My life is basically just a vicious cycle that won't change unless I move away from this evil city.

Last night my friend A. called on his way home from work (around 5:30PM) and asked me to come downstairs and smoke a cigarette with him. Now, I haven't seen him in over a month because I cut him off based on his pattern of dating psycho girls and encouraging them up to impress me, who he bills as his best friend and essentially keeper of The Holy Grail, and then dumping them whether I like them or not.

In an effort to diminish the drama in my life, I had to cut him. He uses me as a pawn to create drama. I will not be a part of it.

Yet, he is my best guy friend.

As we are standing outside, my best friend D. comes strolling by, so all three of us have a smoke. By the time we are done, it's 5:50PM and they convince me to leave with them and not return to work. So I call a co-worker and ask them to shut down my work station and we all decide to walk home.

But it's so warm and we are altogether, all of us college friends, that we decide to go for 1 drink...

We get to A.'s local bar and hit it. A. and I start arguing and the bets roll. He provokes every comment I make like I'm on trial. I kinda hate him when he does that. I feel like I need to walk into every conversation with footnotes. If I'm wrong he gives me that, "But you're so pretty" bullshit which can send me into Manson mentality.

So he quotes Sartre (he ALWAYS quotes Sartre) and I make a comment about the existentialists and point out that the particular quote is invalid because...yada, yada, yada. And he calls me out and I say I'll prove it and he insists that we have someone look it up online.

So I call friend and have her look it up and we are both wrong but I am the more right of the two. So then I tell friend where we are and invite her but she says she needs to shower first. I tell her that we aren't going to be there long because I am going home. She says she'll call me after she showers.

The next thing I know, friend walks through the door. "Hey" I said, "I can't believe you made it - I said I was leaving in an hour!" She said "I know, but I thought about it and it's never really an hour is it?"

A.'s friend comes in and he starts to tell us about his weekend at the Kennedy Center. A. again provokes me, posing, "Well we all know that if JFK had lived he would never be regarded as a great American President."

I tried to block this out, really, I did but he wouldn't let it go. "He sold the Panama Canal!" he says. "What a fool!" I was able to ignore this until he really laid in. "Well, we can blame JFK for the millions of lives lost in Vietnam."

"Oh no," I said. "Kennedy is NOT taking the blame for Vietnam. Blame McNamara, blame LBJ, and you should sure as HELL blame Nixon and Kissenger but you *cannot* blame the years of bloodshed on Kennedy, that's bullshit!!!!" This fight, based on events staged before either of us were BORN, blows up like the Challenger.

I get angry and try to walk away, but A. actually bodily blocks me from leaving. I go the other direction, he grabs my arm. Finally, in an effort to get him away from me, I take out a bottle of Poland Springs from my bag and throw water on him.

Not even stopping to register what has happened, he takes his pint of beer and throws it on me.

In retrospect, I think as soon as he did it he knew that what he did was very, very wrong. But just then my phone rings.

My friend A. calls. I tell her where we are and what A. just did and she says she needs to shower but she is coming over. I again say that I am leaving. She says she'll call me.

A. walks away and come back with a heinous black T-shirt he has bought for me from the bar, telling me to take off my clothes and put on the t-shirt and he will dry my clothes in the bathroom. I refuse the shirt and his help so he proceedes to try to wrap me in the t-shirt. I throw the T-shirt back at him, but he drapes it over my stool and walks away.

Next he sends the bartender down the bar with a baseball cap for me that he bought from the bar. I refuse the cap. He comes comes down to me again, grabs the t-shirt & the cap and now some insane blinking light that he is trying to give me as some type of retarded drunk peace offering but I will not have it.

A. needs to be taught a lesson. You do not throw beers at girls. Period.

He claims that he confused the poland springs with my vodka club soda with lime because they are the same color scheme but I exasperatedly EXPLAIN to A. that 1) vodka is odorless, 2) club soda is a STAIN repellent and 3) I THREW WATER AT HIM ANYWAY so it doesn't change the fact that I am soaking wet and smell like a brewery.

He walked away again. So then he comes back a little while later and apologizes but I refuse to accept his apology because frankly, he truly hasn't learned his lesson. He's just sorry he can't speak with me now and is bored.

He goes away again. He comes back again, by this time A. the girl has arrived, and now A. the boy's apology is followed with a metaphor. "You know that guy on Northern Exposure who was the DJ? Well, did you see the episode where he couldn't go on because he lost his rhythm and had to call his soulmate to get it back?"

At this point, I am just staring blankly waiting for where this is leading even though I know where it's leading, "Well," he continues, "PG is my soulmate and I think of that episode all the time because it reminds me of her." Then he starts tapping one foot in rhythm on the hardwood floor and says, "She knows my rhythm."

Oh, he's good. I laugh. He should be a Federal Prosecutor for all of these theatrics.

We proceed to get into another argument about A.'s honesty (or lack of), when the girls break in and suggest going to another location - across town. Now, I'm about 10 blocks from home on the same street that I live so REFUSE to go to the other location stating, "I am NOT, driving cross town for another drink."

The next thing I know, I'm in a taxi driving cross town for another drink. I arrived home at 1:45AM.

And all of THIS is further support for why I have to leave this evil town.

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