Birthday Fun and Don't Drink and Text Part II

My birthday just passed and I am so relieved because I hate that day. It has nothing to do with aging, since I've hated it for as long as I can remember. The year that I turned 11, my mother threw a surprise birthday party for me, at which time I locked myself in my room and refused to reemerge until everyone was gone. My poor mother - she really had her hands full with me.

Actually, this year's birthday wasn't too traumatic, since I spent the evening with friends at Scarlet and Guido's restaurant and wound up the night attending a drag queen show that I've been dying to see for years.

But since it's that dreaded time of year for me again, I can't help but dredge up my horrific birthday from last year. Ex had gotten the not-so-bright idea to throw me a surprise party despite the fact that he knew very well how much I hated them. This was during the period of time when he realized that the marriage was deteriorating faster than Britney on a coke and vodka binge, so he was going all out to try and do everything he could to save it.

Ava called me and tipped me off so that we could avoid the disastrous consequences, and we collaborated to get Ex to understand this plan was about as good as booking a ticket on the Titanic. Long story short, we ended up going to Vegas with the Doc, Ava, Anastasia, and a few other people so that I had a buffer.

The weekend was not progressing well. Ex and I weren't getting along and by the night of my birthday dinner, our last evening in Vegas, The Debacle began.

At some point during the weekend, Ex had gone through my purse and had found a business card from an attorney in Ava's city. I had spent the previous weekend with Ava attending a concert, and we ran into some of her old law school friends. We had hung out with them for a bit, and one of them ended up giving me his business card. I didn't think anything of it and just put it in my purse. When Ex went through my purse in Vegas and found the card, he assumed that I was having a torrid fling with the mystery attorney from Ava's city.

As we were walking to dinner, Ex apparently grabbed both Ava and Anastasia and growled, "I know that both of you are helping my wife have an affair," to which they were both too stunned to even respond.

Unfortunately I didn't hear about this until later in the night, or I might have just called off the dinner altogether. When we were seated in the restaurant, Ex began flipping through the pictures in my digital camera. He came across one from the previous weekend of me with Ava's attorney friend, which featured us simply sitting next to each other, not even touching. Though nothing inappropriate had happened and the picture was utterly innocent, he threw the camera at Ava and stormed away from the table. The first course hadn't even been served. And he never came back.

It turned out that he was taking turns pacing the hallway and sitting at the bar, crying and becoming increasingly drunk while smoking cigarettes like he was going to the electric chair. When dinner was over, I found him at the bar and thanked him for the lovely dinner. He responded, "You should be thankful. It was two thousand dollars."

I had become accustomed to comments like that, so I just sighed and suggested that we go to Pure for some cocktails and dancing. As we entered the club, I headed for the back bar and soon realized that I was alone. Turning around, I saw our entire group still at the entrance, featuring Ex wagging his finger right in Ava's face and screaming something. I returned to where they were standing and heard Ex finish his rant with, "F*ck you, and f*ck your friend!" She stood rooted to the floor in shock, looking at him wide-eyed.

He turned to me and followed me around in a little circle at the entrance of the club screaming various things at me and accusing me of sleeping with the guy from Ava's city, to which I replied, "Yeah, I always keep business cards from my sexual conquests. Sort of like a memoir," which of course, enraged him even more. I kept trying to walk away from him, but he wouldn't let me, screaming, "You always f*cking walk away from me! You're not going to f*cking walk away from it this time!"

By that point, my friends were looking on horrified and a group of onlookers had gathered to watch the spectacle. I was mortified. And scared. I hadn't seen him that out of control in public before. I tried everything I could to calm him down, but he was in an unstoppable rage. After 10 minutes that seemed like an eternity, he took off his wedding ring and shoved it at me.

"Here, Almost, I don't want to be married to you anymore. I want a divorce."

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "OK." I put the ring in my purse and said, "Come on, girls, let's go have some fun."

I was not about to let him ruin the evening, so Ava, Anastasia, my friend Kay who lives in Vegas, and I went to get drinks at another bar in the casino. We were having a nice evening, despite the drama that had already unfolded when I began to receive texts.

Over the next several hours, I received over 50 text messages and one very crazy phone call. Unfortunately, at the time I had a phone that only held 10 messages, so they're all gone now but I do recall the nature of the texts. They began with groundless accusations, to which I didn't even respond. Along with the usual accusations that I was getting it on with every man who had ever existed except for him, bizarre accusations began to emerge. At one point he accused me, Ava, and Anastasia of laughing at his man boobs. None of us had ever laughed at his man boobs, but the text itself did make us giggle.

As the evening wore on, the texts became cruel, replete with name calling and yet more bizarre accusations. When he realized that I wasn't going to respond to any of them, he chose another tactic. He sent me a text that said, "I'm leaving tonight," to which I responded, "OK, understood. Have a safe trip."

A few minutes later, I received another text. "At the airport."

I looked over my shoulder and saw him sitting at the blackjack table about 20 feet away, which made all of us girls howl with laughter.

I sent him one back and said, "Safe flight - let me know when you land."

This continued until 6 am, with text messages flooding my phone that insisted he was at the airport and me watching him type furiously on his phone just 20 feet away. It was not the show I expected to see in Vegas, but it was a show nonetheless.

I finally went back up to the suite, exhausted and sick of dealing with the situation. Anastasia had a 6 am flight home so she had already left, but when I got up to the room she forwarded a text to me as she sat on the runway.

Much to my surprise, Ex had been text stalking her as well, and his final text to her read, "Thanks for all of your support tonight... NOT."

Imagine my shock this year when I received only one text from him. It simply said, "Happy birthday."