Writing Stats:Monday, July 14, 2003@11:19 a.m.

HANG UPS

Everyone who has ever been in a relationship with anyone will easily tell you that it's the hang ups that undo 9 out of 10 healthy couples every time. She spends too much time in the bathroom, he doesn't flush, she slept with his best friend...you know, the trivial stuff. Lets go back to our dear friends Kara and Jed.

Staring with Kara and Jed, Kara as stated in our last post (click here for it) is head over heels for Jed, and Jed is head over heels for Kara. Both have been head over heels in various incarnations in the bedroom for about five weeks now, and their head and their heels are both mixed up in what can only be described as cute puppy dog eyes every time they're together. It's one of those things that couldn't possibly happen to you until it does. They both care for each other deeply, it's almost revolting. There is one thing wrong however...Jed has a serious medical condition. I know what you're thinking, but don't. He's not one half of a siamese twin, he doesn't have an STD, and he's not dying of cancer. Myself, Kara, Alice (Kara's current roommate), Ryan (Alice's fiance) Nathan, and Jake all agree that Jed has...I can hardly bring myself to say it...acute Cellphone-Obsessiveitis. It's true, that horrible degenerative illness that infects a large number but goes silently unnoticed by non profit organizations and political parties has finally infected one of us. We've all had our scares where we thought we had it. Alice can't drive to or from work without calling someone, Kara will knock anyone over to get to her phone if it's ringing, and if it stops before she can get to it, she throws EVERYTHING out of her purse to find it and check her caller ID. Seriously, I think the world would quite possibly end if she had to wait a few minutes to find out who called her. Me, if I'm in town I mostly ignore it, but if I'm out of town all holy hell breaks loose if I can't answer my phone, something about the fact that I can use it while I'm not in my PJ's just makes me want to use it when I'm in life endangering situations, like driving down I-94 in bumper to bumper traffic moving 85 miles per hour. I want to TELL THE WORLD!

I majorly digress. I apologize. Back to Jed and his illness. Picture it, their first date. She's excited, he's excited. There's a nice meal on the table, the restaurant is just busy enough for a lovely atmosphere, but not so busy they're bumping elbows with the big lady sat down next to them because there wasn't a table for one near the buffet. The waiter pours them a glass of wine. Kara loves wine. She turns to look in his baby blues and stops herself. She swishes the wine in the glass watching as it coats it like a syrup, a sign of a good wine or so I'm told. She can't resist, she fights instinct and turns to look at him and is HORRIFIED...

...as she turns to face an empty booth. Desperately she stands and searches the restaurant for him. Not seeing him, she grabs the waiter. "DID ALIENS ABDUCT MY DATE?" She asks, slapping him around a little bit. "Se habla espanol?" The guy replies. She throws him to the ground and runs into the street screaming up at the sky "WHY! WHY! WHY!" before catching a city bus home.

Okay, so that last paragraph didn't happen. She DID turn to find herself sitting in an empty booth, but she didn't have to look far to find Jed. He was standing outside with his cell phone pressed tightly to his ear. More than slightly annoyed she reached into her purse to grab her cell phone, making sure it was off so she wouldn't look like a hyprocrite when she chewed him out about it when he got back inside. After making sure all was safe and secure, she slid it back into her purse, downed the wine and waited like a tiger watching it's prey.

When Jed finally did return, she smiled sweetly at him. "Hot date?" she asked

"It's getting better!" He smiled, grabbing a breadstick off the table and tearing an end off. She rolled her eyes, then went in for the kill:

"This is a date, right?" She asked.

"I hope so." He replied, chewing.

"Oh, I was just checking, because I'd never answer my cell phone while I was on a date with someone."

And now a word from our sponsors. Her last statement is the truth, heck, it's true when she's just hanging out with people she cares about too. I've never felt quite as honored as I did when I suggested we have a Buffy Season 5 a-thon and on the final day with the final four, she actually left her cell phone at her house intentionally. Granted, as soon as Buffy sacrificed herself to save Dawn, she grabbed some kleenex and sprinted for the Sprint, but it's the thought that counts.

Jed seemed to understand and this hasn't been a major issue when they're alone together since. If they're hanging out together in a group however, all bets are off. We'll be on the balcony in a large group just hanging out when suddenly the bat phone goes off and Jed disappears for twenty to thirty minutes. We'll be watching a movie as a group, it'll just get to the good part and once again, the bat phone goes off and Jed disappears for twenty five to forty five minutes. We'll be playing Trivial Pursuit and drinking our asses off when suddenly...bat phone. Drinking for free at Bells (I love my former co-workers!) Bat Phone. Bye bye Jed. It was around the sixth night straight of this that we all began to ask ourselves...and Kara:

"Who the fuck is he talking to?"

Kara shrugged. "All I know is he gets the calls all day, all night, and he disappears then returns and doesn't talk about it."

Several theories began forming in our minds...I thought he was a super hero. Our friend Jake however felt he had the answer.

"He's got a chomp shop"

"Huh?" We all asked over beers at Bells.

"Every day he shows up in a new car, he obviously steals cars and sells them."

We all thought about it. Jake was right, every time we saw Jed he was driving something else. This was obviously the most plausible theory out there, because there weren't any reports of a man in tights flying around town righting wrongs. Jed MUST be a car thief!

It was Kara however who cleared his good name. He joined us later on that night and fifteen minutes later, proceeded to answer his cell phone and disapper. "He runs a car shop." Jake poked myself and Nathan quietly under the table to avoid angering Kara. We looked at each other and nodded. "He and his brother buy totaled cars, scrap whatever pieces they can out of them, and put them into cars they fix."

Our plan to search out '"Car theft", rewards' on Google.Com that night when we got home went up in smoke before our eyes. Twenty minutes later Jed returned, finished his beer and announced he had to go. Suddenly I was convinced he was a super hero again, but no one was with me. The aura of mystique was gone, and now the whole phone thing was just...well...sad really. I cut my losses, finished my beer, and drove home.

As of today, they're seven weeks into their relationship, and no one even notices Jed when he disappears anymore. Those that do are obviously ones who don't hang out with us very often, everyone else knows better. All I know is Kara has a heart of gold. The boy she's dating has quite possibly the most destructive, degenerative illness of modern times and she sees past it, to the super hero beneath. She's an underpaid Social Studies teacher from Cadillac, and he Steals the Cadillacs to pay for dinner. Together...They Fight Crime...