Ah, yes, yet another tale of woe that involves a car! This time it was my first car: a ‘91 white Honda Civic. What a sweet ride it was. Power locks and everything! It looked very much like this:

So, when I was a junior in high school, I had just started dating a girl that I worked with. We had gone on a few dates, but I can’t remember if we were official yet at the time of this tale. Anyway, our dates were usually less than exciting because, well, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania isn’t exactly known for unparalleled excitement, especially for underage teenagers. So, one night, my date and I were merely driving up and down the Carlisle Pike, trying to figure out how to spend the rest of our evening.

Suddenly, I got a brilliant idea. Why not drive by Kmart and introduce my date to a friend of mine that worked there? Great! I pulled the car into the parking lot; but it looked like Kmart was about to close. I hurriedly got out of the car and my date followed suit. I don’t know why I was in such a rush—maybe I was nervous—but I somehow managed to lock the keys in the car. With the lights on. And the engine running.

“Um…” I said and scratched my head.

“What?” my date asked.

“I just locked the keys in the car.”

“But the engine is still running.”

“Yeah…”

Now what? Well, I told my date, there’s a gas station down the road; they probably have a payphone (ah, pre- cell phone days!). So, we walked together to the gas station where, fortunately, they did have a payphone. I called my dad and told him what had happened.

“How the hell did you do that?” he asked.

I wasn’t quite sure, I told him, but he agreed to drive out to Kmart with a spare key. I don’t remember what my date and I talked about on the way to the gas station, or on the walk back, or while we waited the fifteen to twenty minutes before my dad showed up, but I do have a vague recollection of my dad calling me an idiot at some point or another.

Stupid cars.

I’ve experienced a lot of embarrassing moments in life; but the one that most readily comes to mind when I think of embarrassing moments is one that happened to me way back in first grade.

After recess, I got in line for the bathroom. I was first in line, but I really had to pee. Now, let me explain the bathroom situation for our first grade classroom. The classroom I in had its own, single toilet bathroom in the actual classroom. I guess the teachers didn’t want us to go down the hall and use the bathrooms that the rest of the school used. Maybe they thought we’d get lost on the way there. Subsequently, I had only a vague idea of where the bathrooms were outside of my classroom.

Anyway, I was next in line for the bathroom and behind me was a kid named Matt. I turned to Matt and said:

“I really have to go.”

“Knock on the door,” he said. “Who’s in there?”

“I don’t know.”

I knocked on the bathroom door.

“Who’s in there?” I asked.

“Nathan,” the young boy said.

“Hurry up! I really have to go!”

“OK.”

But the door remained closed, the toilet unflushed. By now, the rest of my classmates had come back from recess and were seated at their desks.

Then, suddenly, in front of everyone, I peed my pants. A dark wet spot quickly spread over the crotch of my jeans. Soon my teacher, Mrs. Neff, came over and saw what had happened. Next thing I know Mrs. Neff was unlocking the bathroom door and scolding Nathan, who was still on the toilet in mid dump.

Soon I was sent to the nurse’s office. I was provided a new, dry t-shirt, and a set of awful donor pants. If I recall, they were both plaid and polyester. She put my urine-soaked clothes in a plastic bag and sent me on my merry way.

Ah, childhood.

For the foreseeable future, this is the last installment of my Epic Woe series. Though I had planned to add a few more parts to finish out the tale, I put the tale on hiatus because I was getting hammered by the real life “Carla’s” friends for writing about her. Good grief. Perhaps in time I will resume the tale, but for now, enjoy Part VI and all the preceding tales…

To read Part V, please click here. To read Part I, click here.

Sunday, February 26, 2006. I awoke early. I called my parents and spoke to them, calmly. About an hour later I called them again, now upset. I called them once more, this time from the psychiatric division of the Los Angeles County Hospital.

I’m sure one day I’ll blog about my weeklong stay in two psychiatric hospitals, but I’ll spare you the awful (and sometimes hilarious) details for now. Not surprisingly, the doctors diagnosed me with major depressive disorder (and, later, Bipolar Disorder), and I spent a week under psychiatric supervision/evaluation followed by a month on disability.

Carla came to visit me in the hospital, and my feelings for her deepened. And when she couldn’t visit me in person, I would plug quarters into the payphones every day just to hear her voice.

When I got out of the hospital, things were far from good, but Carla and I were nervously entertaining the idea of starting a relationship. Obviously, we both had our reservations: she was still hurt by her painful breakup with Roscoe, and I was, well, kind of crazy. Nevertheless, we spoke or saw each other daily (I had lost my insurance job due to my extended absence), and Carla provided me with some of the happiest moments in my life after leaving the hospital.

There was another major problem, however. No matter how much it felt like Carla and I were already in a relationship and did most of things that everyone in a relationship does together, she wouldn’t concede that we were actually in a relationship.

“I’m not ready,” she said.

“I understand that,” I said, “just be honest with me, though. If you don’t want to be in a relationship with me, just say so.”

I had the creeping feeling that I was being jerked around, but no matter what I did or said, Carla convinced me that she just wasn’t ready to be in a relationship. I believed her. I was wrong.

To read Part IV, please click here. To read Part I, click here.

One Friday in February 2006, I called out sick from work. I had had a terrible day at work on Thursday and needed a day to regroup. I probably spent most of that Friday afternoon in bed.

That evening, however, I went out with Carla and a mutual friend. My friend and I were sitting in a Quizno’s in Burbank while Carla chatted with someone on her cell phone outside. I confessed to my friend that I had feelings for Carla.

“Are you going to tell her?” he asked.

“I guess I have to,” I said. “I just don’t know when.”

Moments later, Carla came into the store and announced that she had just arranged a date for herself on Saturday. I couldn’t believe it. Just my luck. My friend and I started to laugh. But when we refused to let Carla in on the joke, she got annoyed. Eventually, my friend excused himself, and I told Carla the news.

“I have something to tell you,” I said.

“What is it?”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

I hesitated, then managed to clumsily say, “I think I’m starting to get a crush on you.”

Carla smiled.

I drove Carla home that night, and we talked for a long time about many things. When it was all said and done, Carla told me she would be canceling her date on Saturday. Things were good for the moment, but the next two days would be two of the worst days of my life.

Continued in Part VI

To read Part III, please click here. To read Part I, click here.

It wasn’t long before Carla learned that Roscoe was cheating on her with Dawn. I felt terrible for Carla. She had always been committed to Roscoe, and for that I admired her. She obviously loved him very much. I did my best to be there for her as a friend, and I tried to console her the best I could.

Meanwhile, my life was changing as well. I had quit my job at the bookstore and had completed training for my new job as a claims adjuster for an auto insurance company. In sadder news, my grandfather discovered he had stomach cancer; and within a month, by the end of January 2006, he died. I flew to New Jersey to attend his funeral. I stood by his grave in the falling snow.

Upon returning to California, I fell into a great, sodden depression. I couldn’t sleep at night, and all I wanted to do after work was lay in bed. My concentration suffered as well, which made my new, demanding job even more difficult. Furthermore, I hated the new job, and even though I was only a few months into it, I desperately wanted to quit. Then, in February, I started to see a psychiatrist, and I was put back on an antidepressant I had first taken when I was eighteen.

And, to top it all off, I had finally admitted to myself that I had a crush on Carla.

Continued in Part V

To read Part II, please click here. To read Part I, click here.

Dawn: “Thanks for the talk last night. I really don’t deserve it, but it’s great to get a compliment from such a talented artist.”

This was the first of many comments that Dawn would leave on Roscoe’s MySpace page. Now Carla’s interest was piqued. What was going on with her boyfriend while he was working in Canada? When Carla next spoke to Roscoe, she subtly inquired about Dawn and the comment.

“She’s just an insecure girl,” Roscoe said. “She works on the set in the makeup department. I was just trying to build her confidence and now she’s writing me all the time.”

The comments continued, and Carla and I would both look at Roscoe and Dawn’s respective profiles and laugh about the way Dawn seemed to be pining for Roscoe’s attention. Soon, however, Dawn was posting pictures of her and Roscoe posing together. Carla became increasingly suspicious, but Roscoe, now irritated with Carla’s inquires, insisted that his relationship with Dawn nothing more than a friendship.

Carla and I continued to check Dawn’s profile on a regular basis; and our own friendly talks became more frequent. It was rare for Carla and I to go a couple of days without speaking to one another, either at work or over the phone. We started spending time together outside of work as well.

Then, one day in December, I checked Dawn’s profile and saw the following update. I read: “As long as I have my friends, a ring, and an American boy named Roscoe, I’ll be happy.”

Carla and I spent New Year’s Eve together that year (hello, 2006). On the car ride home from a friend’s party, I told Carla about Dawn’s update. I assumed Carla had read it. She hadn’t.

Continued in Part IV