This is me.
My friend Daniel left me on the edge of a swimming pool in Pompton Lakes, NJ. We were visiting friends. It was a mini-vacation, the kids were in Louisiana and it was just Daniel, Melissa and me. The first two nights in New York City were fine. We'd gone out, had fun and went to sleep. Everyone woke up safe in the morning.
The third night however, the first in NJ, is when it started. Daniel came home at 1 am wrapped in a towel. His underwear was gone and I heard the others laughing. They were joking about how he must have left his underwear on the shore of the lake. 'This is funny?' I thought. For the first time in my life I was scared.
He took me with him the next night. We went to a BBQ in this suburb of NYC. We ate and drank and swam. We had so much fun that I forgot my nervousness. We drank and swam for so long I lost track.
I woke up wet and crumpled in a ball on the side of the pool.
In hindsight, I was lucky. Who knows where Daniel left subsequent pairs of underwear? Who knows the madness that goes through a mans mind when he is angered by his underwear? There could be burned underwear - or underwear slashed by a knife. I mean, he left one pair on the side of a slimy lake, half in the mud just waiting for an algae infection . Do you think those underwear were taken care of?
What would you do if you found a pair of soggy underwear in the mud on the edge of a lake? Take it home and wash it? No, of course not. That's disgusting. You would make up a story in your head about a hobo who'd soiled himself and gone down to the lake at midnight to bath. You'd yell at the dog to "Leave It!" and usher the kids around in case it's contagious. It would never occur to you that a kindly lawyer angry with his boxers had simply abandoned them after a midnight swim.
I was lucky. I was taken care of. I was picked up by a nice woman shortly after waking. She washed, dried and folded me, and put me in a basket with the soft, sweet pool towels. I sat in that basket for two months and decided today that I'm outta here. Nobody's coming to get me. I'm on my own and I'm going to make the best of it.
