The Worst Valentine’s Excursion Ever

I smiled my way through it.

It’s 10:37 am on the Saturday before Valentine’s Day.

How do I know the exact time? Because that’s when I checked my phone, praying that the morning would be over soon.

It wasn’t.

I have many first-world problems, one of them being in relationships with two guys who couldn’t be any more different.

Thomas adores the fuck out of me. He treats me in a way that makes me feel like I’m a goddess who has blessed the earth with my presence. That doesn’t compensate for the lagging on getting a divorce or how his salary is practically poverty level, but I’ve bitched about that in other articles.

He insisted that for Valentine’s Day, I didn’t have to do a single thing. He wanted to spend the day focused on me and my only job was to accept the attention.

The second half sounded wonderful: he offered to cook me a meal that is so time-intensive, I haven’t made it in over a decade.

The first half sounded like hell. But Thomas was so excited that I couldn’t possibly tell him that I’d rather shove my head in a bell and have it rung repeatedly.

Homeboy is really into nature. He’s also really into his fucking Jeep. Does he have property? No, he rents a ghetto little place by the beach (he doesn’t think it’s ghetto so it’s debatable if his standards are too low or if I’m being an elitist). Instead, he dumped his money into his vehicular toy that is worth over $100k but can climb over a hoard of zombies when the apocalypse arises.

The first half of my Valentine’s Day was driving to the mountains. What did that even mean?

It was as awful as it sounds.

It’s early morning and Thomas arrives with bags full of groceries. I mentally think of ways to get out of the mountain trip as he fills up my fridge. My only instructions were to wear a sundress because he planned to stop periodically to fuck. He said my shoes didn’t matter because we wouldn’t be doing a lot of walking.

I’m enough of a whore to know that if you’re going to be sitting in a dress with a dude’s cum in you for a while, make sure it’s one that you don’t care if it gets permanently stained. As Monica Lewinsky learned, a dude’s semen is like bleach and glue all in one. I wore a black sundress that was a size too big and would be fine throwing in the trash if necessary.

Inside Thomas’ Jeep is a dashboard that looks like a spaceship out of a movie. There are levers, dials, and flip mechanisms. There are two built-in air compressors and a myriad of things that I don’t understand, like “differential blah blah” and “wheel axle blah blah”.

We head towards the mountains. Have you ever looked outside and seen mountains off in the distance? They’re the backdrop of life that everyone sees but never visits. That was our destination.

I fucking hate being a passenger in this vehicle. When I laid the smackdown months ago about getting his life in order, I told him that I would never go in it wearing a dress again because there is nothing sexy about climbing onto a seat 6 feet off the ground. And yet there I was, wearing a dress again.

I’m too small for the seats. The seatbelt on someone my size is useless. He drives like a maniac because he used to do illegal street racing and he has zero concern for curbs since his tires are larger than a Prius. As Thomas spins the steering wheel, I hold on for dear life because otherwise, I’d fly out of the seat.

We begin the ascent. I have no leg muscles and yet I ache to be one of the mountain bikers we pass. At least they’re not at risk for vomiting due to motion sickness. The jostling and bouncing around have my irritation level at peak levels within 20 minutes.

Shortly up the mountain, Thomas stops. He has to let out some of the air from his tires and do some tinkering to make the shocks less bouncy. “That way you won’t feel like you’re bouncing around as much,” he tells me. Spoiler alert: he lied. It bounced the entire time.

The higher up we go, the more treacherous the terrain. There are massive rocks and deep holes in the ground. The things that most people avoid on the road. But not Thomas. He aims for all the boulders and holes in the dirt. It feels like a never-ending rollercoaster ride.

Eventually, he pulls into an area full of trees. I realize this is the first stop for sex. There’s nowhere to lean or sit on but I’m so desperate to get a reprieve from the drive, I bend over and shove my hands into a pile of dirt. As he’s banging away, I hear dirtbikes near his Jeep. “I’m worried they’re going to head this way,” I tell him.

Thomas insists that his truck is blocking their path. Still, with the revving of the engines in the distance, we stop our loin banging and head back. We’re only a third of the way up the mountain. FML.

Eventually, I stop making small talk. Thomas is half focused on his playlist because it keeps resetting to alphabetical order, which I tell him is no different than shuffle if it’s playing off the song title. Music is blaring at full blast and my ears are aching from the bass. I occasionally turn the music down but another song comes on and he blasts it back up. Maybe it’s an autism thing or maybe it’s his shitty taste in music; either way, my head is pounding for mercy.

Physically, it feels like I’m in a rickety old rollercoaster with no seatbelt. My feet are pushing against the side of the door to keep me secured into the seat (I can’t reach any further in the foot area, the door is all I’ve got). My left hand is clutching the seat and my right hand is gripping onto the door handle. The bottom part of the seatbelt goes around my waist but the seats are so wide, I still slip side to side. The lap part of the belt is useless and covers half an inch of my shoulder at best. The perils of being a short chick.

I know I should be screaming in delight or ooohhing and ahhhing at the thrill of it. Alternatively, I could yell at how crazy the ride is. But I’m the queen of stoicism and I maintain the same composure as watching paint dry. I’m passive-aggressively demonstrating my lack of interest by acting like this is a standard car ride.

Along the way, we pass hikers and drivers who stroke his vehicular dick by complimenting his Jeep. “Don’t encourage him,” I mentally grumble. I just want to date a guy who has a non-ghetto place and a sensible car for their primary ride, is that asking too much?

The icing on this cake: we lose cell service an hour in. I’ve become that girl, the one who can’t go for minutes without reception. I need a distraction when we’re forced to slow down due to random trucks ahead of us. Whenever they slow down, Thomas drives 90 degrees up the side of the mountain to pass and continues.

We reach the top. Finally. Finally.

There are others parked, enjoying the view. I remind him that I won’t be “wowed” by the sight because I don’t give a shit about nature. I can Google a sunset. I’ve seen plenty of trees.

As I hop out, the wind is extreme. I’m annoyed that I’m wearing heeled sandals and I’m gripping my dress to stop it from flipping up. The view overlooks the town below. People are acting as though they’ve never seen homes from a distance before.

Thomas turns to me for my reaction. “Um, honestly…this looks just like what you’d see when you’re in a plane. It’s the city but at a distance. I am not the target audience for this kind of thing.”

“I know,” he replies. “We don’t have to stick around.” I insist that we stay up there because otherwise, it was a waste of a drive.

“I don’t care about the view,” Thomas says. “I like the driving.”

Is this the part where I say we hop in and head back down? Sadly, no.

I thought mountains were a single spiral up to the top. I was wrong. They’re a series of mini roads and rocky, perilous areas. We drive around the rocks to another area and Thomas asks if I’m ready for sex again. I tell him that while I rarely have problems fucking in public, I do avoid it when there are children around. The other visitors to this mountain top are families and I’m not risking them seeing my naked ass.

We drive around some more as I mentally sob over the loud music and constant jostling. My head hits the side of the door. My head hits the roof of the Jeep. My water bottle smashes against my legs.

There is a small clearing with a steep path covered in large rocks. You know in movies where the Indiana Jones-type hero drives vertically up brown, jagged rocks and you suspend disbelief because it’s a movie? Yeah. That’s what I’m looking at. I wouldn’t even climb that with a rope, let alone a Jeep.

Thomas asks if I’d be okay if he went up it. I shrug and tell him to go for it, like he’s asking me if he should try a new cologne.

After flipping a dozen switches and knobs, his truck makes a loud “whirring” sound. I put out of my mind his mention earlier of a small air leak (air leak from where? Is that important? Will I regret this even more than I already have?).

We slowwwlllyyyyy trek up the steep, rocky hill. The large, jagged rocks sound like ice breaking as we climb over them. Thomas is like a kid in a candy shop. I’m trying to not smack my head against the door again. One wrong move and this thing will flip backward and stumble down.

At the top, I check the time. It’s been almost three hours. When will this end?

“Not to be a killjoy but I know my threshold for this kind of thing and if we don’t leave now, it’ll be bad later,” I confess.

As we begin the drive down, Thomas tells me he’s impressed that I didn’t scream or yell at him. I reply that this wasn’t even a tenth of the craziness that he prefers and that he wouldn’t put me through anything he hasn’t already put his daughter through. If he thought there was actual danger, he wouldn’t have done it.

Also, I point out that he knows full well if something went wrong, I would never drive with him again. He laughs, acknowledging that he knew this going into the trip.

Jokes on him. There’s no fucking way I’m doing that again.

My threshold peaks. I try not to blame autism for the extreme sensory overload of my body smashing around for hours, the constant tension in my body to keep myself restrained, my ears from the loud music, and excessive bass. It felt like the torture every parent of a young child feels when they’re forced to attend an indoor inflatable bounce gym for a birthday party; it’s wrist-slitting torment.

I yelled that it was obscene for My Chemical Romance to dare remake “Under Pressure” from his shitty playlist. It’s the only time the entire ride that I display any emotion other than indifference. Everything inside me is trying not to cry. I’m grateful when we pause to finish having sex from earlier.

Eventually, we stop at a clearing near the bottom for him to put air back into his tires. It takes longer to fill tires than to let the air out so I step out to avoid the blaring of the air compressor in the Jeep.

I glance at Thomas and he’s on the ground, tinkering with the tires. Covered in tire grease and dust (I kept my window rolled up but his was down), my attraction skyrockets. It’s like watching a guy chop wood. I think back to how I looked at him during the drive and despite my internal misery, I still found him attractive and wanted to spend time with him.

Fuck. Me. I think I’ve fallen in love with this poor, still-married, obnoxious-vehicle guy.

Cyclists and trucks continue passing us going up and down the mountain. “You know I look like a complete douchbag wearing a dress and heels on an effing mountain, right?” I bitch to him.

Without looking up from his tires, Thomas replies “you look like a woman who doesn’t have to lift a finger because she has a man who will handle it all for her”. Part of me is impressed with his response, another part of me grumbles that I’d prefer a man who makes at least half my income.

Finally, we get back on the road. My ears are still hurting from the stereo but at least my body isn’t convulsing in its seat. My brain repeats, “I’m not in love. I’m not in love. I’m not in love.” I have a date with Sean tomorrow, I can’t possibly be in love with Thomas…right?

This wasn’t how I wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day.