Draper - The U-Haul Diary

The U-Haul Diary

K. B. Draper

Illustrations by:

essie Maxwell

The U-Haul Diary is a very loose interpretation, semifictional, or a lot fictional, autobiographical story of my dating life. Ive changed some of the names and events to protect the not-so innocent, namely them, and the innocent, namely ME duh! (Yes, I have avoidance issues.) Plus, honestly, I dont have a very good memory and I have ADD, so I dont always remember the things that I actually paid attention to. Oh, and theres the small fact that Im scared of a couple of them.

So, what you get is The U-Haul Diary , the story of how my love life replays in my mind. I hope you learn a little and laugh a lot!

3rd Edition

Copyright 2014 by K.B. Draper, LLC

Illustrations by Jessie Maxwell

Cover art by Nick Freeman, Out Foxed Media

Edited by Elizabeth Andersen

ISBN978-1-105-15215-3 Paperback

ASIN B00QPJNOCG Ebook

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission from the author.

WITH MANY THANKS: To all the amazing and wonderful people in my life. Stacy W., for being there for me and for supporting me through the process of writing this book. If it werent for you, this wouldnt have happened. Pat, thanks for all your time and support. If nothing else comes from this book, Im glad I met you because of it. Thanks to Jessie for bringing the characters to life! Thank you to Stacy S., Sheila, Janet, and all my friends for being there through the breakups and makeups, all the meet-n-greets, and all the good-byes. Mom, Dad, Brook and steps, thank you for letting me be me and loving me anyway.

I might not have been the luckiest in love, but Im so lucky in life! Thanks to all of you.

I knew college would provide me with expanded lessons in common educational subjects such as English, science, algebra, and anatomy. I failed to realize these lessons would not all be taught in a classroom. For instance, I had an idea one could have a relatively good command of the English language, however, after a small consumption of keg beer, I would be reduced to the following phases: Youre the coolest ever, I love you, and No seriously, I really love you. In the area of science, I learned you cannot mix cheap brown liquid consumed from an aluminum can with any other color liquid consumed from glass bottles or two-ounce glass vials without having a serious chemical reaction. My algebra lesson came from finding the answer to the question: If at approximately 10:45 p.m. you pour a twelve-ounce container of liquid into a funnel with a six-inch circumference, which then travels at approximately sixty-five miles per hour down a two-foot-long clear tube which has a one-inch circumference, what would be the approximate time you arrive at the toilet? The answer: 10:46 p.m., 10:49 p.m., 1:00 a.m., 2:14 a.m. Then there was anatomy.

My best friend, Kristi, and I ended up choosing the same college. Besides being tall, beautiful, and an excellent student, Kristi was also a skilled basketball player who had been offered a full-ride scholarship. Then there was me: not-so-tall, not-so-beautiful, not-such-an-excellent student. My parents saved all their college aspirations for my A-obtaining younger sister since there were no offers in my mailbox. Despite that, it had been easy to pick a school. My options were some Harvard place that seemed somewhat pretentious if the movie depictions were accurate; some place that required a long flight over water, which I thought would be a little obnoxious when bringing home laundry for mom to do on the weekends; my hometown college; and a college at which I had attended a week-long basketball camp.

My very, with an extra helping of very, Baptist hometown college didnt seem like a likely choice since I didnt really like going to church, or to school for that matter. Therefore, I figured I wouldnt excel in classes that taught church. And since I already have a fair amount of explaining to do once I arrive at the Pearly Gates, I didnt think I needed the added task of explaining an F in Religion. So, a non-church, non-pretentious, get home to wash your clothes without jet lag college it was.

I enjoyed college life for the first semester. However, by the second semester I knew Id flunk out if I didnt replace the sport of seeing how high I could stack empty beer cans with more useful activities. I pondered my athletic talents and deemed I have above average skills in most sports. Basketball was my favorite sport but, by college standards, I was lacking in the height department and in the skill department since I failed to impress the basketball coach in camp. So I quickly ruled out basketball. Volleyball was a sport I excelled in, but once I discovered that in college the women wore underwear over their underwear instead of shorts, I quickly decided I didnt have the thighs for it. I considered track and field for a millisecond until I remembered I hate running and I didnt figure at five-foot-six and 125 pounds that my long jump or shot put skills would impress anyone. All that remained was softball.

With softball, I was relatively confident in my fielding, throwing, and batting skills, but I heard that college softball was largely populated with dykes. I didnt know what dams had to do with softball. Training, maybe? I guess having to run up and down them could be beneficial and add a little fun? Adds kind of an American Gladiator element to the game.

On the first day of tryouts I was a little disappointed the outfield was the typical flat green expanse. There were some American Gladiator like she-men on the team, but they never once hit me with foam-ended batons or yanked me by the ankle off a large pyramid of exercise mats. They did, later, swiftly remove me from a table at a local bar, but that was really for my own good and for the good of the rest of the patrons. Damn two-for-one shot specials.

I made friends quickly but developed an especially close friendship with the left fielder, Sabrina. Sabrina was friendly, attractive, could beat me eight out of ten times in the torturous after-practice sprints, and was the coachs favorite.

Sabrina was also living with her boyfriend, Ryan. When I wasnt studying or practicing, I hung out with Sabrina. Ryan, as most guys would do when a single girl is always hanging out with their girlfriend and severely limiting their opportunity to have sex, started with the you should go out with my roommate suggestions.

How about Tom? Ryan suggested first.

Tom was one of those know-it-all, arrogant, geeky computer guys. I pictured that one date with him would end with me letting him know where he could byte me and where he could shove his hard drive.

Ahhh, no thanks, I replied.

How about Dwayne? Hes cool, Ryan offered as a second option.

Dwayne was nice enough, but he looked like the Count from Sesame Street, minus the monocular eyeglass. I couldve almost overlooked that resemblance, but in my head, every time Dwayne spoke I heard a Count-like ending.

Dwayne: Hey, would you grab me a beer?

In my head, I heard, One beer ahhhah-haa.