The thing is, I can see how and why someone would want to do something like that. To assess your life, visit your exes, and see if anything would work out with them. Obviously the attraction existed in the first place, and there’s a couple ladies out there that I think, were we to reconnect, I would probably get along with much better now, being older and wiser and such.
But telling a girl something like that to her face is a bonehead move. He should have made something up, like he’s about to take a job and wanted to travel cross country one last time and thought it would be nice to visit some friends who lives in areas he was traveling past. The fact that he told you he was visiting other girls is an indication that he isn’t the brightest tool in the crayon box.
Oh if you aren’t a published writer, you really ought to be - the way you tell these stories is so wonderful. I love the way that even through the exasperation and frustrations these maddening people bring, what really comes across for me in all your stories is a very touching sense of compassion, warmth and humanity. Bravo!
I met a Ron long ago in the disco-80s at a party. He made me laugh and reminded me of Chevy Chase (I said it was a long time ago and perhaps my judgment was clouded by various intoxicating substances.) He asked me out to dinner and we agreed to meet at his office after work. I chose my outfit carefully, including the most ridiculous Joan Crawford eff-me ankle-strap shoes I owned. I teetered the five blocks to his office after work, cooled my heels quite literally as he finished up. Finally we left and he suggested we take a walk…37 blocks…to his apartment…so he could freshen up. I made it another five blocks and then had to hail a cab (I paid) Waited in his living room while he took a shower and changed. Was so bored I washed all the putrefying dishes in his sink. He finally emerged and we went for hamburgers. Sigh. I was very young. And yes, dear reader I went out with him again. So I’m a Ronduh.
Ron was looking for a house to rent for his customers. He found out that someone he knew had listed his house for rent with another agency and called the guy. From what I got of the conversation, the guy said “Yes, I did list it with so-and-so” and Ron went livid
“What do you mean, you listed it with someone else. I know you. I should have that listed. Get out of that listing and I can list it and rent it today.” This was screaming in front of me, to the guy, and in front of his customers.
Eventually the guy agreed to come into our office. Ron then has me type a withdrawal form, a new listing, and a lease.
The guy comes in, Ron hands him the papers, and the guy calmly says “I’m not signing anything with you.” Right in front of me and the customers. Our faces were definitely like this: :eek:
The guy left, the customers left and Ron left. I laughed for ten minutes. Years later I happen to run into the guy and we had a good laugh together at Ron’s expense.
Sharon was an engineer I worked with back when I was a document control specialist for a government contractor.
Every week, the engineers had to submit this excel spreadsheet report to my department. And every week, Sharon would have a problem getting her spreadsheet to work.
Now, I’m going to show my age a little here, but back when Sharon and I worked together, our computers were still using 5.25” floppy disks. So every week, I would put a copy of the excel spreadsheet on a 5.25” disk and give it to Sharon. She would do her report, print it out and turn it in. Then next week she would try to access her disk, and the file would be corrupted.
My boss and I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, so I was sent to personally deliver the disk to Sharon and make sure it worked. I watched Sharon as she opened the file and entered her information. I watched her enter and save the spreadsheet. I watched as she printed it out. I watched as she took out the disk. I made her put it back in and try to open the file again. I watched as the file opened up without any problem.
“Isn’t that the way?” she joked. “It always works when someone is standing over your shoulder and watching.”
I laughed with her. Then I watched as she took the disk out of the computer and stuck it on her metal file cabinet with a magnet for “safe keeping.”
“Uh, Sharon?” I began. “I think I figured out the problem . . .”
I’m actually working on a collection of life lessons from my father. The working title is “How My Father Ruined My Life and Other Things I’m Thankful For”
I made a gorgeous flyer for one of Ron’s properties. Nice color photos, information in black and red, and the final page was the survey with the lot colored in with yeloow highlighter.
He approves it and I make copies and walk from the copy machine to his office and hand them to him. He immediately gets on me for “not coloring in the last page.”
Uh, stupidhead, the color photos are in color, the print is in color, what makes you think the last page isn’t highlighted? When I pointed this out to him, I added “And welcome to the 21st century”
I used to have a roommate that was a Ronduh. She got involved with not one, not two, but three separate pyramid schemes.
The first one was some Mary Kay knockoff where the “product” was make-up but you only really made money by recruiting people to work under you. She brought home this huge starter kit so she could throw parties and sell cosmetics and sign people up to sell for her, thinking that this would turn into a wonderful money making opportunity. When I refused to sell cosmetics as a part time job she then started in on me to buy the make up if I wasn’t going to sell. I have never worn make up for anything other than a swanky event (graduation, anniversaries, etc.) and she knew that but she still pushed me to buy from her. When I gently explained that I had no interest in purchasing make up either she piped up, “Oh, we sell acne cream too! Frankly, you could really use it.” :dubious: It is rare that I have acne and I have never had more than two zits at a time, even in the height of pizza-facedness among my fellow students. At that point I figured she was desperate for sales and just let the comment go. She eventually ended up giving away all of the cosmetics she had purchased to promote sales and forgetting she had signed up for that whole mess.
Then about 8 months later she came home from an “interview” with a huge kit of vitamins and weight loss products from a company called Advocare. Same deal, trying to sell the products and get people to sell them for her. No one wanted any of that either, especially when she started telling people they could really use the weight loss products. (I tried them for her so she could use me as a shining example of the wonderfulness of Advocare and got nothing but an upset stomach out of the deal.) She ended up throwing away at least $200 of expired vitamins.
The last time was about a year after she moved out. She called me to tell me about this great job interview she had with a company called Primerica. I wish she would learn from Monty Python and run away, but apparently she still thinks there is a quick buck to be made in pseudo-sales.
I have friends like that - they just keep going back . . . over and over again . . .always telling me about the latest thing that is going to make them rich.
My sister was like that too. Fortunately, she never had enough money to buy the starter kits - so therefore she never got sucked in to some of the worst ones.
We have something in common. I work as a technical and science writer. That means part of my job is always document control. Thankfully, I usually work with people who are SMARTER than I am. I’ll take that over working with Rons and Ron-duhs any day.
We had a Ron (his real name) that we hung out with when we were in high school. One night, at a house party, he proceeded to get pretty smashed. In an unprecedented attempt to be responsible, we took his keys away from him so he couldn’t drive (he kept threatening to go out and grab a pizza). Not to be done in by our good intentions, Ron had a spare key in his wallet. He ended up side swiping a parked car on his way back from the pizza parlor.
Then he ran off.
It’s funny how if they spent as much effort getting a real career as they did trying to “get rich quick,” they’d reach their goal. But it seems like the real draw of these schemes is that they promise lots o’ cash without having to work for it.
