Lamda Lamda Loser

When I was in college, I used to love dating Frat Boys. I enjoyed wearing their sweatshirts emblazoned with Greek letters. I had a blast doing keg stands with the boys, and I even got a small amount of pleasure in performing the walk of shame. But that was then and this is now, and I can’t even look at a frat boy without feeling a twinge of relief that those days are long gone.
However, for many of us, those frat boys grow in to frat men. That’s right. You know the type. They spend Friday afternoons at the bar, sucking down beer after beer, throwing back shots, nibbling on artery-clogging appetizers all in the name of a good time.

Now, while they’re up at the bar getting tore up, the rest of us (by us I mean their wives) are at home watching the clock like our lives depend on it. Sure, they call and check in sounding a little more inebriated with each call. And we tell them not to worry, to enjoy themselves while secretly cursing their names. The baby might be crying. The dog might have just taken a crap on the floor. Hell, the house might be on fire, yet we let them do their thing because it’s just what guys do.

But sometimes you just gotta know when to say when. I have a friend who’s married to what I like to call “one of the good ones.” However, when the good ones go bad, it’s real bad. And to hear her tell it, it was real bad.

Her dear hubby who we’ll call Drunk was supposed to be home in an hour. But one turned into two turned into three turned into four hours, and Drunk was nowhere to be found. When it grew so late, she called Drunk in a fit of concern which included a bunch of Where the %^*&^%* are you and Get you %^ home. To her surprise, Drunk informed her that he was in the driveway.

She stormed out into an empty driveway. Drunk had told her the truth. He was in a driveway – it just wasn’t their driveway. It was the neighbors. Well, needless to say the kids were excited to see Drunk, er daddy, was home so they rushed out to greet him. But poor Drunk had one too many, well, one too many of everything and he couldn’t stop himself from throwing up all over the car… in front of the kids.

Mistaking poor Drunk for a trauma victim, the children wailed in fear. Whatever was wrong with poor daddy? Was he going to die, they clamored. My friend being the saint she is dragged Drunk into the house, got the kids to sleep and then spent the next hour wiping up chunks of Jalapeno Poppers and Crab stuffed mushrooms basting in a Scotch marinade.

I wanted to pin a medal on her chest at this point in the story. But then she continued. Instead of kicking Drunk out or sending him to the local chapter of AA to teach him a lesson, she simply cleaned up her frat man, let him sleep in the next morning and didn’t say another word about his boy’s night out. I looked at her in awe.

That was love, true, true love. However, I wonder if she would have been so understanding if he had pissed in her armoire.