The Story of Fiddles

A few months back right after Thanksgiving, I agreed to meet my friend Flop at a bar for a day of watching football. A couple of his friends showed up, including Fiddles. I sat at one end of the bar, and Fiddles sat on the other with everyone else in between us. I think he sensed then he needed to stay away from me. Intuitive, that Fiddles.

Beer after beer was ordered, and I got to watch Tarvaris Jackson actually look good against Fiddles beloved New York Giants. Of course I taunted him, which probably wasn't that nice of me as the game was a slaughter and Fiddles was pretty upset. Once all of our teams' games finished, we really got to drankin'. By dark, I was thoroughly sloshed, as it appeared was everyone else I was with.

I suddenly get a text message from Flop, who when I look over has his hand lovingly on his girlfriend's back talking to someone else. "Weird," I think. Then I read it. I don't remember the exact phrasing (I was drunk! HELLO?!), but it went something like this:

"I know this isn't the right time to tell you, or the place, but I've been in love with you for quite some time."

I look up puzzled at Flop, who still has his FUCKING GIRLFRIEND by his side, wondering 1) what the fuck he was smoking and 2) what happened to his taste in women? Clearly it was declining.

Then I saw Fiddles giggling like a school girl right next to Flop. A few curse words left my mouth, and I probably broke every glass in the bar with how loud I was yelling, but Fiddles continued to laugh.

"Give me your phone," I requested. "Let's see if you like it."

He shrugged his shoulders and proclaimed that there was no one in his phone that I couldn't send "any text message I wanted to."

"Even this one that says 'Dad'?" I asked.

"OK, everyone but that one," said Fiddles.

I then proceeded to close my eyes, raise the cell phone above my head as to ensure everyone in my party I wasn't looking, and the text recipient was completely random. I don't recall the name I landed on, but it was something like "Gary" or "Gil" or "Maury". What I mean is the name is irrelevant to the story. I then think of what to say, and begin to slowly key out my text. I'm drunk, remember? It took a while since I was trying to make this serious and not add extra letters to the text like how I normally send them when drunk. The text is as follows (or something close to it):

"Sometimes I pull the skin around my balls in such a way that it resembles a flying squirrel. I think of you every time I do this."

Satisfied with my text, I smugly slide his phone back over to him. I take a sip of beer, and look over to the look of death on Fiddles face.

"That was my boss." he mumbled.

Oh.Fuck.

This goes on for about 30 minutes of me apologizing profusely, and him saying it wasn't really my fault. You see, it gets worse. This wasn't just his boss. I mean, I could say that shit to my boss and he'd probably laugh. This was his fucking VP. I don't know how many bosses were between Fiddles and this man I texted, but it was a lot. And apparently the guy is a stiff.

Fiddles keeps on looking at his phone thinking of what he should do next. We start brainstorming ideas on what he should do. Apparently the boss-man is a Luddite and not of fan of texting, so there is a chance he would have no idea what he received and ignore it. Or it could have been that he was in the process of throwing Fiddles' computer out the window as we were sitting there in the bar. It was almost like Fiddles was trapped in his own little Prisoner's Dilemma, and I of course was the one who sent him to jail. He had 3 choices: 1) admit fault to his boss the following morning thereby ensuring that his boss WOULD in fact read the text even if he didn't know what it was the first time around, 2) ignore it and pretend like nothing happened hoping the boss-man didn't see the text, 3) leave the country. Option 2 was clearly best case scenario, but I reminded (guiltily) that if you do something wrong that may involve HR, it's best to take ownership and just say you fucked up and move on.

Fiddles girlfriend, a lawyer of some type, arrived and gave him legal advice while I begged on my knees for her to forgive me for possibly getting her boyfriend sacked. The best part about this story was the person above the boss-man in his contact list was CrimeNotes, the person below him was his brother. Fiddles had to remind me that either of those possible recipients would have been actually funny, not life-threatening like his current situation. In fact, Fiddles then went on that if he remembered his boss-man was in his contacts, he would have reminded me that out of the 100+ people in his phone, the boss-man and his dad were the ONLY TWO I could not text.

Fiddles never said anything to his boss, and so far his boss hasn't said anything to him so this story has a happy ending. But it took a few apologetic smiles and a couple of shots of Jameson for him not to look at me without grinding his teeth in anger. Oh yeah, he also got his revenge that his fucking Giants won the Super Bowl and my Vikings collapsed just enough to miss the play-offs. Karma....it's a bitch. And I'm an asshole.

The End.