A House is not a Home

Its time to clean house. It is time to get rid of all the dead weight. Its time for Captain Save-A....to friggin retire from the game. This weekend I went to ATL for the National Black MBA Conference and some stuff went down that made it clear, some of these muufucca's in my life gots to go.

Wanna hear 'bout it? Here it go. I have this friend--lets call her Rita. She and I met a few years ago when both of us started to seriously pursue business school. If you met both of us and asked us to tell you our individual stories they would be eerily similar. Both of us had crazy abusive boyfriends in college, both of us have younger brothers who seemed to lack the sense God gave them (I got another brother and crazy chick story for y'all--but not today), we kicked it a bit longer than alot of our friends.

And the similarities go on. But the differences are also stark. I enjoy adventure. I am willing to try most things--provided it is within the law--at least once. I shop--but with a list and a time frame. I feel very comfortable in diverse environments. Rita--doesn't like change, needs structure to feel comfortable, and if it aint a black spot on the black side of the block--she is going to flip the hell out. Oh, and she shops like the world is going to end.

But the biggest difference is the man factor--and that factor might have been the deal sealer on the end of a friendship. I have had a number of boyfriends over the years. Some of them I had absolutely no business with--kept them around because it was something to do. (Not that kind of do---get your mind out the gutter) But, I haven't had a boyfriend in awhile, because after the last guy I dated I realized I needed to do some self-evaluation. Rita on the other hand needs male attention--pronto. If we go out on the town, she judges whether she had fun or not by whether some dude tries to get with her. No male attention? No fun. And then the late night eating conversation starts about how she can't get a man. "Im too dark...too fat...brothers in ATL don't date dark girls" (Wrong!) "Now that I have an MBA--the dudes that I would date aren't on my level...the MBA's want light, skinny girls."(Now that might be a little true) and then tears.

So, now that she has a man you would think all is right with the world. But with this one, she knows she is wasting her time and has said so. He lives in GA. She lives in NY. His schedule as an engineer is not as flexible as hers so she has to do the traveling. He's depressed. So is she. The timing is always messed up when they do make arrangements to see each other. You think she would end it. Naw such a thing Ms. Millie.

So thats the backgroung. Here is where it gets good. Homegirl was so looking forward to seeing the boy and getting some. Since he couldn't come up until the weekend and she and I were both in attendance at the conference, I was going to stay with her in her free hotel room until Friday night. Because the boy's schedule got messed up she suggested I stay till Saturday and then go to my friend's house. Cool. Plans to kick it are made. Then homegirl gets sad about the boy not coming so I go out with my other girls.

I get back at 3 AM. Brrrriiinnng! Her phone rings. I say to myself, "Aw! Some bullshit bout to go down." Sho nuff. Its the boy. He has driven up from 2 hours south of ATL to surprise her. Now remember, I told she is desperate for male attention (and only feels most validated up under 'neath somebody.) So, as she is talking to him, I'm thinking she is about to ask me some ridiculous shit. In the dark, I sit waiting. She hangs up and starts to tell me what's going on. So I ask her what she is going to do. I say, thinking she would not have the balls to ask, "Do you want me to call so-and-so and see if she can come back?" She says, "Would you mind?" Cooler heads prevail. I was going to be like have you lost your mind---but after 3 days of little sleep, I was not about to have another sleepless night pissed off that the child would even ask me that. When she calls the boy back, I hear him say to her over and over, that he will find a place to crash until the morning, she says no.

After 20 minutes of me trying to get my friend, I tell her I can't reach her. Rita promptly gets up and gives me my friend's roommate's cell phone number. Pissed to the highest level of pisstivity. Roommate answers. I get to packing.

Rita promptly calls the boy back to reassures him that I am "cool with it" and that he better come on because if he falls asleep then all of the drama won't be worth it. Woo! I just kept my head down and kept packing.

She is benevolent enough to drive me. As we are riding in the car, she says to me "Are we going to talk about this?" I say simply, "No we are not. We can talk about it tomorrow but right now. Lets just say this is not cool." When she pulls up to my girl's house--who is also semi-one of her girls, my friend won't even come out the doorway. (She is a cusser so, one could assume that she wanted to let homegirl have it.)

Ain't enough penis in the world to make me do this kind of crap to one of my girls.

It's forgiven, but not forgotten. And the gravedigger is digging.