I have another side to my personality that most of you have not yet seen. It doesn’t come to light very often, because I am an extremely patient man. Most of the time.*

But when my patience has been abused, the circumstances become dire enough, or I feel egregiously wronged, I have the ability to become an evil bastard.

I’m going to tell you a story that as far as I know, only 5 or 6 people have heard.

I’ll leave out some of the gory back story details and boil them down to the following points about my ex-best friend Michele:

• we met and even dated in high school much to the dismay of her conservative Christian family.
• we lived together several times, in Missouri, Nashville, and out here in California.
• we were almost polar opposites in every single way, except our sense of humor which was always eerily similar.
• on many many many many many occasions she has insulted or pissed me off to the point of near-homicidal rage.
• she met an extremely homophobic paralegal, Chris, who at last count has unsuccessfully taken the Bar exam 6 times. He hates me and they call me “Wham!” behind my back because I’m so flamboyantly gay.**
• the last Christmas that we were speaking to each other, I spent over $100 on a nice set of bakeware for her Martha Stewart-obsessed pantry… she gave me a large bag of chocolates, knowing full well that I am one of those apparently bizarre people who hate chocolate.
• Chris, the boyfriend, has a habit of meeting girls who leave him for other girls.
• Michele was at one time in a three-year long relationship with a psycho named Kristen.
• She burned her bridges with me in a big way.

Last year, after we stopped speaking to each other, I stumbled across her blog. It was a lot of the same alternating cheesy romantic hooey and woe-is-me self pity that made up her journals. However, the blog announced her engagement to the Rhodes Scholar and detailed the wedding planning process.

One post (I can’t link to them because the blog is now M.I.A.) talked about the mailing of the invitations and how people on the guest list would know if they were on the first cut or not based on the type of stamp that was on the envelope. Classy. I left the following comment on that post:

Guess you decided that since you live three blocks from me that you would just hand deliver my invitation. I look forward to attending.

At the same time, a mutual friend, Leayn, was making plans to make the trip out here for the wedding. She’s a music teacher in Kansas City and like most teachers is on a very limited budget. She called me and asked if she could stay with me while she was here. She knew that it might seem a bit awkward given the circumstances, but also knew that I could be adult enough to not let it bother me. I told her that I would love to see her, and of course she was welcome to stay with me.

Michele was not pleased with the arrangement at all. She threw a living hissy fit on the phone with Leayn. She was upset that I knew about the wedding. She was upset that I might know where or when it was happening, and she was pissed with Leayn for telling me, apparently she had forgotten that I had already left a comment on her blog.

Leayn decided that she no longer cared to attend the wedding. She wasn’t exactly supportive of the marriage in the first place, being that Chris is a moron who doesn’t want kids, is homophobic, and is about as interesting as flies fucking on a freshly painted wall.

I had decided by this point that I had had quite enough of the whole mess. So I devised a plan.***

Step One: Set up an anonymous email account. Yahoo is great for that.

Step Two: Call on the power of that almighty force that is Craigslist. Place the following ad:

Gay Nudist Hiking Group Event Next Weekend

Hey all!

I’m putting together a group of about 15 friends who want to go on an au naturel picnic and hike in the Redwoods next Saturday. We’re all gay guys ranging in age from 25 to 40, but all like-minded folks are welcome.

We’d especially like to see some of our lesbian sisters come along (we need help making the fire! Ha! Ha!).

Email me for details on the meeting place and time.

Step Three: Direct all of the respondents to the exact location in the Redwood Forest National Park where Michele will be exchanging vows with Captain Fantastic.

I got over 300 emails, including a couple from local nudist hiking groups who decided to forward the event to their membership lists. I answered every one.

I didn’t attend the wedding. It actually took every ounce of my willpower to not drive the three hours or so to watch the festivities from a distance.

I hear that the hiking event was a major success. In fact, a couple of the groups that met that day decided to merge ranks.

Lest you think this is the most childish, vengeful, awful thing in the world I could have done, imagine for a moment what might have happened had I attached a photo of Chris Brightbulb, the groom, as the event organizer.

The thought crossed my mind.

Don’t fuck with me.

* As long are you aren’t in front of me on the highway. Or in a grocery store. Or at the bank.

** This is actually pretty funny, as I’m not really flamboyant at all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

***I realize that my revealing this plan is likely to really upset my readers of the female persuasion. I know exactly how important your wedding day is… how long you dream of it, imagine it, plan it, re-plan it, and stress about it. But before you call for my beheading, just imagine how mad I must have been to hatch this plan.