kampuniform

I should have followed my friend’s advice when you briefly reappeared in my life in October. It was a sentiment at the forefront of my mind on that evening I invited you out for dinner at Crescent Beach. Within minutes of taking my call, you signed in to Plenty of Fish. I should have called you up afterwards and told you to f$%k off. It was on our atrocious outing along the Boundary Bay Trail that I finally got the wind up. Day three into our reconciliation, and we were already fragmenting. You because you are such a weak and ineffectual duffer, and me because I could finally see the con. Perhaps it was the time apart that allowed me to finally see the ruse, or maybe you were just off your stride that day, but I decided to pack it in then and there. Long before we had reached the Boundary Bay Airport, I was shifting my strategy. Just as with the dinner invitation, you were signing in to PoF moments after I invited you out for that picnic. A real classy gal. Oh, what a wretched day that was with your infernal and terminally unmanageable Irish Setter setting the abysmal tone for the day. Screeching at me when that useless dog of yours slipped its lead, when the responsibility ultimately was yours to train your dog properly. Oh, and what a Heavenly picnic! “Nicolas doesn’t want to go to England! Nicolas doesn’t want to go to England!” Next you’re telling me that if your kids don’t want to accompany you back to England, that you’ll dump them on Phil. Where did you get your maternal instincts from? Caligula?! I’m crushed by my own worries, and also have the new responsibility of tending to yours as well. Helping and guiding you to a better life. I wasn’t even factored into your plans. My life didn’t matter to you. It never did. What an a-hole! Oh, and who could forget! “Where’s our table!?” You wouldn’t by any chance be speaking of the George the Third table that I slaved over because it was to be a gift for you. It was my magnum opus because I was giving it to you, so it had to be perfect. What did you do when I presented it to you in the spring? You told me that you didn’t want it. You told me to sell it. Is that the same table you were speaking of? Nice… “You’re making me depressed!” “Did I do that to you!” No s$%t, sunshine. You were shocked that I didn’t bother calling you afterwards? That you had to call me? What was there to pursue? Besides, I didn’t want to break your PoF vigil with a telephone call. Who has time to spare for a call when there are so many steamy hot guys waiting on PoF!? You go get ‘em girl! And when you did eventually give me a ring, what a call that was! A revelation! As it turns out, my personal sacrifices to our cause meant nothing to you. Eight months right down the plug hole. Thanks again, di$kwad! It honestly didn’t even occur to me, the day before our picnic, to include my name with that bouquet of flowers that I had dispatched to your door. God, I was naïve to think that I was the only one in your life. They were delivered in the early afternoon, and you didn’t acknowledge them until the following day. You didn’t know who sent them. By day four I was already long out the door. I was worn down to nothing by your incessant braying. I couldn’t believe that there was once a time that I was actually dedicated and loyal to you. Making sacrifices for a person who honestly couldn’t have given a sh$t about me. Who could forget that night that I finally called you on your PoF forays. In a span of two seconds you shed about twenty pounds, all of it brown. Whoops! Finding it impossible to backpedal your way out of that one, you directed your ire at me instead. All class, all the time. Who could forget that last day together? W-O-W! I didn’t have to do a thing. You made the job easy for me. You made the decision for me. After the fact, and knowing you as I do, I wonder how much of your atrocious behaviour was cited as a major contributing cause of our break up? I bet you placed the whole burden on me, didn’t you? I bet if your friends and family had a chat with me to get my side, they’d be looking at you in a different light. My friends tell me not to despair. That I will heal, move on, and find someone new. That I will eventually find someone worthy of my sacrifices. Compared to you, a cardboard cutout of a woman would be a step up. Hoping your having fun on PoF! Here’s to your new life in England! I’ll drink a toast to that!

Ruminating endlessly on scraps of dialogue incised upon my memory like a diamond-tipped stylus. Ruminating on my exalted status in your life: the glory of a sanitary cake in a urinal; always smelling sweet despite the stream of piss; I never rose to the occasion despite your shrill prompting. “There’s that blinking again!” “Stop staring at me!” “There’s nothing for me here now.” “You’re such a girl!” “You need to get a grip on yourself.” “I said ‘maybe’ you’d meet the kids” Round and round it goes. So many of them that I’ve lost track. You’d think that the angular momentum of these sound clips would be large enough to cause me to loose my grip. I hang on for dear life, letting the furrows run longer and deeper with each passing. I no longer recognize myself; I have wrinkles commemorating your passage through my life. Memorializing your presence every time I gaze into a mirror; a pallid, doom-ridden complexion, testament to one man’s spirited dedication to folly and other lost causes. Madness, utter madness. Not just any man was capable of the task, and you were a shrewd judge of character; you’ve probably done this sort of thing before. You succeeded, ferreting out a man whose sole function in life is built upon the concept of sacrifice. It was reminiscent of that storm I sailed through last summer. Hundreds of nautical miles from land, in the middle of the night, and suddenly finding myself thrust once again into my role. The luminescent neon green waves breaking to port and starboard. Whenever I looked over my shoulder, I was terrified by these towers of water bearing down upon me. However, despite the fear and uncertainty, I had a job to do: to remain at the wheel. To be strong. Now I wait for this storm to pass. For you to pass out of my life. It’s the same anxiety, the exact same fear that I experienced far out on the ocean in the middle of the night. It was little wonder that I was the ‘Man of Your Dreams’ Someone to whom you were not really accountable, someone to whom you didn’t need to be responsible towards, someone that didn’t require your dedication or loyalty. Someone who you knew would be tirelessly devoted. Now you have your new life and your money. Things have never been better for you. You can entertain any whim at your ex husband’s expense. You get to drink up all the excitement of the ‘swinging single’s lifestyle’ without my encumbrance. All your girlish wishes finally fulfilled, modeling your life on that atrocious program “Coupling” I really shouldn’t worry: this life lesson will be harder for you to bear at 46 than it is for most young women passing through this atrocious stage when they are 19. They get sharked up, mewed up, and spat out. Out on a date with a new guy and going to a restaurant a stone’s throw from my home really did cast my impression of you in a new light; Thank God you’re now someone else’s problem. And what am I left with? Wrinkles, a headache, and a pack-a-day cigarette habit. I’m also left with the one thing that I begged you not to do: a confirmation of my worst fears regarding life.

Rot in hell you screeching fish wife! You seething retard! If it wasn’t for those alimony cheques, you’d be living under a sheet of tarpaulin on East Hastings with all the other misguided refuse. Yeah, ponce of home to England, you weakling. Run away! When faced with a problem, you’d: stop, drop, and cringe up into a ball like a worm. The “Out of sight, out of mind” problem solving strategy will eventually kick you in the ass someday. I fell in love with you because you actually were a unique person. Now you are common and vulgar. A scheming, manipulative, blond-haired louse, feeding off society like a parasite. Thankfully, there’s reparative justice that is inescapable to those that cause suffering; what comes around goes around, baby. It happened to my ex wife. Years later, withering and pining for a married man who will NEVER leave his wife for a two-timing gutter tramp. Ha Ha Ha Haaaa! With each day that passes in waiting, her market value shrinks. Once loverboy is tired of her, she’ll be a pariah. A wrinkled and untouchable old crone. This is your fate as well. Sharked up by every smooth talking hustler out there. Pumped and dumped in your endless quest for validation. Hmmmm…when will I expect your first ‘Oh B, I’m just so sorry for hurting you.’ email to arrive? After you’ve been raked over the coals so many times that you’ll be virtually unrecognizable. Then it’ll be too late, miisy. Those wrinkles and lines in your face mean that you almost at the ‘best before’ date. I wouldn’t cross the street to pee on you if you were on fire.

You thought my company was boring!? What about you!!! The interminable stories about your knitting projects, the stories of your ridiculous garden the size of a postage stamp underscored your general uselessness, and the details of your son’s Lego collection were never edifying. I feigned interest, but with each syllable I was vomiting in horror, psychologically. I puked my puke of a life away for you. The only skill you possess is your ability to dull the listener’s mind into insensibility. You who displayed all the iron mettle of a timorous grandmother in a dory trapped in a tempest at sea. And this was you at your functional best!! Then you had the temerity to impugn me!? One of Canada’s National Sons!? The closest thing you’ve come to hardship was that morning when there wasn’t enough milk for your Wheetabix! One of my ambitions is to spend my days at the municipal dump dredging up all the crap you gave to me so that I could experience the joy of throwing it all away again. The other is to vomit at the thought of you. This is your legacy, C.