we've come for your daughter, chuck

wow, i've been away from the blogging world a long time. the last couple of months have been crazy. i traveled to london and had a great time visiting my sister and her family, followed by returning to the states and giving notice at work, then jetting off to st. croix for a few days of beach and sun, then back home to begin my new job. whew! now that i've been back and have a whole week behind me in the new job and no trips out of the country coming up anytime soon, i figured i'd get back to the business of blogging. after all, i have very important, life-changing things to ponder about, the most recent being the beetlejuice theory.

my friend rachel and i have been joking for a while about this phenomenon but didn't really have a name for it until recently. let me first give some background for those who have not - gasp! - seen the movie beetlejuice. in beetlejuice, michael keeton plays this creepily entertaining dead guy who can be summoned by the living if they call his name three times. they say "beetlejuice, beetlejuice, beetlejuice!" and in he pops, causing all sorts of trouble and chaos until he is banished again. in the beginning he seems to be a good guy, but you quickly learn he only has his own interests in mind and he keeps coming around, regardless of the fact that he isn't wanted or needed.

so, back to the theory. it has come to the attention of both rachel and myself that there are certain exes in our lives that seem to crawl out of the woodwork and contact us at the most random times. weeks or months will pass with no word from them and then suddenly - poof! - we get a call, a text, an email, a facebook message, etc. as we compared notes, we started to realize that the exes seemed to turn back up within a day, maybe hours or sometimes even minutes, of their names being brought up in conversation. hence, the beetlejuice theory was born. much like the character the theory is named after, we don't really want to hear from these people. they've been banished to our past for a reason and yet they still come around. they seemed great at first, but showed their true colors at some point and now just pop back around for various reasons, all pertaining to their own interests, not ours. inevitably, they will disappear again once they realize we are not here to play along and be at their beck and call; still, they never seem to vanish completely.

i do have to make one important note - the beetlejuice theory only works when the person who reappears is beetlejuiced on accident, i.e. mentioned in random conversation, re-telling a story, etc. it does not work to sit and chant an ex's name in the hope that he will magically text you. the whole premise of the beetlejuice theory is inadvertently summoning someone who will annoy, frustrate, and wreak havoc in your current life for their own means.

my advice - tread lightly when you talk of exes past. they will come back to haunt you in some way, shape or form.