Drama: A Sketchy Act

Last week, Butter, E and I were informed by Mrs. Chemical that she would be celebrating her birthday on Friday night. It was a girls-only event. Much to our bewilderment, we were invited. After a brief pow-wow via email, we decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and attend.

So we show up at Liberty's (a very popular bar/restaurant) to discover that we are the party, because she apparently doesn't have any other girlfriends willing to help her celebrate her birthday. She seems ecstatic to be having a girls' night, and we were all having a really good time. "Hmmm, maybe I was wrong about her," I thought.

Over dinner, she tells us the story of her and her husband. They have been together since high school, except for one year in college when they broke up. During this break, she briefly dated her best guy pal. She just found out inadvertently that he thinks she married the wrong man. She also asked us if we thought she was out of line for not liking the fact that he has just started dating a friend of hers. We had a lively debate about dating friends' exes, but that was it. Or so it seemed.

After dinner, we decided to go dancing. By this point, we are all being total goofballs and laughing hysterically and taking funny pictures. Mrs. Chemical runs into a coworker of hers (I will call her M) and she joins our group. The fun evening began to crumble when B called E to see when she wanted him to pick her up. For whatever reason, she took this as B keeping tabs on her and trying to give her a curfew, which rubbed her the wrong way. Matters were not helped when B told her to stop "acting like a bitch."

Needless to say, E was not in the best of moods for the rest of the night, and B spent the night alone. (They are fine now, but he was in the doghouse for most of the weekend!)

Soon after that phone call, Butter runs into a guy pal of hers. It's his bachelor party, so he and his friends are all having a really fun time, and they ask us to join them in VIP.

We are all enjoying ourselves until some random girl who happened to be in VIP started dancing with the groom-to-be. This is when the evening's drama really got started, and I began to get annoyed.

Butter and E immediately go over to this poor girl to inform her that he's engaged and about to get married. She blows them off and pooh-poohs their concerns, which only gets them more motivated to lecture her and scorn her behavior. Meanwhile, Mrs. Chemical and I are watching all of this, wondering what in the hell is going on. (We couldn't hear them, but we had a general idea of what was going on by the looks on everyone's faces.) The next thing we know, we are being kicked out of VIP by the bachelor party! I guess we were being cock blockers...

By this point in the evening, it was about 1:30am and everyone is fairly intoxicated. E is in one helluva mood, compounded by the fact that Butter ending up mooching off of her beer tab -- again. Butter is still going on and on about how wrong it was for that girl to grind on her "best guy friend". I point out that Butter has never so much as mentioned this guy to us before and that it's really none of our business. "For all we know," I said, "his fiance could have told him it is ok for him to do that tonight. I mean, at least he's not at a strip club, you know? If he's going to cheat on her, nothing we do or say can stop him. So what's the point of playing Relationship Police?"

For some reason, perhaps it was the alcohol in their systems, my opinion was deemed neither ethical nor logical. I had to listen to a chorus of "So if it was your fiance, you're saying you'd be ok with that?" I stated that I like to pick my battles and that I would never marry a guy who would do something that would upset me. I would never be with a guy I couldn't trust. They just shook their heads at me and continued ranting about the nerve of the girl in the dance club.

At this point in the evening, I am just glad that we are all going home. I was starting to see why Mrs. Chemical didn't have a lot of girlfriends.

So we are walking back to Mrs. Chemical's car. She is going to drop us off at my car so we can go home. Suddenly, she turns around and says to us, "Ok, you guys, I'm going to drop you off at Virginia's car and then go meet up with someone. If anyone asks, tell them I'm hanging out with M, ok?"

I am dumbfounded. Did she just ask us to lie for her??
E, the smart little thing, plays dumb and asks her if we can go too.

"No, you can't. I'm sorry. I know what you're thinking, and that's not it. I promise that it's not. Just tell whoever asks that I'm with M, ok?"

E and I looked at each other.

I said nothing. I have a strict policy that I do not lie for other people. Heck, I don't even lie for myself, because I'm a terrible liar. E and Butter agreed to it, and we continued on down the street. Mrs. Chemical drops us off, and we get into my car.

"Ohmygod, she's cheating on her husband!!" Butter mumbles as we get into my car.
"Let's follow her!" I shout.

We saw her turn down an alley near a lesbian bar before driving away. After being initially shocked at the thought of her lying about going to a lesbian bar, I decided to calm down and assume nothing. There were other bars near there, too. Maybe she was just looking for parking. I mean, she probably knew we would follow her. There was enough drama going around already without me adding fuel to the fire. E and Butter were not familiar with that alleyway -- they didn't know about the lesbian bar. So I stayed mum about my observation.

I stated that we really could not follow her, so we continued on our way. For the first half of the ride home, we tried to figure out what on Earth just happened. I noted that she had been texting with someone all evening. E was amazed that she would ask friends of her husband to lie for her. I was shocked at how trusting she was, considering we hardly knew her. Butter was convinced she was cheating on her husband with the guy she had mentioned at dinner.

I still can't figure it out, though. She didn't have to tell us anything. I mean, just drop us off and go about your merry way. Why bring us into it? It kind of made me angry to be involved in the whole thing. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt on this one, but I just couldn't. None of it added up. Why would you blackmail yourself? Why would you unnecessarily bring a third party in on your big secret? What could you possibly have to hide from your husband?

And no, it's not drugs. She's a nurse and would lose her license/job if she tested positive. So we are pretty sure that's not it. Without any solid answers, our conversation went back to the other drama of the evening: E's boyfriend troubles.

E rehashed it with the two of us, and we offered our opinions. I don't think B was trying to give her a curfew. I think it must have just come out wrong. But I also think he was way out of line telling her she was acting like a bitch. You don't use the "b" word, you know? Anyway, eventually Butter started complaining about Country Boy. Her complaints about him are always a bunch of crap, and this time was no different: she felt he didn't know her on a "deeper" level. Well, whose fault is that??? Ugh. I'd had it. Both of these guys worship their girlfriends. Country Boy drives an hour and a half just to SEE Butter. B and E have already gone engagement ring shopping, for Pete's sake. And here they are, nitpicking them to death over a bunch of bullshit! Aaaargh.

"Well," I said to them as they were bitching about their boyfriends simultaneously, "have you talked to him about it?"

"YESS!!!" they replied in chorus.

"So, if you've talked to them, and they aren't changing, then DUMP THEM!! I mean, this is RIDICULOUS!!! They are crazy about you guys, and you're bitching about stupid stuff! Just like that poor girl at the bar! She didn't know! Stop being Relationship Police! Pick your freaking battles!!!" I shouted.

The car got quiet. I breathed a sigh of relief. FINALLY, they shut the hell up!!! We drove the rest of the way in silence. Sometimes, losing your temper can pay off.

We got home and sat outside and talked some more. Butter bummed cigarettes from E. Even I was beginning to get annoyed by her mooching at this point. I was about to just say goodnight and hit the hay when Country Boy came over to pick Butter up. He told E that B was upset for what he said and that he apologized. He also told E that she misunderstood B's phone call. I could tell E was not quite as angry as she had been earlier. Whew.

We began to give Country Boy a re-cap of our evening when Mr. Chemical called him. Here is how the conversation went between the two men:

Mr. C: Hey, are you over at Virginia's house with the girls?
CB: Yeah, but Mrs. C isn't here.
Mr. C: Well, where is she?
CB: [to us] Hey, where's Mrs. C?
Butter & E: She stayed out with M.
CB: [to Mr. C] They said she stayed out with M.
Mr. C: Oh, man! That means she'll be out all night!

CB got off the phone and repeated that to us. E and I looked at each other. I felt a twinge of guilt, followed by resentment towards Mrs. Chemical. And I haven't been able to get that line out my head since: Oh man! That means she'll be out all night!

Grrrr. Thank goodness the rest of my weekend was 100% drama-free. I'll give you the CN update tomorrow. Until then, I need some advice and opinions about all of this! Was I out of line with what I said to Butter and E? And is it ok for a random girl to dance with a guy who's about to get married? I feel pretty strongly about my opinions, but maybe I'm wrong.

But most importantly, what should I do about Mrs. Chemical's secret?? At this point, I don't think I want to hang out with her anymore. I don't like meddling in other people's business, but if she's cheating on her husband, that's kind of a big deal, right? What else could she possibly be doing that she would need to lie about?