June6
*In a brave display of ridiculous injuries, I fell this morning on the bottom stair, well, technically, I fell on the baby gate on the ground. I heard a sickening crack and immediately I saw stars–no, not Christy Brinkley–and the pain was, well, hideous. I then had to army crawl on my belly to the kitchen.
Not perhaps one of my finer moments.
But to the ER I eventually went, dragging my friend P-Funk along for the ride. My foot is so swollen that it looks about to give birth, but they say somehow I didn’t break it. I’m holed up on the couch under strict orders not to move.
It’s fucking boring as hell*
Anyway.
So I left you hanging with Part I of My Own Personal Stalker, Milan, who had recently begun smelling competition and trying to mark his territory like a dog. Without the golden showers. Even I have boundaries.
He began impatiently phoning me, hour after hour wondering where I was. Which, I have to tell you, is probably the worst way to get me to call you back. I don’t respond well to frequent calls. The phone calls reeked of desperation, and in between leaving me messages alternating between threatening to ‘never call me again’ (um…okay) and begging me to call him back, he’d send similarly impassioned texts.
Occasionally he would even badly quote me some song that I liked, like Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” (don’t judge, haters). Often subtle nuisances would elude him and be lost in translation.
This was always especially funny to me for some reason.
When I’d ignore both his pleading phone calls (Rebecca CALL ME BACK. Please? Pleeease?) and his text messages (The greatest love of you), he resorted to emails. Like his phone calls and texts, they’d start of innocuously enough and end rather mad. Since we both liked a lot of the same music, much of the email would be badly translated parts of songs.
Without a proper email to refer to, I will make one up:
“Dearest Rebecca,
In your house, I longed to be with you. I didn’t want to ever close your eyes or fall asleep, the greatest love of all time. I call you many times and you don’t answer. Your mom says you’re not home. But you’re home! I know it.
I sit here and you don’t call me back. Or write me back. Or text me at all. Or send me braille messages from Fed Ex. Or paint my name in the sky in an airplane. You are a jerk. I don’t need you! You don’t call me back and I will let you go! Fly into the breeze birdie, blackbird. We could have had something special but no! You ruined it all.
I’m saying goodbye forever,
Milan.”
It would go on longer and be followed up by another equally painful to read email, but you get the idea. He tries to be nice, gets mad at me, berates me, tells me that I suck and that he’ll never talk to me again. Rinse, repeat.
Was that the end? Oh, of course not. Rebuffed, he redoubled his efforts to woo me.
First, one day after I dragged my sorry butt home from clincals, exhausted and ready to hit my sheets, my mother said, “Umm, Rebecca? Milan has been calling. Can you ask him to stop? It’s unnerving.”
This pissed me off: I couldn’t have made my stance more clear. If I don’t respond to you in any way, normal people would tend to take that as a sign that mayhap they should back the hell off. But no, it appeared that I was going to have to make my feelings known. Angrily.
I marched to the phone, dialed his number and said, “Milan, you have GOT to stop this crap” when he answered. “I am in your neighborhood, I want to see you. I have been driving around for ages,” is how he responded to this. Figuring that this was going to be the only way to keep him the hell outta my parents house (and away from my son) I agreed to drive and meet him a block or so away.
I pull up to his car, get out, slam my way into his car and say, “This is creepy. You have to knock this off.” He smiled at me and looked bashful, but before I left he insisted that I tell him that we were still friends. Gone were the insults, the harsh words and in it’s place sat my old friend Milan. Who had driven an hour to my parents neighborhood to drive around and wait for me.
I’d have been flattered had I not been skeeved out.
Figuring he wasn’t likely planning to make my skull into an ashtray or a bong anytime soon, I left things at that. Stupidly.
The next email he sent told me all about how he could tell that I had feelings for him, that he could see it in my eyes when we spoke. I recalled that “feeling” being “anger” and left the email dangling. What could I say to someone who was as harmless as an ant (annoying, creepy, yes. Harmful? No) to convince them that I was not in love with him? Not much. So I ignored him, hoping he’d take the hint.
Then the flowers started coming. Roses, all roses, all the time. I could have opened a flower shop. Now, I do love flowers, but only from people I really, well, like. These roses made me feel gushy and gross inside. Like they were tainted with Creepy Eastern European Goo or something.
The following week, I walked back to the train with one of my cronies. Rather than sit in traffic, I rode the train to and from school, and it was easily the best part of my day. This day, I rode with my friend Laurie, and we were deeply engrossed in our recent Lab Practical results and were discussing it with gusto (told you I earned the nickname Super-Becky Overachiever).
We arrived at the train station and sat on the bench, still deep in nerdly conversation when I looked up. The train tracks in Elmhurst were huge, and had an underground passage that led from one side to another.
There on the other side, stood Milan, waiting for me and smiling goofily. THAT FUCKER WAS WAITING FOR ME IN THE SUBZERO WEATHER AT THE TRAIN STATION. Which was like an hour from his house. Plus, I’d been TA-ing so this wasn’t my typical train. He must have been waiting for awhile.
Like this sort of grand gesture would mean anything other than a restraining order. My heart dropped and I got pissed off. He popped through to my side of the tracks and said shyly, “Hello, Rebecca.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I spat back. I was enraged.
“I wanted to talk to you and you’re ignoring me.”
“Well, maybe there’s a reason. I’m not interested in dating you, I already have a boyfriend, I love my boyfriend, and you’re being creepy! How long have you been waiting? It’s like 2 degrees out.”
He didn’t have much to say to that, just stood there smiling shyly at me. Luckily I was saved by my train, which I boarded after telling him to leave me the hell alone. I got a text later on saying that I must really love Dave, but to call him if I ever thought I could be with him.
Yeah. Right.
I haven’t heard from him in ages, I’m married now, and while I live in the same town, my name is different. I guess he finally gave up.
Hehehehe.
Poor man. I’ve never so thoroughly crushed someone’s will to live.
