In August, I learned that the Jell-O people were rolling out an expanded line of college football logo Jell-O molds and that, in the course of promoting them, the Jell-O people were loudly proclaiming that they WERE NOT to be used to make Jell-O shots. I proceeded to completely lose my mind at the idea of buying every kit and making Jell-O shots with them. Like, I was just an embarrassing dork about it. I'm an embarrassing dork most of the time, but this was something else again.
Tommy okayed my stupid idea and I rushed off to order 20 kits from Amazon. Then I bought vodka, and then I spent an ungodly amount of time planning how and when and where I was going to make all of that Jell-O. It … turned into an absolute nightmare. I could give you details but I'm not going to because I can't relive that extraordinarily grim time in my life. Just know that it all ended with Kyle Wagner and I having a knock-down drag-out fight that included me publicly threatening him with bodily harm.
Kyle, that was inappropriate and unprofessional and I'm sorry. (We've already hugged it out but I feel that I should still state that apology.)
Now, Tommy was aware that I was coming unglued while all of this was happening. Before I left for a vacation, during which I would be seeing Craggs, I emailed everyone involved in this folly and asked that it get buttoned up before I left. It did not get buttoned up before I left, and I spent a lot of that vacation moping to my husband that this was it, I was going to finally have to take the hint and leave Deadspin. It was a thing I'd been dreading for months, admitting that to myself. I cried so many actual literal tears and then would, like, snot-sniffle to myself, "There's no crying in Deadspin."
Denial is a powerful drug, which is why at the end of that vacation during a wedding Craggs and I were both attending and at which we were seated together, I picked at the taking-a-hint scab and said across the table during the salad course, "You know, that post still hasn't run yet."
"We're not gonna talk about it."
That was his response. "We're not going to talk about it." Like, he might as well have flicked me off his shoulder as if I were a small and insignificant bug.
Instead of flying across the table to slap his mouth (because when I'm hurt, I get angry), I got up and smoked a cigarette in the parking lot with a golf blogger. It helped a little bit.
My vacation ended and the post eventually ran. But Craggs ignored all of my queries as to how to expense the kits and the vodka and etc. etc. etc. and so, in the end, I tacked that money onto my monthly invoice and hoped the finance guys wouldn't have me arrested for invoice fraud for charging more than my standard per-piece rate. That also meant that rather than being reimbursed in full for the expenses, that $150 will be taxed as income.
And that's why Tommy Craggs owes me money. Also: He made me cry. What a goddamned jerk that guy is.
Art by Sam Woolley