Playing the Field

  Although Priscilla and I never went on another “date”, we did hang out a lot. She had a friend named Dorrie who was in a bad relationship. To get her away from the situation Priscilla asked if we could take her to a movie. Alan, was on leave from the Marines this week, was available, so we went on an unofficial non-double date. We went to see Braveheart, and I think Priscilla had visions of Dorrie leaving her boyfriend for Alan, but in all honesty, Alan was not even considering a long distance relationship while still enlisted. They did hit it off and I believe Alan was a little disappointed to find Dorrie dating George when he did come back again for a visit, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Back in J.C. Penney-Land where George and I worked together in the Boy’s Dept and Priscilla worked over in lingerie, the next department over from us, big changes were happening. Although, Priscilla and I didn’t work out, Mark showed an interest in her. Shortly after, they started dating. (Ed. Note: To understand this next part better, Read the “Tangent” part of the “Mark & Dana” entry Oct 6, 2011)         Before meeting us, Priscilla was seeing a Penney’s security guard named Serge. She really liked him, but he was playing head games with her. After she started dating Mark, Serge showed interest in her again. She thought it was because her liked her, but he was trying to score “points” on Mark. When Mark found out he was furious. He continued to date Priscilla, but stopped being friends with those guys from security. He reasoned he deserved a little karma for what he had done to Dana.

   Around this same time, Dorrie had come by J.C. Penney’s to visit Priscilla like so many of George and my friends did with us. Of course, she stopped by to say hi to me and met George. Exact details elude me to how, but George and Dorrie really hit it off and Dorrie would visit George a lot more. George liked her, but she still had a boyfriend making an actual relationship hard. I meanwhile buried the hatchet with Rich and started talking to him again. Dena was out of the picture, so a grudge wasn’t a healthy thing.

  It was around this time that my 1977 Chevy Nova died. I had given it an oil change and wanted to clean out the pistons. I forgot to do that when I replaced the valve cover while replacing the gasket so I used “Engine Gunk” made to clean out a system. My father came home from work walked past me and looked at the bottle.

  ”You used this?” he asked.

 “Yeah, why?” I shot back. He just shook his head and went in the house. I was defiant.

 “I went in and asked the meaning behind that and he told me it was bad for the car. I told him he was crazy, if it was bad they wouldn’t sell it. Two days later the “Oil light” came on. When I took it to the shop, the mechanic told me to give my car its last rites. Turns out the dried up oil was the only thing keeping a rod in the engine together and at any time it was blow and shoot right through the block. It was to go out in a “blaze of glory,” but in actuality, it went out as one smoky white mess and would sit in the driveway for a few years.

  I was having fun just hanging out with different people and being social. I would bring a new girl to every party or just when we were hanging out. It was around this time that I harnessed my flirting skills. I was sort of playing the field, but in an innocent sort of way. I liked my freedom and felt like I was a better best friend type than a boyfriend and I came off as harmless and safe. It was because of this that my friend Donna’s little sister asked me to her prom. She was always shy and I don’t remember her saying more than two words to me before that despite hanging out with them quite a bit. They came as a pair, but didn’t say much at gatherings. Nobody minded them there, but referred to them as aliens set to observe us. When I met Donna, she had a “fiancé” in the military stationed in Greenland. I never met him, but he broke off their engagement by claiming she was having an affair with me. It was an excuse. He was cheating on her.

  Another girl that I worked with whom had a boyfriend used to hit me. Hard. Finally, I asked her why did she have to hit me? Why couldn’t we just be friends? She had an instant crush on me ever since that moment.

  There were some good ones and bad ones and I’m still friends with a lot of them till this day, but what I was really craving was the popularity that I lost while in a relationship. I wanted to please everyone so much that I didn’t focus on any one person. Often, I’d have made multiple plans for the same time because I couldn’t say no, but I really craved being “liked.”

 With all this newfound popularity, I felt like I shouldn’t let it go to waste…