What would my boyfriend do?

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Let's say you're currently five hours away from your girlfriend. You know she's had a pretty rough day. And you find yourself on the web cam. What do you do to cheer her up?

Tell her you love her? Blow her a kiss? Show her a nipple?

If you're LO, these are all just warm-ups (and do actually take place, including the nipple)

Instead, you pull your sweater over your face and type in:

"this is my burka"
"will you marry me?"

Then, place a t-shirt around the top of your head and type:

"i'm a genie in a bottle!"

Out of the blue.





You then proceed to wrap the whole t-shirt around your head so as to look like Mother Terera and mouth religious words and hold your hands in an "Amen" pose (unfortunately not pictured because your girlfriend was laughing too hard to push the "Print Screen" button on her laptop).


Also out of the blue.

This is really quite funny to her, but still does not beat the time you did this:



(I cannot remember WTF this furry object was...)

Even as a (coughcough) "writer", I find "new baby" and "wedding" greeting cards really difficult to fill out. I mean, what do you really have to tell someone besides CONGRATULATIONS?

A lot, apparently.

Because every time LO fills out a card, there just isn't enough room for all the heartfelt sentiments he wishes to express. Literally - he nearly runs out of space every time!

When we were attending one of his friend's weddings last summer, I noticed the envelope was pretty thick. When I asked him what was inside, he pulled out a millitary work order form (not its technical name but whatever)- something that gets filled out when a piece of equipment is broken.

"Huh?" you might think to yourself, as I did. "WTF does that have to do with a wedding?"

He filled out the card for the groom's penis and signed it as the bride.

"Ahhh...riiiiight!"

And the "new baby" card? I would have stared at it for minutes, trying to find synonyms for "congratulations!" in my head. But not LO. He takes it out of the envelope and starts writing right away.

I'm thinking something along the lines of, "Felicitations!" (it's. a. word), "All the best!" or "Yay!"

But when I look over at the card, he's already got it started, his way:

"We are thrilled you have decided to produce offspring!"

Well, then.

When complete strangers first meet LO, he can come off a little intimidating. He says what's on his mind. He isn't afraid of offending anyone or telling them to fuck off. And he's been trained to fire deadly weapons. But what people don't know about this seemingly "tough guy" is two-fold: (1) He loves Disney movies (when we first met, this troubled me just a tad - how many times can one person watch the same cartoon farm animals?!) and (2) He spends his weekends like this:







I found out about his passion for fuzzy animals casually one day while we were taking a romantic stroll in the park. We were carrying a pretty good conversation when, out of nowhere, he began to run towards the rocks by the water, screaming like a little girl. It was only after I chased him down and right before he took off again that I realized he was running after a squirrel. And taking photos of it. For about half an hour.

This was one of our first dates.

Since then, I've seen this guy go into pet stores with the sole purpose of blowing air at a sleeping guinea pig or rabbit, make a U-turn on a small road after seeing a bunny and park in front of a strange house and run around their front yard looking for it to "play with it" (as I slid down in my seat in the car, hoping the home-owners didn't own a rifle) and wait at an intersection for a good five minutes with a molester-type smile on his face until someone walking their dog finally passed him so that he could pet the animal.





Cute? Creepy? A little bit of both.


But definitely not as "tough" as you think.

Anyone who knows LO closely can pick three things out of a police line-up: His obnoxious oversized Jeep with all the trimmings, his famous garlic bread and his fine ass.

Because, as much as he loves to drive around blasting self-made barking noises through his PA system at random groupings of strangers at the bus stop (followed by a head-turn that demonstrates that he himself alsoe does not know where the noise is coming from), and as much as he loves everything in sandwich form, this boy loves to expose himself in front of loved ones.

In places one typically wouldn't expect to see a naked ass.

Case in point: That giant ferris wheel thing at Niagara Falls.

We took the ride up alone and, while I was busy enjoying the view from the top, LO decides to casually take off his pants. And dance-shake his rear-end into the glass windows. And wave. Then casually sit down pant-less for the rest of the ride until we make it back to the bottom. And realize, as the ride operators give us distinctly evil cut-eye, that they probably have cameras up there.

But maybe you're thinking that it was, after all, summer time. Maybe he was just hot up there. Maybe he needed to freshen up. Maybe he was just warm.

Case in point number two: Blue Mountain. In late November.

We spent a weekend at the resort for his birthday but, since the ski hills weren't operational yet, we decided instead to climb up the hill ourselves to check out the view.

It took forever. I was tired. I was wearing my platform boots (smart!). And the view was breathtaking from the top. And when I snapped a photo of LO in front of it and he did the same for me, I thought our work was done.

Until he started to roll down the hill. Head over feet. Screaming like a little girl. Tumbletumbletumble. And dropped his pants right at the end.

The camera was still on.

(This was only one of many glorious home videos ruined - or at least unviewable by most people - because this character decided to expose his goods right at the end, as a signoff!)

But my favorite story, hands down, is the night he got a little tipsy in Jamaica.

It was the end of the night, and we were making our way back to the room when LO decided he would play in the fountain. Which meant that his pants got wet.

Now, for a normal specimen, this would indicate some emberassement and a walk back to the room to get changed.

But, for LO, it meant a good opportunity to take your pants off almost near the lobby, throw them across your arm, and casually walk back to the room in your underwear (not swimming trunks).






Except this master plan got side-tracked a little the second LO realized how Tarzan-esque he looked up against the plants at the resort. He grabbed some into his hands, and insisted on a tribal photo near one of the big fan-like ones.

Problem, though: He WAS a little shy about it.

So much so, that we spent about an hour hiding him out behind some kind of a shack, with his plant weapons in hand, giggling, and jumping out every time the "coast was clear" of any people walking by.

It went something like this:

He would hide.

I would walk out near the big plant and look both ways. If people passed by, I would smile and say hi and pretend I was not hiding a half-naked man a few feet away.

Then, I would give the signal that the coast was clear. And LO would move like the speed of lightening, making silly poses. Sometimes I would have to send him back, aborting the mission, once people came our way again.

I don't think I ever laughed so hard, though I did have a startling realization somewhere in the middle there that I was no longer just the innocent, emberassed girlfriend.

I was an accomplice.

At the end of it all, we ended up with these gems:









P.S. I feel a little dirty posting these photos -- I feel like there should be a paid link attached! But if you know LO, this is nothing you haven't already seen before. In person.

Lucky you.

When LO and I started watching The Proposal this past weekend (shaddap! we love romantic comedies!), I got pretty annoyed that, dundundun, once again, the main characters work in publishing. You see, I get pretty pissed when movies make it out to be all glossy and glam and shiny-like (think gems like Devil Wears Prada), when I work as an editor and I boil my water for my tea in a plastic kettle underneath my desk right by my feet. It definitely isn't as lucrative as the movies make it out to be.

So.

I scrunch up my nose and exclaim in disgust, "Agh! ANOTHER movie about publishing! Why does EVERY movie have to be about publishing or journalism!?"

To which, LO, almost instantaneously, shouts back in a very serious manner: "NOT RAMBO!!"

...Well, then.

I guess I stand corrected.

When most guys feel the need to express their mushy side, they usually rely on Hallmark to get the words out. Or opt for flowers. Or earrings. To do it for them.

Not LO.

One of the fun things about dating this endlessly fascinating character is that he always comes up with unexpected, bizzare and hilarious ways to display his emotions.

My favorite being this:








But, besides literally wearing his heart all over his chest, he also loves to come up with creative words to make a girl feel special.

About two months into our relationship, I started to write them down. Because, I swear, he needs to have his own line of greetings cards one day.

Here are some of my favorite lines from LO's book of love:

You're so hot, if you were hit in the face with a shovel I would still find you attractive.

I wish you got rabies so you could be rabbit crazy for me.

You're special...and not in that helmet-wearing-in-the-mall kind of way.

If I loved you even more
I would love you a lot
So much so
That I would get a blood clot

You rock my rash (this was last year, when he had shingles on his back- sexy times!)

You are like jam. I am like dry toast. I want you on me!

(talking about my period) Even if it rains in your pants, you will be my sunshine.

You have a very big place in my heart, like a permanent residence, an all brick home, probably built in 1983 when i was born

If I loved you any more, you'd have to get a restraining order.

Kocham cie with every square millimeter of my heart.

You can mess up my sandwich any day

I love you more than the priest loves Jesus (said after coming back from first visit to church together)

I want to pollanate you (said at the butterfly conservatory during the butterfly movie)

I want to be on you like crabs on an overly sexually-active teenager

I want to rape you...with love and affection.

I love you so much..if I loved you any more.........I would................... BURST..of love

Our relationship is like Jesus...except he never gets nailed to the cross

My heart and everything is reserved for you, just like an invalid parking spot

My love for you grows. Like herpes.

I will love you so hard, you will be shitting out hearts. (updated 10.08.09)
Be still, my heart.

I imagine being a mascot is a pretty tough gig.

You're wearing a hot, furry outfit for eight hours a day. You probably get pretty warm and it probably starts to smell in there after a while. You get a whole bunch of kids coming up to you - hugging you, having tantrums cause they can't take you home, kicking you in the knees. You're working all day at the mall. Or a fair. It really sucks when you need to go the bathroom. And you've also got to stand on your feet all day. I mean, have you ever seen a mascot sitting down on a chair? Me neither.

Then, a dude comes along.

He sees you, he makes contact with your googly eyes.

His face lights up. A goofy grin spreads all the way from his lips to his ears. He may or may not utter something along the lines of, "Ooooh!!"

He looks over at you once more, rubs his hands together like Mr. Smithers as he skips towards you. In the meantime, he motions over to a girl that is with him, shaking her head in a way that implies she knows what is coming, but that it is a force greater than her that cannot be stopped. Or killed. The guy screams out in a giddy voice, "Little, get your camera!!"

Uh-oh.

You start to get a little bit uncomfortable. Maybe a bead of sweat rolls down your giant furry forehead.

The guy runs over and, even before you can attempt to make a run for it, he's holding you. Tightly. Pinching your cheeks. Or rubbing his face against yours. Or holding out your arms and attempting to dance with you. Or giving you the world's biggest man-hug.

The girl takes a quick photo, a blurry one. She shifts her eyes, embarrassed, and stashes the camera back into her purse.

Then. He walks up behind you. Doesn't do anything, just looks up at his girlfriend.

And terror fills her face.

She looks like she knows. Without any words. What he is about to do to you. This guy is getting ready to violate you, right in front of the entrance to Sears. And he wants a funny photo of it, to post on his Facebook page later.

You really start to wish you had taken that telemarketing job selling knives over the phone.

You close your eyes, waiting for the photo-op to be done with. But. You're lucky today. Because the girlfriend, all red in the face and under the realization that she is surrounded by families with children, refuses to take the camera back out of her purse. She yells something back to the guy, along the lines of, "OMG! Come here!"

And when he doesn't listen, she begins employing the same tactic you've seen parents employ on their three-year old kids when they, too, wouldn't leave you alone. She starts slowly walking away, without looking back.

And, finally, the guy follows her.

Disaster avoided.

Here is your master shot - blurry as hell, because the girlfriend really wanted to move fast. And others like you who have fallen to his mascot lovin' gaze:

Sometime last year, LO and I took a nice evening stroll in a park in Brampton (yes, in Brampton). We came upon a swing set and, naturally, I wanted to swing and yell "Weeeee!" so we made our way over. When we got there, there was already another couple talking on the swing set next to ours. An offbeat-looking woman named Eva with beautiful curly hair and her boyfriend, Shawn, I think. Of course, LO, finding a new audience for himself, engaged these people in a conversation that somehow led to a lot of information being divulged about who we all are. And, somehow, in the midsts of all this, this couple reveals that, before we came around, they were actually at this swing set breaking up with each other.

Ummmmm, awkward!!

For most people.

When I hear information like this, I tend to hum to myself in standard normal-person "dodododo" way, as if everything is perfectly fine. I don't pry. I don't investigate further. I don't even know them so, really, I don't even care.

Of course, LO's immediate response is, "Oh. WHY?"

As he says this, I'm pretty much ready for Eva to cast a spell on us and make us disappear, or Shawn, who has been a little quiet this whole time, to ask why the hell that is any of his business.

Except, this is LO. He has "special powers". He is seemingly approachable and friendly and, perhaps, the nosy feature that he comes standard-packaged with makes these people feel like he actually DOES care (and, creepy enough, he probably does).

So, they start to open up. About everything. How they have been treating each other lately. How money is getting in the way. Their sex life. What their friends and family think about their relationship. EVERYTHING.

For me, this has TMI written all over it. But LO listens intently, nods his head, interjects occasionally with, "So, Eva, Shawn is basically saying that he wants you to be more accepting of his work. How do you feel about that?" and "So Shawn, Eva is basically saying that you're not pulling your weight. What can you do to make her feel like things are more balanced?"

And they responding!! Divulging. Sharing.

To me, this is all just a little fucked up. But LO is like the Dog Whisperer. He's healing these people. Getting to communicate. And say odd things like "Well, LO, I never looked at it this way until you put it in those words."

I really really want to laugh out loud and say, "Are you people kidding me?"

But then a security guy comes along and tells us that we need to leave the park. It's been at least an hour, and they're closing it for the night.

Great, I think, time to go home and get away from this Maury Povich moment.

Until Eva and Shawn, almost in unison, invite us to the pub across the street. Because they want to continue talking, this is getting them somewhere. And they're going to buy us drinks and food.

So, we end up at the pub. Until 2 a.m. Hashing out these people's entire relationship. Well, LO is, anyway. I'm just kind of listening in and jumping in any time they ask us something about OUR relationship. Because that is weird. And messed up. Obviously.



At the end of the night, we're all a little bit tipsy. We make plans to hang out again sometime (we never did). And Shawn and Eva say they're going to re-consider staying together.

WTF!!

No idea if they ever did or not, because they never returned LO's emails (which I still make fun of him for - I think they MUST have sobered up and started wondering just what kind of creepy person hangs out in parks and counsels troubled strangers over beer.)

My creepy person. That's WHO.

The first argument I had with my boyfriend had nothing to do with feelings, finances or friends. It had to do with something a lot more personal, and a lot more meaningful, at least for one of us.

The first time I had an argument with my boyfriend, it was about sandwiches.

When I came downstairs after a shower and saw that he had prepared breakfast for us, I was thrilled. He made one of our favorite breakfast staples: open-faced (“Polish”) sandwiches and tea. Everything was super except for one small detail: my sandwiches had cheese. And butter. And I’m lactose intolerant.

So, I did what any good girlfriend would do while her loving boyfriend was off in the bathroom: I took the cheese off, scraped off the butter, and re-arranged my sandwich as if nothing had happened.

I thought I was in the clear until I walked over to the living room, plate in hand, and noticed another plate of sandwiches on the table. With no cheese. And no butter. My designated sandwiches. I instantly thought, “oh shit!”, but there wasn’t time to react.

Before I knew it, he was back, and already staring the sandwiches up and down. As he looked between the layers of ham, tomato, radishes and onions, he looked like he was going to shed a tear. Heart broken, as if I had just murdered his baby.

The silence was THICK. Like the ham.

He shook his head and began slowly explaining to me the “special method” in which he likes his toppings arranged. They were all out of order. Others were missing. He was obviously very passionate about his sandwich toppings.

As he began to re-arrange everything back to normal, I simmered in the first big lesson I learned about dating this guy – never come between him and a sandwich.




Clearly, it's a "special" relationship.


I should have seen this coming, though. I already knew about his love affair with food. And lots of it. I mean, this is the guy who, while noticing that I was making us breakfast and had eight eggs in the pan one day, looked over my shoulder and said, “That looks delicious. But what are YOU going to eat?” The same guy who, when asked how much bread I should pack for a weekend of camping, just for him, replied, “About a loaf a day”. The same guy who only goes to visit my relatives when there is a possibility of cake being out on the table. The same guy who makes me carry a fork in my purse at all times “just in case” he needs to eat something, most often a poppy seed cake. Out of the box. While driving home after just having purchased it. And who’ll drive across all of London, to eight different grocery stores, to find his special barbeque sauce (then exclaim like a schoolgirl upon seeing it, and rub the jar against his cheek with love as the man behind him slowly takes a few paces back and makes a “WTF” face). The same guy who, upon meeting the groom at a friend's wedding we were attending, first congratulated the guy, then followed with, "So, what's for dessert?"

And so, it’s been about a year since I re-arranged his sandwich toppings, and it still remains one of the most intense moments in our relationship. I will never again get in between him and a piece of bread.

I wanted the first meeting between my boyfriend and my friends to be super special. Which is why I decided we should meet up at a cheap pub in the city. He had just recently returned to Canada from training in the States, and had not had alcohol for a couple of weeks, if not months. Being the brilliant girlfriend that I am, I decided this night was the perfect opportunity for us to have a few drinks together, and with my parents, before heading out. So out came the rum and the vodka. As the night progressed, somehow one drink led to another, and a drink turned into a shot, and another, and another, so that by the time my friend came to pick us up, we were both very classy and drunk.

At the pub, we chatted for a few minutes with my friends, ordered some more drinks, and about ten minutes into it, my boyfriend excused himself to go to the bathroom. He disappeared, and a few minutes after that, I excused myself as well.

I already had the bathroom door in sight as I walked towards it, but something off to my right-hand side caught my eye. I stopped and did a double-take.

Yep. There was my boyfriend. Seated at a table of perfect strangers, chatting and laughing and drinking.

I made my way over, casually sitting down next to him and joining the conversation while kicking him under the table in a "let's get back to my friends" kind of way.

But the thing about LO, whether straight-up or tipsy, is that he loooooves making new friends. And he usually does, wherever he goes. I swear, he could walk around with little colorful BFF bracelets and just throw them around like Mardi Gras beads and people would show their boobs. It's a phenomenon I just don't understand.

A few minutes into this conversation, a round of drinks shows up at the table, and I try to wave them off because I hate accepting alcohol from strangers, but LO's new friends are encouraging us to keep going, and the shots keep coming and coming. So we keep drinking and drinking. On these people's tab.

The conversation, on my boyfriend's part is mainly composed of the things he loves to talk about while drunk: the millitary, sandwiches, and slurred Polish versions of how much he loves me (these people were not Polish). By the time I dragged him back to our table, both of us having forgotten about the bathroom all together, we're both lucky we can even stand (again, we're so classy!)

We finally start a conversation with my friends when, all of a sudden, I realize LO is not at the table. He's gone again. Before I can start looking around under people's feet, I hear a large commotion coming from the area near the bathrooms, and a friend of mine grabs me over. When I get there, LO's friends, who are clearly no longer feeling the BFF vibe, are all standing up, shouting obscenities at him, while he tries to talk to them like a gentleman. I have noooo idea what they were so pissed about, until this day - maybe they disagreed on favorite sandwich condiments?. But the big crowd and the big mess pretty much meant that we had to leave the pub, as per special orders.

And SOMEBODY vomits in somebody's car on the way home, no names mentioned. This wasn't going to be a night filled with shining moments.

But the funny part of the story is not actually what happened that evening. It's what happened the next morning.

Because, as I start telling LO about what took place and he cannot remember most of it, he scrolls through his phone and finds a new entry from the night before:

"Big Punisher. #phone number#"

And, as I play around with my camera, this gem happens to be sitting on it:



Big Pun looks like he can eat Little One.

We both thought we were going to die laughing.

My dad also stopped by later in the day, sharing with us some of the details of our apparently memorable trip home from the pub, which neither of us can really recall.

When my dad makes a comment about going to take a shower, LO, inappropriate as always, mentions something about grabbing some one dollar bills (the night when he saw my dad in his underwear was maybe a week ago and they've joked about it since).

My dad laughs. But turns to him and says, "I think I should be paying YOU for what I saw last night."

And, despite trying to drag information out of him, he still refuses to share. Only smirks, as if only he holds the secret to some embarrassing story.

We didn't drink for a long time after that night.

Think of any common situation.

A dinner party. Taking a drive in your car. Seeing your significant other's father in his underwear for the first time.

What would you do? How would you behave?

I'm starting this blog because, when it comes to my boyfriend, the answer is always the same: ridiculously.

He eats sandwiches by the loaf. He licks my eyeballs to check if I'm crying during movies. He drops his pants in public places. He brings beer and kielbasa sandwiches to the movies. He meows at unsuspecting children, and their parents. He throws politically incorrect commentary into serious conversations. He owns a head lamp. He tells the homeless to get a job. He jogs with a water backpack and short shorts. He drives with his foot out the window. He reads with a Garfield bookmark. He loves to give piggy-back rides. He takes photos with absolute strangers. He'd do anything for a Polish sausage. He catches garters at weddings. He asks people with large dogs how much for a ride. And when he first accidentally got a glimpse of my dad in his briefs during the first week we dated, he says, "I should have brought my camera. I could have made a calendar!"

As someone who is usually quiet, typically reserved and unimposing on others, I admire his ability to stir the shit. Without even trying.

I also find myself covering my face with embarrassment often - the red-faced kind that can only occur when your boyfriend turns to the entire crowd at a ShamWow presentation at a fair and yells out, "Does it replace tampons?"

Which is why I'm starting this blog.

For all those times this "special" specimen (strategically-placed quotation marks) has made me think, "Somebody should write this shit down!"

I imagine this blog will take several different directions, depending on how much time I have and which stories I choose to share. Eventually, it will probably become a little chronicle of our relationship, our differences, and also the things that bring us together.

And which make us laugh.

So, here goes.

--------------------

Sneaky disclosure: My boyfriend has no idea I am starting this blog. And that's the way I'd like to keep it. My reasons are that (a) I don't want to encourage him to be any more outrageous; I want this to be a true representation of how he naturally behaves, and (b) I plan on sending him the link to this blog once I have a lot of "evidence" together about his wacky nature. He's a total attention whore, and will appreciate the posts.

Technical stuff: Throughout this blog, I will refer to my boyfriend by his nickname, LO ("Little One"). It's really not as sweet as it sounds. We both refer to each other as "Little Bitch" in person - LO is what we use around family and friends when we're trying to be "proper".

More about me: In case you think I'm a douchebag - or get tired of reading about my boyfriend (impossible!!) - check out my personal blog here.

Happy reading.