Confessions of A Peanut Butter Junkie

What really pissed Mike Murphy off most of all I think was the claim files. See when a claim came into Mercury Insurance it would start out in the PD dept. PD stands for property damage. Now if the PD rep. discovered that the claim involved an injury, he would send an email to me and I would set up a new claim file in the Bodily Injury Dept.
It was also my job to assign these claim files to the various BI adjusters. I would go into a computer and look at the notes actually typed into the claim file and based on these and the reserves (or amount of money set aside to resolve the claim) I would assign the claim to an adjuster. We really had two kinds of claims. Attorney represented claimants and non attorney represented claimants. The non rep’d claims involved less severe injury in most cases, but you know how it goes. Anyone can get an attorney.
As I would assign the files I would also update various Excel spread sheets so that each person in the dept could take a look at who got what. Each adjuster had one spreadsheet, and then there was a separate spreadsheet that showed all the claims for one day.
The thing is, at the time, and basically right from the start, the BI adjusters were over worked. They were expected to handle way to many claims. Some of these people had more than 3 four drawer file cabinets pretty much full of claim files. My point is they did not want any more claims to handle. So a visit from me was a huge pain in their ass because I was piling work on them. It was my job. I swear I am not making this up. One lady would actually growl at me when I went near her in box. It freaked me out. It really did.
I think it was my zeal for fitness and the fact that I assigned the damn claim files that really pissed Mike Murphy off. There were a lot of claim files and a bunch of adjusters.
Sheri Fry, Keitha Nibert, Sandra Newton, Doug Schmidt, Ernie Black, John Folk, (We had more Johns than I can remember, but John Folk’s name has stayed with me for some reason).
We had Shawn Phillips, Mike Murphy, Lynne Simmons, Chris Landrum…
…When I started there were only five or six adjusters and when I left I think there were more than 11. I had my work cut out for me. I really did.
Then there were the bosses. The people who wound up running the BI dept. We had Gary Stone. Scott Villwock. Amy Worman.
Amy Worman really pissed me off because at the time I had the habit of saving pennies. I would put them into a huge jar I kept on my desk in my apartment at 810 1st Ave NW apt. 1, Largo FL 33770. And of course when the jar got full I would dump it out, put all the pennies into those paper money rolls they will give you at the bank if you ask for them, and then I would take my pennies to the bank and get some cash.
I do this in the privacy of my own home. Amy Worman walks up to me at work and starts off with blah blah blah I can’t believe you save pennies. She didn’t say it to be mean, but I was freaking out because what’s going through my head is how does she even know that I was saving up my pennies and then cashing them in. I was really mean to her. I can’t remember what I said, but I think I may have gone with: “GO AWAY”.
Amy wasn’t the boss at the time, but still I was pretty mean. I just can’t figure out why she thought I would want to talk about a private thing like that. I was living on the edge financially and all…I sure didn’t want to talk about it at work.
Meanwhile the comedy team of Doug and Ernie, they’re always working the same angle. They would crack subtle jokes about things they should not have known about at all.
I didn’t have cable, it was way beyond my means and since I lived alone I thought it was just a waist. But I did have access to the internet. At some point I think I even sprung for broadband.
Netflix. I signed up with Netflix as soon as I heard about them. For some crazy reason Netflix sent me a movie I didn’t even order.
“Two Weeks Notice”, with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. Have you seen it?
I remember liking it, but I didn’t order it. Was someone trying to tell me something? I had fallen in love with someone I worked with, and the movie seemed to hit a little to close to the mark for my taste. But it was good.
I told you I was broke right? That’s not entirely true. What little discretionary income I did have I was pissing away at singles bars. I would go out on Saturday night and live it up, always hoping to meet someone and never really doing so.
See I had fallen in love with someone and I couldn’t stop loving them even though they didn’t give a crap about me. I would see them every day at work. It was a killer. This person gave the best rejection I have ever had. I swear I am not making this up.
Unrequited love. Could anything be more *ucked up? I swear to you I tried so hard NOT to fall in love, but I just couldn’t help it.
I never really pursued this person, but I did ask to have lunch once. The answer was a very polite, almost sweet, but emphatic no. I swear to you I moved on. No it is. Good enough, but my heart; my heart would not move on. In fact if I was moving one way, my heart had moved into some kind of half assed retrograde.
My heart was caught in a white skinned, dark haired, blue-eyed tractor beam. My heart was being pulled in and the rest of me got dragged along.
I started to pray for death. This was the worst situation I had ever found myself in. I couldn’t leave work and I couldn’t stop being in love with someone who was never going to care about me at all. Had I been a year or two younger I would have walked out of work one day and never gone back. I had to stick it out. What choice did I have?
Then things got even worse.
I told you I was looking at porn and *astur*atin* at least once a day right?
Well I kind of found a doppelganger. I found someone online who looked so much like the person that I was in love with-it was just spooky! I found someone online in pornographic pictures that looked just like the person I had fallen in love with. An evil twin! I know. I know. Just what this sad tale of woe needed right?
Hey? How come when you point a camera at two animals *uckin* it’s a nature show, but when you point a camera at two humans *uckin* it’s porn?
Now it’s 2003. September. I’m in love. In pain. Messed up beyond all hope or reason. Alone. And it gets worse again. For the love of god and all that is good and holy in the universe it gets even worse.
Georgies Alibi. It’s a gay bar, in St. Pete Florida. The one I liked to drink in on Saturday nights.
Someone I met gave me a shirt. It was baby blue and it said *ucker on it in red letters.
I swear I am not making this up.
I had the shirt on and I was drinking at the Alibi one night in September 2003 when I was approached by a Mexican guy. He was cute.
He called me bro. Not the Mexican. The one I fell in love with at work. This scared the living crap out of me. Black magic. Voodoo. Rolling Bones. Satan Worship.Anything would have been better. Called me bro. My name is Kenneth G. Donnelly, but if people are going to talk to me at all they just call me Ken. You put bro and ken together. What do you get?
Broken.
My name is Kenneth G. Donnelly and I am one ___ked up little monkey. I really am.
But we’re almost to the end now. So stick with me. It gets good. I swear.
The Mexican. It almost didn’t happen. But it did. I wanted him.
**warning. warning. Homophobe alert ! Queer Factor 9!! If you enjoy and employ the “I’m not gay seat” when you go to the movies you should skip this next part. It involves gay stuff. And I mean the sticky icky kind! Warning **warning.
What can I say. The Mexican is the one person in this story that I hold completely blameless. It’s not like he had a gun to my head. I would have taken him home but I was to drunk and I don’t think he would have come with me. We did it in my car. Well we tried to do it in my car. I will not tell you what kind of car I was driving. I bought my car brand new in 97, but I always hated that damn car. I called it The Geek Mobile! It was small. I could have parked it inside my little apartment and still had plenty of room.
Sex of any kind was out of the question. Believe me. I know. Me and The Mexican tried.
It was not physically possible. But touching of all kinds was possible. Not only did I give my self completely to The Mexican, I attacked him like a hungry animal. I swear I could not control myself. Sounds came out of me as I _____and ____uched him that I had never heard before. Well not coming from me any way. Something about not being able to touch in the way that we both wanted to added such a great comical element to the whole thing, you know it added this goofy odd ball playfulness. The windows of the Geek Mobile fogged up. I remember ______ing his belly. He was not fat by a long shot, but he was not skinny like me and I remember _____ing his belly and wondering what he was thinking about the way I was _____ing him. It came down to heavy petting. Nothing else was really possible in the confines of the Geek Mobile. The Mexican (censored) first and his (censored) drenched my chest. I was _hit faced drunk and took a little longer. When it was over I was covered in, drenched in, (censored). Then it was over. I wiped myself off. The Mexican put his clothes back on. I got dressed. The Mexican spoke to me. Before this all of our communication had taken place mostly in body language. Something he said freaked me out. I understood that it had not been a chance encounter. He had come looking for me. I stayed cool. Don’t I always? We agreed to meet back inside the Alibi for another drink. He left me in the parking lot. I still had some cleaning up to do. To tell you the truth what I really needed was a “Silkwood Shower” you know where someone hoses you down and scrubs you for radio active material. If I could have gotten cleaned up a little more I would have followed him back into the bar, but I could not get cleaned up enough so I drove on home.
What did he say to me? What does it matter? I know that someone I worked with, whether as a joke or as a kindness sent The Mexican to Georgies Alibi as a kind of *uck assassin.
Did I tell you that someone had bugged my house, my phone, my car and my computer?
The next morning …uh the next afternoon when I woke up there was a rash on my chest.
And I never get rashes.
So there’s this rash on my chest. I wake up and there’s this rash on my chest. And what do I do? I freak out. I guess staying cool isn’t exactly my forte after all. I mean I really freak out. A rash! On my chest! And The Mexican had been at the Alibi specifically looking for me. And you know who sent The Mexican? My least favorite sports loving Mercury Insurance Bodily Injury adjuster, Mike Murphy, that’s who.
I couldn’t eat. Or sleep. I could barely think. I was consumed with fear. I really was.
And because I thought I was carrying the HIV, I stopped cruising singles bars. I just couldn’t risk getting someone else sick. Do you know anything about the virus? It can be in you and you wouldn’t know it. You have to wait six months. It doesn’t show for six months. For the love of god and all that is good and holy in the universe. Six fucking months. I stayed home a lot.
And I’m still in love with someone that I have to see every day at work. I still couldn’t just leave Mercury Insurance, and by now my family the crazy Irish Catholics-they’re actually encouraging me to quit. I swear I am not making this up. When it became clear that I was not going to quit they started to encourage me to move out of my apartment at 810 1st Ave NW apt. 1 Largo Florida 33770. But my rent had not gone up; in 2003 I was still paying only $310.00 a month. I couldn’t see moving either. Despite all the harassment. I figured why should I move? Why should I quit? They’re the ones who should be minding their own business. They actually got a realtor after me. And guess where the crazy son of a bitch is calling me from? Ft. Lauderdale. Lauderdale for god sake. Did I tell you my grandfather the ex NY PD Blue boy has a condo in Lauderdale?
I’m sweating bullets and finally one of my sister’s calls and she tries to talk me down.
It helped. It really did. But it wasn’t enough to prevent what was to come. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the good folks at Mercury Insurance had done me dirty. So I go for the HIV test. I’m to fucked up and way to –Irish- to invite someone into this problem of mine, so I don’t bother with a clinic or a testing facility. I go for one of the home testing kits. You prick your finger and smear the blood onto this card, bag the blood sample and Fed Ex it to some out fit somewhere and it’s all on the down low so that no one knows that it’s you.
That’s when the sweating really begins let me tell you. Because now it’s so fucking real. This is not some made for T.V. movie you are watching this is really happening. To YOU! To me. I can’t lie to you. My name is Kenneth G. Donnelly and I am one tough motherfucker. Period! I can be a goof ball, and love it when I am. But underneath all that I am hard as a fucking rock. I have the strongest will.
But I had got my freak on with The Mexican, and the Monday following Mike Murphy and the folks at Mercury Insurance knew all about it.
I started to beat off more than once a day. Is it possible I’m a victim of variables? And math was never my strongest subject.
The good news is that I do not have the HIV virus. I have tested several times since then and I am clean. The bad news is by December of 2003 I was impotent.
Hey, do you know what’s sexy about impotence?
Not a fucking thing!
Viagra. I should be glad for that right? But I’m not.
Fucking on Viagra is like doing ventriloquism with someone else’s dummy.
I have a vendetta. How could I not? My story is almost over.
I hate to sound like a cheesy infomercial-but wait there’s more!
Ginsu on you mother fucker!
Did I mention the caretaker at 810 1st Ave NW apt 1 Largo, FL 33770? His name was John. I know, I know, just what this story needed another John. John was also a cop.
And a homophobe. Call old Richard B. Howard. He knows. John’s a beach cop and in Pinellas county Florida the Beach cops are just about the dirtiest of the dirty. And John’s still out there.
The people at Mercury started to drug me. I swear I am not making this up.