I call him Pringle

I have a good friend that I love, who’s not very good at loving herself. Her lack of self-love is often evident in her choice of partners who seem to be purchased at a No Frills or a Wall mart when she has the sexual budget to shop at Holt’s. My friend is gorgeous, gorgeous and smart and kind. She is in her forties and has a kid and likes order but all of those things are manageable in the modern world of dating.
Her dating strategies seem similar to my teenage ones, meaning that if any boy seems to show some interest in you – date him. Don’t set up expectations, don’t plan for the future, just live in that thrilling moment of boy liking girl and girl liking being liked.
Some dating highlights from her past include a mime in his 60’s and a 45-year-old bagpipe player living with his mom. Model boyfriend material when compared to her most recent and seemingly permanent boyfriend Krill, called Plankton by some. I call him Pringle.
Pringle is a 21-year-old high school drop out. Sometimes he works in telemarketing, sometimes he says he works as a model, a great deal of the time he doesn’t work at all. I first met Pringle at my house. My friend had invited herself for dinner hoping to show off her newly found love. I didn’t know how old he was or anything about him until he showed up and started consuming all of the food in my house. Which of course is his prerogative being a growing boy. During dinner my husband and I sat slack jawed watching him eat, listening to him talk and protecting our own portions of food from his long reach. Growing boys seem to talk about the following: dirt bike riding, making indie films with friends, MBA degrees that they will soon be getting, archery and again dirt bike riding including details about falling and hurting your nuts…because the world really does need to know these things. The two lovebirds had actually met taking archery. She used to drive him home to his aunts afterwards. His horrible aunt that didn’t care about him at all, leading my friend to move him into her apartment so that she could care about him better.
Shortly after dinner was consumed but before the table was cleared, Pringle looked over at my friend and mentioned that he had eaten a lot of calories and it was time to do some burnin’. My husband and I could only watch as my friend gave Pringle permission to burn at which point he turned to us and asked if he could do some push-ups. Hostesses of the world would agree that it is very hard to refuse your guest anything they ask for short of sleeping with your husband. And even then some would oblige. Feeling that hosting etiquette gave me no outs, I gently agreed that of course he could do push-ups. Pringle walked to the front of the room next to a very old and lovely marble topped table. On top of the fragile heavy topped table rested a fish bowl. Inside the bowl was my beloved fighting fish named Bubbles. Bubbles was a lovely blue and purple fighting fish who was past his fighting days. His fins were thin and jagged, his gills a bit discoloured and he had this disconcerting habit of sinking to the bottom and lying sideways only to occasionally drift upwards like a zombie in some sort of gravitational pull. Bubbles was on his way out of our lives, but I loved that fish and worried greatly as Pringle, this big skinny mass of blond hair and pointy elbows headed towards Bubbles to begin his push-ups. I was right to worry about Bubbles. Bubbles and I both watched in horror as Pringle opted for the more challenging vertical form of a push up. I might have enjoyed a view of Pringles pubescent washboard abs more if I wasn’t so focused on his legs which were splayed out in a ‘y’ formation dangling threateningly over Bubbles. Bubbles usual sink to the bottom blasé had quickly shifted to a fight or flight response – which in Bubbles state meant that he floated inches above the bottom peering up at the dangling legs of doom. He died soon after, not that exact night but soon after.
Although Bubbles was not there to support me in further encounters with Pringle they went as follows – I’ve seen him once since that night. He came to a party at my house. He sat in the backyard and joyfully set fire to chips and cheesies. He spent the evening burning chips and cheesies for his own amusement as my friend lovingly, tolerantly, maternally looked on.