internet has now become a reminder of her shutting me out so that she makes sure that I never speak to her again. Naturally, that is her choice. But because of how I knew she would live her life and the things she would do was not mirrored by her actions so it is just, ………… WOW!!!!