The Story of the Dude (The Whammy)

Every good story I have ever read has a part where things start to go sideways a little bit, and I think to myself, "what the heck just happened here?".

We're about to enter into the "Weirdness Magnet" section of the Story of the Dude.

It's the summer after my sophomore year.

Through late spring and early summer of this year, The Dude has been dating my best friend from high school, who has just moved away to New York at the end of the school year.

I am taking summer school for some darn computer thing and Driver's Ed. I completely, totally, and utterly stink at both.

I cannot understand the computer crap to save my life. I can type and spell. I can follow directions. But I can't, for the life of me, understand how to "talk" to a machine to make it do something as simple as addition. I just do NOT "get it".

Many of the guys I game with are something of computer nerds, and very kindly offer to help with the summer school stuff. I take in my dumb, make-no-sense-to-me assignments, and a couple of guys help me several times. One of them, "Tune", also offers to help me with some driving practice as long as my dad okays the deal.

My dad has always parented me pretty loosely. He lets me decide what works and what does not, tells me when I am a dumbass, and then helps me figure out how to solve whatever mess I am in. He rarely if ever has rules, and even less often has qualms about me doing something as outright ludicrous sounding as driving around alone in the country with a guy 5-6 years older than me. So he agrees.

Somewhere in between teaching me computer jibberish and trying valiantly to instruct me in driving, Tune and I start dating. There's a certain band and song I associate with him still- there was a tape deck in his pickup truck and he had a particular tape in the deck through all those "driving lessons". I know I didn't learn much about driving after the first couple weeks.

It's a pretty hot and heavy deal, with me being young, foolish, a little lacking in sense as a direct result of a smart older guy paying attention to me in a way I liked. He was young, foolish, in his first relationship away from his parents, and lacking a little sense too.

Some time in the summer, the Dude asked my best friend to marry him, even though they were hundreds of miles apart. She said yes. The Dude tries to come up with a plan to go visit her, but has a problem: he doesn't drive.

Somehow the idea that Tune, The Dude & I would drive all the way to upstate New York (literally 10 miles from the Canada Border) together came about.

Yet again, this plan depends on my dad's approval. The idea that I am driving across the country in a pickup truck with a topper on the back with 2 adult guys 5-6 years older than me apparently does not phase him MUCH, and off we go.

The trip was weird, fun, and short. In the time we are there, I see the Dude treat my best friend in a way that is the stuff of romance novels & chick flick movies. He totally pampers her and makes it known that he adores her.

I am dating Tune, but I tell myself that I want a guy that treats me that way- someday.

We come back from our trip. The Dude and Tune are now room mates. Tune and I break up sometime in later summer, early fall. It wasn't pretty. The Dude, who has become a close friend at this point, sympathizes and does his best to help me patch up.

About a month or two (maybe more but not much) later, my best friend breaks up with The Dude. It wasn't pretty. I am a close friend to him at this point, and I sympathize and try to help him patch up.

Somewhere in late winter or early spring of my junior year, I have these weird feelings whenever I am around the Dude.

I tell myself I am crazy and try to shake them.