» Stuff I've found

Stuff I've found about life.
Many years ago, back when I lived in Canada, I found myself in love. I was sure she was the one – she had long sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, and the sexiest smile you’ve ever seen. She was gentle, kind, and had a wicked sense of humour. I shall call her Erin, for that’s her name.
I pined for her for years; she attended my parent’s church, so I would often find myself getting up early on Sunday mornings, just to spend that hour with her. After the service, I would drive her home, and we would play on the Super Nintendo, or go for drives in the countryside.
We became good friends, and grew closer together than I ever thought I could achieve with such a beautiful person. My heart would strain before I saw her, and ache when we said goodbye. She consumed me, and I my sole purpose in life seemed to be making her the centre of the universe.
Then, one day, a mutual friend said to me that I shouldn’t talk to her anymore. Erin didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I was heartbroken.
I plunged to a level of depression that most Emos can only dream of. My poetry would have made Robert Smith cry. I stopped caring for myself – stopped shaving, brushing my teeth, laundering my clothes. I was in a state.
Eventually the fog lifted, and I began to find there was more to life than pining after this girl. I got a new job, made some new friends, and started over with my life.
In my new job, I met another girl. She wasn’t the same as Erin, and didn’t stir the same feelings. We did spend a lot of time together, and we ended up being more like brother and sister – we each had our emotional baggage, and we provided support to each other. But I found my life was moving forward, at any rate.
Then, out of the blue, I received a phone call.
Erin.
She didn’t sound right; her speech was a bit slow, but it was her. I was talking to her again!
I quickly discovered why she was speaking differently. In the years between, she had been suffering from Chronic Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, and had quickly deteriorated from having a tremor in her hand to walking with a cane to now being confined to a wheelchair.
I have never felt such anger and sorrow at the same time. How could her God do this to her? No one deserves this, but least of all her. She was pure sunshine, and now her light was covered with twenty-four hour nursing care. Life, ladies and gentleman of B3ta, is not fair.
We began to connect again. It turned out that the reason she stopped communicating with me was that she was frightened – she had never had such strong feelings for anyone as she had for me, and she wasn’t ready for a relationship.
I went and visited her, and I found her to be only a shell of the woman I loved. Hunched over in her wheelchair, I would push her outside and hold cigarettes to her lips so she could smoke. She was sad, no doubt, but she and I still sparked. She quickly became happier, and we decided to see each other more often.
Her mum, as a slight aside, is one of the hardest working, selfless people I have ever met. She worked herself to the bone to care for her daughter, and we forged a friendship. Her mum confided in me that she was so glad that Erin called me, as she had been so sad before, but she was smiling more than ever now that I was around.
Erin and I dated in earnest, and our lives became intertwined again. It was difficult – physically, as I would have to lift her off the sofa or out of the car – and emotionally, remembering the dancing beauty I had fallen in love with years before, and comparing her to the husk before me.
But things started to change, as she became more and more ill. I found myself no longer anticipating our visits. She was regressing fast, finding it harder and harder to live with a body that twisted and refused to cooperate. She withdrew, and drew me into her sadness.
Other people started to notice the strain, and commented that I shouldn’t play the martyr anymore. It was a relationship with no possible happy ending. Erin wanted to have children, but it would probably kill her to give birth if she could carry to term. She was destined to have no legacy. I decided it would be best for me if I began living my life, instead of surrounding myself with someone who was no longer happy to be alive.
One of the hardest things I have ever done was breaking up with her. I knew it would be hard, and she didn’t make it any easier. She knew she would never have another boyfriend, she would never have sex again, she would live the rest of her life alone.
It pains me to say it, it truly does, but I felt relief when I drove away from her house for the last time.
***wavy lines to indicate a few years past…***
I had found myself in love for the first time – I quickly discovered that the other victim had been me. What I felt for Erin had been puppy love, a major league crush, but nothing else. The true love of my life – the one who lets me be who I am – became my wife. We moved to England to start fresh, and I have never been happier. I have shaken off all the baggage, and I am freely and truly in love.
For those of you that haven’t experienced true love, it’s COMPLETELY different from a crush. You very quickly realise it when you find the true love comes easy. But I digress.
So, a happy ending? No.
A few months ago, I found myself answering a phone call from my father, in Canada. He was quite sad as he described to me that Erin had been living in a nursing home for the last few years, getting steadily worse. The night before, she had peacefully closed her eyes, went to sleep, and never woke up.
I didn’t know how to feel. Guilty, as I had been living a full life, whilst she had been suffering in a hospital, with only church people and family to visit for a few hours a day. I felt relieved that she has stopped suffering. I felt glad I wasn’t a widower at the age of 36.
My wife was very understanding and suggested we send flowers. We made a donation to the local MS Society in Canada, and I shed a tear for the girl I had found… and then lost.
(Wed 12th Nov 2008, 13:10, More)

» Cringe!

Just like that picutre on the intraweb...
Many, many years ago, I proposed to my girl, and she said yes. As I was raised in a Christian home, I wanted to be married in a church, and she was okay with that. Our local vicar was happy to marry us; and as he had just been ordained, this was to be his first time It was also his first time giving the required 'marriage lessons', where he would tell us about God's view on marriage, being unfaithful, etc.
As he was preaching to us in the comfort of our home, he was getting very much into it, and Mrs w4 and I, after a log day's work, were both a bit tired, and when the dog came into the lounge, plopped down at our feet, and started gnawing away happily at his bone, it took us a moment to realise the good vicar had stopped his diatribe mid-sentence. His face was turning a brilliant shade of red, and he flustered "Ah, I think we've had enough for tonight. I'll call you later for our next, uh, visit." And with that, we stood up to walk him to the door. We then noticed that the dog had not been chewing on his bone, but rather he had scavanged a rather large pink rampant rabbit. My wife and I looked at each other in shock, our hearts completely stopped, and the vicar stood still. The house filled with a horrible silence.
The silence was broken by a churning, buzzing sound coming from the dog's new toy.


The vicar performed the wedding ceremony a few months later, and the episode was never spoken of again. We haven't set foot in church since.
(Tue 2nd Dec 2008, 17:37, More)

» The thing I've been most ashamed of doing with a penis

Sex: Scene 1, Take 1. aaaaaaaand Action!
Many, many years ago, back when I was in high school, I had the chance to do sex. My girl at the time had finally caved to my incredible power of persuasion, and allowed me access.
On that fateful night, I nicked some red wine from my mum, and we migrated to my bedroom. We had the house to ourselves, so I knew I was in like flint.
No I had been exposed (heh) to a lot of porn in my days, and I had watched carefully for techniques to ensure the moaning woman of my dreams would be engulfed in ecstasy, rather than moaning from feeling sick. One thing I noticed was that the men in the porn never really had to guide his flesh hammer in. It was always like the TIE fighter being caught in the tractor beam – it just sort of gravitated to the right spot and she would be instantly delighted.
When the moment came, we were both sweaty and undressed, I informed her of my intentions, and feeling The Force, I skilfully piloted my X-Wang into the tunnel and (shamefully quickly) dropped my baby batter bomb into her ventilation shaft.
She stopped moving and kissing and said “did you do that on purpose?”
I looked down, and discovered, much to my dismay; I was nowhere near the trench. I had only made it between her now sticky thighs.
I hung my head in shame. That was pretty embarrassing.
Not as embarrassing as the next day at school, and discovered she had told several (read: all) of her friends of my faulty homing sensors and defective GPS unit.
They called me ‘carpet bomber’ after that.
(Thu 19th Mar 2009, 8:41, More)

» Food sabotage

So a few years ago, in my travels,
I came across a bald man that wanted a battle of wits. There were two goblets of drink before us, and I took a packet of powder from my pocket, and emptied it into one of the goblets, whilst his back was turned.
The man said, “It's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.”
“You've made your decision then?” I replied.
“Not remotely,” he said. “Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.”
“Truly, you have a dizzying intellect,” I returned.
“Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?”
“Australia.”
“Yes, Australia. And you must have suspected I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.”
“You're just stalling now.”
“You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.”
“You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work,” I said.
“IT HAS WORKED!” he yelled. “YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!”
“Then make your choice.”
“I will, and I choose - What in the world can that be?” He pointed behind me, distracted me and switched the goblets, the slimy bastard!
“What? Where? I don't see anything,” pretending his ruse was had worked.
“Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter. First, let's drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours.”
We both picked up our goblets of wine, and drank our fill.
I said to the man, “You guessed wrong.”
Clearly overjoyed at my apparent gaff, he jumped up, shouting “You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha..."
The man fell over and died. For you see, they were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder. And that was how I survived the food sabotage.
Sincerely,
Westley
(Fri 19th Sep 2008, 9:43, More)

» Common

Pure bloodlines
First off, this is a 100% true story. Names have not been changed to protect the guilty.
A few years ago, missus w4 decided to take a live-in job for a rich lady in Oxfordshire. My wife was charged with keeping the house tidy and watering the immense garden on the gardener’s day off. We were given our own two bed flat, furnished, which was located on the property.
Things went downhill very quickly. The Lady of the house was not content with the way missus w4 was placing the throw pillows on the beds – they were to be arranged just so. The Lady was disappointed my wife was unaware of how to make a batter from scratch. The lady wanted all bedding in the eight bedroom mansion to be changed and ironed perfectly every day, the master of the house’s shoes to be polished to a military shine, and the kitchen towels to be arranged by colour and size.
I was curious as to what these uber-rich people did, so I looked them up. They were of the Baring family, one of the richest, most posh families in England. The Lady of the house, Lavinia Gweneth Baring, was an extra lady-in-waiting for HRH Princess Diana.
And, curiously, Miss Baring, not wanting to spoil the bloodline, did something very curious and decidedly common.
She married her cousin, Vivian John Baring.
Honestly, look it up. She’s in that posh name register thingy, www.thepeerage.com.
My wife doesn’t put up with a lot of bullshit, but she did for this Lady. But not for long. After a week, my missus was really angry at the way the Lady behaved, so she left, and went back to Brighton. I went back to the Baring’s flat to get our stuff, and as I was about to drive away, the Lady appeared. She handed my wife’s last pay packet, with a small note detailing the deduction of £20 for electricity consumed at the flat. The cheap bitch.
We had been there a week, so I called her on it. She got very stroppy. All I could say was “whatever, lady, at least I didn’t marry my cousin. Inbred.” And I sped off, never to speak to the most common posh woman I’d even met.
(Sat 18th Oct 2008, 19:56, More)