Wastin' Away Again In Budweiserville

That's right, kiddies, gettin' wasted at 10:30 in the morning...

Why not! Hair o' the dog that bit me, I say, since I passed out last night after the first 12-pack...

I finally called Ric last night.

He didn't answer and I didn't leave a voice mail message. I called again, an hour later, same result.

About 10 minutes after the second call, my phone rings.

Ric says, "Oh, so you're not dead."

I try to be witty and use the famous Mark Twain quote on him regarding the "news of my demise" and shit.

So, he goes on to talk about all the stupid little things he's been doing all month and blah-blah this and blah-blah that and I sit there and listen to him and wonder, "Why am I bothering...it's just going to be the same bullshit...nothing has changed."

I don't know what I was expecting. But this seemed too easy for him. He needed to think a little harder about our friendship and what it's demise would mean to him. And then it hit me. He doesn't care. He doesn't give a shit at all.

Well then, neither do I.

After this initial conversation, I called him back and proceeded to tell him why he shouldn't be able to "get off the hook that easily", how back in the day, he was the loser I felt sorry for and took under my wing and he without a car or the ability to drive is still that loser, hoping it doesn't rain so he can ride his little bicycle somewhere. (Ya, I know what buttons to push.)

Of course, he then hung up on me.

So I called him back and was re-directed immediately to voice mail (he shut his phone off). Oh, let me tell you, the profanity and vehemently nasty things I said on that voice mail cannot be repeated here lest it burn your eyes out reading it, but let me just say...they were friendship ending words.

After years of Ric implying that he would deploy a first strike nuclear option to our friendship, it turns out that it was I who ultimately pressed the big red button.

I kept the ringer on my phone active all night to see if there would be a retaliatory attack waged upon me, but it just sits there, silently, not a single ring.

So I sit at Mildred, in my fallout shelter, slugging back the second (or is it the third) of 14 beers sitting in my fridge, on this sunny Sunday morning.

Wastin' away, alone again, naturally.