Yesterday for lunch, I decided to go to Zaxby's and have a Kickin' Chicken Sandwich. Normally, this sandwich doesn't bother me, but today it had some extra ooomph to it.
I have this quirk about going into a restaurant to eat if I'm by myself. I won't do it. Usually I'll opt to go through the drive-thru and then find some place to park and eat in the car. Today's dining spot was a parking space in the Target right behind Zaxby's here. I parked way out at the end of the lot next to a tree for some shade, rolled down the windows and dug right into my sandwich.
Again, this sandwich had some ooomph to it today. Enough ooomph that my eyes were watering up and the occasional tear would fall down my face. As I was eating, I see this lil' old lady that apparently worked at Target doing parking lot clean up. She's walking towards my car and when she passes me, she takes notice that my eyes are apparently all puffy.
"Are you all right son?"
Was about then I realized how bad I must've looked. Sauce all over my mouth, puffy red eyes and tear tracks down both sides of my face. I also had a mouth full of food when she asked.
I just pointed at my sandwich.
"Oh you can't handle your food today eh?"
I shook my head.
"Ok, just making sure you were all right. Have a good day!"
I nodded and finished my sandwich.
Moral of the story: There are apparently people out there who still care.
Unfortunately, they're from a generation or two before mine.
Any of you who have befriended me on Facebook undoubtedly saw my rant the other night about an old friend who sent me a friend request, then unfriended me after about a month citing "I'm clearing out people I rarely talk to" on her wall as a bit of a blanket warning that she was about to commit genocide on her friend list.
Also, any of you who know me know I generally don't view Facebook as a means of constant communication, but have grown to accept it as a way of keeping in touch with your outer circle of friends and family.
Due to character limitations on Facebook, I couldn't tell the whole story and why the end result of this made no sense to me.
However, here in the Blogger-verse, there is no character limitation!
Story starts off in High School. Actually it starts off in Middle School and sounds a lot like an American Pie "One Time At Band Camp" story...
In 7th grade, I met my friend Sheryl via band. Stick thin, frizzy brown hair and huge blue eyes. Annoyed the piss out of me back then. That wasn't hard to do though as I was generally a really angry/envious kid. I don't remember the circumstances upon which we met or actually started talking. She was almost like one of those friends that just show up in your life that you know is a friend and it takes very little effort to get to know them. This also might've been helped by the fact that there were exactly 3 days that separated us in age and set the stage for a running joke for years to come.
Time wore on and by our senior year in high school, she was part of my inner circle of friends and part of their inner circles too. Time wearing on in a band environment often times means that you've had a few conversations with the parents of everyone in your inner circle as well. Sheryl's parents were no exception to this. As a matter of fact, Sheryl's Mom had become a bit of a legend among our friends due to her extremely over-protective nature of Sheryl and rather...narrow opinions of the world as it is. It was actually my dealings with her Mom that started the trend of "saying/doing some of the most obnoxious things possible to derail trains of thought" that I often employ.
We graduated high school and by that time, I was considered part of their family. I can't remember the reasons I found myself at their house from time to time after high school, but I always remember being served with a huge glass of tea that was probably 90% sugar, 10% tea. I did the typical post-high-school visits of marching band competitions for friends that were younger than me, so that was probably it.
Anyway, one particular contest I attended saw the debut of Sheryl's new boyfriend (now husband) Sam. I had run into Sam a couple times before, but had never really spoken to him. Sam and Sheryl had been dating for a while by then, but Sam hadn't really been exposed to the type of shenanigans that occurred within that circle of friends. Basically, what ensued was my friend Troy comes over to say hi before he went out to the field, I pinched his nipple to A) annoy him and B) was the guy way of saying good luck and Sheryl saw me do it.
Sheryl: Did you just pinch his nipple?
(she's seen me do that dozens of times...)
Q: Yeah, want me to pinch yours?
Sam: I'LL KICK YOUR ASS!!
Sam is about 4-6" shorter than me and he's right up in my face yelling this. The reaction puzzled me more than anything else cause trust me, I've said far worse things to Sheryl and she knows it's just my way of joking around and trying to make people feel included.
She also knows I'd never actually follow up on a comment like that.
Sam apparently didn't.
Before I really have a chance to figure out what's going on, I see Sheryl dragging Sam away by the arm or ear or something...whatever it was, Sam was walking crooked. I looked over at Troy and we both just shrugged at each other and went about socializing.
About 20 minutes later, Sam comes up to me, staring at the ground and apologizing for yelling at me. He said he didn't know we joked around like that. Then he gets elbowed by Sheryl and continues saying it won't happen again.
Did I just witness something straight out of a situation comedy?
Yeah whatever, water under the bridge.
Fast foward another couple years and it's Sam and Sheryl's wedding day. I've been asked to be one of the groomsmen. I'm not 100% sure if this was Sam's idea or if it was Sheryl leaning on him to include me, but I accepted and was assigned the task of walking Sheryl's mom down the aisle to do the whole unity candle lighting.
Don't quote me, but I think this was in 1999.
The two funny things of note here are:
1. I ended up wearing the tux that was meant for Sam due to a screw up from the tux company. Can you say "highwaters".
2. As I'm walking Sheryl's mom down the aisle, she's worried the candle is going to go out. She doesn't know I have a charcoal lighter up my sleeve to relight it in that event, so I decided to have some fun with her.
I blew out the candle from the corner of my mouth. This led to a lot of frantic mumbles from her mom as we were walking. Took everything I had to resist laughing, but man, once I talked to them a few days after the wedding...laughed until I cried at her mom's reaction.
Anyway, I didn't stay very long for the reception. I've never been that sort of wedding goer. After the ceremony, I congratulated them both and went on my way. I felt like it was their time to shine together and my personality is such that I tend to draw attention to myself just as much unintentionally as I do intentionally.
After the wedding, Sheryl and I would have the occasional lunch together and Sam would stop in my store every now and then to pick my brain about a computer project he was working on for the next couple years. Truth be told, I visited her folks a lot more than I visited her. I was good with that. Sheryl was always one of those friends you can go have lunch with and pretty much pick up right where you left off the last time you visited. She would have her first baby about a year after my first niece was born and pretty much since then, we haven't really talked at all. Understandably so given that raising a child is and should be a very time consuming process.
I ran into her at an optometrist's office I do work for a few months after she had her baby. We chit-chatted for a bit, but given the experiences I had with my sister and her near 1 year old, I did my best not to keep her too long. That was the last I had seen of her for a long while.
The next part is going to bring you up to speed on why the Facebook thing perplexed me. You guys just needed to know some history before I explained it.
About this time last year, I was called out to her parent's house to fix their computer. I showed up and as I'm working on it, I'm informed that Sheryl has apparently disowned her parents.
Not just any disowning. Police Restraining Order disowning. Even apparently had restraining orders filed against her parents so they wouldn't go visit Sheryl's neighbors. This was one of the few things in life that actually came as a surprise. WTF could have possibly happened to cause that sort of reaction?
This was also something I knew I needed to stay out of. I truly wanted no part of it aside from one small urge to find Sheryl and ask her what was up. I knew one side of the story and, to this day, still only know one side of the story. Remember folks, there are at least 3 sides to every story.
The general idea that I got from the story is that Sheryl's mom was being overbearing and both of her folks were continually bashing her husband. Seems they finally had enough of it. I know at more than one point in my life, her Mom has wondered aloud things like "Why couldn't she have picked someone like you", so it wouldn't surprise me if sentiments like that fell out of her mouth at some point in time around Sam and Sheryl.
Remember, her mom has always been the over-protective, narrow opinioned, mother-knows-best type. While those qualities aren't necessarily good, you have to keep in mind that every person on this planet has a few, less than savory, qualities about them. That doesn't make them bad people though. Pretty much since high school, I've considered her parents like another set of parents to me.
The reason for the disapproving nature of her folks towards Sam was they viewed Sam as being the overly-manipulative, controlling husband who did his darnedest to keep Sheryl separated from her family. I can't really speak to that point since I don't know Sam all that well and haven't had any sort of peek into their home lives, but it seems to me if that's true then Sheryl either A) Knows this about him and accepts it or B) Doesn't know this about him and has some sort of other issue(s).
The problem with both A and B is there isn't jack-shit anyone can do about it. Sheryl's a grown woman capable of learning on her own and making decisions based on what she's learned.
So fast foward to the beginning of this year.
(YAY! CURRENT HISTORY!)
I'm at Wal-Mart on my birthday with my folks going to spend my gift cards while they do some grocery shopping. As the shopping is winding down, I happen to see Sam at the front where all the carts are positioning their daughter in the cart. When I saw him, I went the other way. Given my connections to her folks, I didn't know how he would react and I didn't want to cause a scene.
I'm over in the bakery section with my folks looking at some different breads when I hear Sam greet me from behind.
Ok, so obviously it's not going to cause a scene.
He had the cart with their daughter in it, but no Sheryl anywhere to be seen. I had a feeling she was there somewhere as it's rare for the Father/2-Year-Old-daughter combo to be out with the mother for grocery shopping.
I chit-chatted with Sam for a bit and sure enough, here comes Sheryl. She was apparently overjoyed to see me. She gave me a hug and since that one wasn't apparently good enough and slightly awkward, she gave me another one that damn near broke my neck. It had been probably 2+ years since I had seen either one of them, but I really can't say I was happy to see them given what was weighing on my mind from what her parents had told me.
After exchanging some photos and whatnot, she asks about going to do lunch sometime. I told her she knew how to find me if she wanted to go and she said she'd call me up at some point. As we're leaving, my parents (who are clueless to the whole situation between Sheryl and her family) blurb "Tell your folks we said hi!"
"Will do!"
...and I just quickened my pace to the checkout.
About a week or so after that, I sent an email to the business email address Sheryl had listed. Purpose of the email was to let her know a little more about what's going on in my life and to see if she was truly intent on trying to catch up or have lunch. No response came to that email.
Fast forward to early March from early Jan. My Facebook account has become active again thanks to my sister. I knew that Sheryl had blocked her parents from seeing her FB page, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me to see a friend request from her. I accepted and sent her a short blurb:
I sent you an email a couple days after I saw you two in Wal-Mart in Jan. Dunno if you got it. Was sent to the photography email address.
Her response set the conditions for being her friend on Facebook:
Nope, never got it. :( So, you're ENGAGED??!!! How exciting! Oh...one thing please. PLEASE do not tell my parents you are in contact with me in any way or let them know anything about what I am doing or where you see me. I'd appreciate it.
Hope we can get together and catch up sometime. I'm always running around, so let me know if you ever want to hang out.
My response:
I already told them months ago while working on their computer I wanted to stay out of it. They didn't ask me to do anything, just wanted an ear I guess. Far as i'm concerned, that's stuff between you guys and all of you are adults capable of working things out eventually. So yes, I know their side already. Lol...it's basically the same story that it was when you and Sam started dating. Unapproving parents (mostly ######). I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it's none of my business (3 sides to every story rule).
Btw, typing on an iphone sucks.
Yes, I am engaged to a girl I met online 5 years ago. We've been dating for over three years. Her name is Jessica and she's an attorney. Plans are in place for her to move here in July. :)
So now she's aware I stay in touch with her folks. She's aware I know their side of the story.
A couple weeks later, I go to Subway for lunch and apparently Sam has come in behind me to get lunch too. I normally don't pay attention to the people in line behind me unless they're making odd noises. When it was my turn to order, Sam said hi to me. He apparently didn't recognize me from behind and waited for me to speak before he knew it was me for sure. More chit-chat happened, but I couldn't stay any longer since I was in a rush to get back to work, wolf down my lunch and get back on a project I wanted to get finished that day. There were more promises made of having lunch together sometime.
Then fast-foward to Sunday. I log into FB to find a post by Sheryl stating she's going to be cleaning up her friend list and if you get blocked, don't be pissed. I read that and thought of the story her Dad had told me a couple days prior about running into Sheryl at a restaurant here where he essentially embarrassed her in front of her friends while they were having lunch. Part of me figured since that happened, my name and anyone else connected to her folks were probably going to be on the chopping block.
Sure enough, a couple hours after that post on her wall was made, I had been removed and subsequently blocked. I'm not pissed or even remotely upset about the blocking itself. I felt that was inevitable. It just puzzles me to no end.
Why go to the trouble of seeking me out only to block me later if you really had no intention of maintaining any form of contact?
Why act so happy to see someone then cut off contact?
The part that irritates me is that it's blatantly obvious she's trying to shut everything down that she can to keep her folks out of her life. Even though we haven't exactly kept in touch the way we used to, shutting her parents out of her life apparently involves shutting out other people as well.
This makes me question just how genuine she is to herself and the people she interacts with. It also makes me wonder what type of life she's living if she's living in constant fear of her parents being involved.
Again, I don't know the entire story. I just know her parent's side of it. Unless I completely missed the boat on something though, I've never known her parents to completely fabricate a story. It was no secret Sam didn't get along with Sheryl's parents and vice-versa. Hell, Sam's parents and Sheryl's parents didn't even get along.
But really...if that's what is at the center of this entire debacle, what price are they willing to pay for Sam to "win"? How many bridges have to be burned? It's pretty obvious her parents still want to maintain some form of contact with their daughter and granddaughter, but that's not being reciprocated and really, when it comes down to it, nothing gets solved by shutting people out. If they're willing to shut out old friends and family, there probably is no limitation to who they'll shut out.
I do know this. Reality always comes crashing in. Everyone involved in this sad story has some portion of the blame to share and unfortunately, that stupid squabble is going to affect the life of a kid.
As for my willingness to become involved. This blog post is the extent of it. I really have no desire to sit and mediate between them or act as a go-between. Well I guess this blog isn't the extent of it. I'll be an ear.
And Sheryl, if you read this, you can come talk to me any time, but you better be ready with legit answers instead of the apparently phony stuff you've been showing the past couple times I've seen you. Old friends like me know where you came from and when you're not being true to yourself. I'm sorry, the Sheryl I knew got pissed off if anyone even hinted an insult about her mother. God knows I've been on the wrong side of that before.
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