You guys wanna get high??

Internet, I think we're close enough now that I can tell you about the closest I've ever come to dating a convict. See, most of my time from when I was 15 to 22 was spent dating one guy who I'll call Mick. We dated in 9th grade then broke up and got back together at the beginning of my junior year in high school and dated until halfway through my senior year in college. There was about a year and a half there--most of 9th grade and most of 10th grade--that we weren't together. And for most of it, he was dating a friend of mine who we'll call Giggles.

I am the one who broke up with Mick in 9th grade so it shouldn't have mattered to me one bit that he and Giggles got together a few months later, but it did. It bothered the crap out of me. I was insanely jealous-just out of my mind with envy. By the time that my 10th grade school year came about, I had decided I was totally in love with him. It was about this time that the Homecoming dance happened. I knew Mick and Giggles would be going together, and I decided I HAD to be there-any way I could. Enter Towelie (note: not his real name).

Towelie was this kid who grew up in my friend Jenny's neighborhood. I was over her house all the time so I ended up hanging out with him a lot. He came up to approximately my belly button and smoked A LOT of pot. He was weird, but I tolerated him. I like almost anybody who isn't in front of me in line somewhere or driving within a 10 mile radius of me. Towelie had a crush on me which I thought was strange because I was a total goody-goody, and he hated people like me. I guess it's because I was so damn hot in my feetless tights and hair scrunchies.

At any rate, Towelie asked me to go to Homecoming. I was conflicted. Here was my chance to go to the dance and see Mick. But on the other hand, I had to go with Height-Challenged, Substance-Abusing Towelie. I am ashamed to say, my "love" for Mick won out, and I decided to use Towelie to go to the dance.

Yes I know I'm a bad person. Quit judging me, Internet. It's not like you've never done anything you were ashamed of (you know what I'm talking about).

Homecoming was a disaster. I told my mom no pictures were to be taken, but she insisted I allow her to take one of me and Towlie (it has since been conviscated, Towelie has been ripped from the picture, and the negative was destroyed). Towelie's dad drove us to the dance and brought a goddamn video camera. I can't imagine how pissed off I look on that tape. By the way, plans are currently in place to hunt down Towelie's dad and take that tape back by any means possible. At the dance, Towelie made me get professional pictures with him--which I had sent to my house and then promptly burned when they arrived.

The highlight of the night was when Mick asked me to dance with him and told me I looked really pretty. Then he said that he was "really happy" for me and Towelie. Goddammit. Not only was he completely no longer interested in me, he thought I was dating Towelie. What a clusterfuck. I just wanted to leave. Towelie asked me if I wanted to go anywhere after the dance, and I said no. God I'm a bitch. I would still feel guilty about it if I hadn't found out later that he a) had gotten drunk before the dance and b) smoked pot in the bathroom during the dance. What a catch, huh ladies!? Towelie asked me out a bunch of times after that, and while I said we could hang out as friends, I wasn't interested in him. He was, shall we say, unhappy with me.

A couple months later, he called me while totally high and said this: "I only have one thing to say to you. You, Jenny and Kim: drive-by." Normally, the threat of a drive-by would scare me. But here are the reasons why this particular one did not:

1. He didn't have his driver's license or any access to a car.
2. When I pointed out #1 to him, he said he would get his friend Matt to drive him. Ah yes, Matt-a very sweet and shy 16 year old who used to come over and study for math tests with me. I was terrified.
3. 30 seconds after threatening me, Jenny and Kim, he said he wouldn't do it to Kim because she was moving away to Michigan soon and had "enough to worry about". Then he said he wouldn't do it to Jenny either because they were childhood friends.
4. When I brought up that he did not have a gun, he said that he could get a bee-bee gun and "those things can cause some serious damage".
5. When I suggested he carry out his plan by riding his bicycle and carrying a Super Soaker over to my house, he got so upset he almost started crying.

Two years later when we were seniors, the police came to our high school and arrested him in the middle of his remedial math class. The crime? Selling LSD to schoolchildren. God that's hot.

About 10 months after he was arrested, I went away to college. Pretty soon into it I received a letter. It was stamped "This letter originated from the Grafton Correctional Institution". My freshman year roommate handed it to me looking terrified and said, "Why the eff are you getting mail from prison? Who the hell am I living with?" It turns out, Towelie was going through a 12 step program in jail, and part of that program was apologizing to people he hurt while he was high. He had written to me to apologize for threatening to do a drive-by and for being high at Homecoming.

I laughed for a really, really long time. I didn't want to write him back, but I didn't know if getting no response would set him back in his healing program so I felt bad and wrote back. He then replied and said that the fact that I wrote him back meant the world to him (obviously-I am awesome). Then he said that he still had feelings for me and would there ever be a chance that we could date. Um.....what? Duh of course there's a chance!!! It has always been a dream of mine, not to mention of my parents, that I would date an inmate who sells drugs to little kids. One who would make me a Christmas card out of aluminum foil and Crayola markers (this really happened).

So now we are married, and we both sell drugs at playgrounds and school bus stops, and I lift him up so he can get things off of the top shelf in the cabinets. But we can't go on any of the good rides at Cedar Point because "you must be this tall to ride this ride" and he never is. What a happy ending to a magical love affair.