Best Mistake I Ever Made

It was about 10 p.m. on a Friday night in the rugged foothills of Utah County overlooking the Alpine Slide and winding mountain roads. Hell, Timpanogos Cave National Monument was about a holler, jump and tumble 500 yards downhill in the worst frame of mind from my vantage point.
But instead of a few broken bones and freedom, I sat looking drunk and high at my girlfriend of four years, a thin blond who had been with me through good and bad. We hadn't done much since she returned from the Army months ago (In fact I had caught her cheating on me twice in the past month) but this seemed like the perfect time to spend some time together and renew old acquaintances.
Wow, it's weird to look back at this night in May 1993, a time in which I was a freshman at the University of Utah, majoring in education. However, my only education was hitting the bottle and watching bubbles come up from the bottom while coughing. Also as a frat boy I enjoyed skimming books and getting by with C's.
It was also weird considering one of my girlfriend's recent conquests happened to be standing 10 yards away in front of another tent in the clearing. He was a tall blond gentleman who was morally challenged, to put it nicely. Thanks to absolute inebriation I put that aside and stayed close to my $&*%^ girlfriend, who feigned interest though she likely had her eye on the other guy adjusting his damned hair and shiny silver belt buckle and crotch, in that order. His Wranglers were probably shutting off the oxygen supply to his brain at the time (he kept winking at my woman) but I was too ^%*^% up to tell.
We were camping and it was time for summer break in May 1993. Sure I had my eye on about ten other girls at school (probably due to the lack of interest she showed in me) including one who met my girlfriend and offered to "off" her. (For the record I told the girl no, but what if you found somebody &^&%ing "not you" in your bed?)
Nonetheless I somehow managed to make it through and by night's end we had consummated our relationship for the umpteenth uneventful time. Other than her bizarre wails that always embarrassed me, crickets chirping and a stiff mountain breeze consumed the dark. Our green Coleman tent was flapping as we finished. About four hours later the other tent in our space stopped its strange noises and four figures popped out of the tent, three in bras and nothing else and one adjusting his belt buckle and crotch.
About nine months later in November 1994 my then-wife delivered a nine-pound boy who looked nothing like me. However my sentiments are the same now as they are then. Although I've always believed my tall blond son to have a different biological father, the boy has always called me dad. And that's good enough for me.

Editor's note: The author did finally come to his senses and divorced the woman in 1998. He also stopped hitting the bong and got his degree, though it was in journalism. J
He is now happily married and yes, his other child, a daughter, is his. And so, you ask, did the other guy learn his lesson? The answer, sadly, is no. Thrice divorced, the antagonist of the story lives in New Mexico, working construction on oil pipelines.