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    My Picker Is Broken
    My Picker Is Broken
    My Picker Is Broken
    Ebook147 pages2 hours

    My Picker Is Broken

    By todd sawyer

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    About this ebook

    My Grandpa was married four times. My Dad was married five times. I’ve been divorced once. I come from a long line of Broken Pickers.
    I was married for eight years to a great woman and we tried hard to make it work. It wasn’t our B effort - it was our best effort and it still ended. After my divorce, I spent a couple of years lost, hurt and confused. Then I met and fell in love with another great woman and after four years together that relationship ended.
    The break up hurt and sent me looking back in the mirror, because I knew the call was coming from inside my own house.
    All I know for sure is - I was down for awhile... again.
    But as I got back on my feet, I started asking my buddies and then strangers how the boy/girl thing works for them.
    The answers were different, but the stories had a lot of similarities. It didn’t seem to matter if you were a man or a woman, what your sexual orientation or race was; the answer was the same – our pickers were broken. Sure the relationship didn’t work, but we were picking them.
    Most people have at least one story about a bad choice. Not just a bad one-nighter, but a real “I should have known better. There’s a month/a year/ half my life I’ll never get back” story.
    Some of the stories were funny. Some were sad. Most were both. I thought I should write a book. Change the names and towns, but keep the laughs - and the tears. Enjoy the read... and if you see yourself in some of them know you're not alone.

    LanguageEnglish
    Publishertodd sawyer
    Release dateJul 31, 2015
    ISBN9781311615176
    My Picker Is Broken
    Author

    todd sawyer

    Sawyer began his stand-up comedy career in Seattle in 1989. Since then he has performed in all fifty states, eight countries, and been seen on a several television shows.Todd won the prestigious Seattle Stand-up Comedy Competition and made his first television appearance on a local show, “Standing Room Only” in 1993. Since then Todd has made people laugh on a variety of television shows from multiple appearances on CBS’s “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.”Todd has written on a wide range of projects - from being the head writer for Ron White‘s 2014 Grammy nominated, “A Little Unprofessional” tour to writing jokes for Pulitzer Prize winner, Henry Kissinger and The Huffington Post. His newest project, “My Picker Is Broken” - a collection of short stories about bad relationships choices – is available as an ebook.

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      Book preview

      My Picker Is Broken - todd sawyer

      My Picker Is Broken

      Real people’s worst relationship choices

      -a collection of short stories-

      By

      Todd Sawyer

      Published by Todd Sawyer at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2015 Todd Sawyer

      All Rights Reserved.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      THE IDEA

      INTRODUCTION

      CHLOE – A PhD that picked a non-human on purpose.

      BRIAN – He was married 12 years to a woman that didn’t light his fire.

      LULU – She is in love with a man that most of the time she wishes she wasn’t.

      GREG – An Australian that loved psychedelics and a natural beauty.

      ANTHONY – A gay man falls for a young lover.

      LAURA – A successful lawyer that chose a man that hit her.

      FRED – He’s a man willing to sleep on the couch for more than a night.

      CLAIRE – A Canadian that picked a man for all the wrong reasons.

      DAD – My hero is a man that is 0 for 5, but looking for number 6.

      DAVE – A womanizer afraid to commit and doesn’t see it that way.

      KAREN – A proud Grandma that once was in love with a porn star.

      SCOTT- A 22- yr old willing to trade great sex for horrible everything else.

      JANET – A woman that keeps picking the same man over and over.

      VINCE – He stayed in a marriage he knew wasn’t right.

      DANA – Moving to another country wasn’t enough to fix her picker.

      ANDY – A young comedian who picks single moms.

      TAMARA – She picked a man that loved her so much, he became a stocker.

      JOHN – Married three times he is beginning to trust his gut.

      JOSEPH – A story about a man trying to rescue a married woman.

      UPDATE ON ME – The Nightbus

      SUMMARY

      The Idea

      I met a guy on the golf course and before we get to the second tee, he mentions he’s recently divorced. I asked him when he knew it wasn’t going to work. He said, Walking down the aisle, but I just kept walking… I just kept walking straight down the aisle into a train wreck!

      The next day, I’m on the same golf course and get sent out with a different guy. He’s in town looking for a house to buy. I ask why he’s relocating to the City of Angels. He says he just finished building his dream house in a very exclusive part of Dallas (on a great golf course), when he met and fell in love with a woman, but she wasn’t willing to live in Dallas. As I look at him, he shakes his head and says, I hate L.A. But what are you gonna do?

      I don’t know – here’s an idea – pick from one of the 100,000 available women in the greater Dallas/Ft. Worth Metro-Plex. It’s just an idea. I’m spit-balling here.

      He teed his ball up and hit a horrible slice out of bounds. He looked at me and said, Like I said, I hate L.A.

      I smile and say, I bet that never happens in Dallas. He doesn’t smile back.

      But that’s when I knew – two days in a row, two different guys – I wasn’t the only one with a broken picker – making bad choices in the love department. And as much as I want to blame her – no matter who she is – it’s like what my buddy (and very funny comedian) Tom Agna says, It’s like that old horror movie… the call is coming from inside the house.

      INTRODUCTION

      My Grandpa was married four times. My Dad was married five times. I’ve been divorced once. I come from a long line of Broken Pickers.

      I was married for eight years to a great woman and we tried hard to make it work. It wasn’t our B effort – it was our best effort and it still ended. After my divorce, I spent a couple of years lost, hurt and confused. Then I met and fell in love with another great woman and after four years together that relationship ended.

      The break up hurt and sent me looking back in the mirror, because I knew the call was coming from inside my own house. I know I have to get better at compromise, listening, accepting…. the list goes on. But none of that was taught to me as a kid; by my Dad or Mom or Stepmom or Stepmom #2 or Step… well, you get it.

      I really don’t know why we – or I – pick who we pick – most psychologists agree it’s about reliving our childhood. I think it’s a lot like what my Ex-wife says, I have great taste in women. I do. The problem isn’t them, and isn’t me, I think it’s us – what we are together. I picked women – great women – that pushed my buttons and I think they picked me for the same button-pushing reasons. We were both picking with broken pickers.

      All I know for sure is – I was down for awhile… again.

      But as I got back on my feet, I started asking my buddies and then strangers how the boy/girl thing works for them.

      The answers were different, but the stories had a lot of similarities. It didn’t seem to matter if you were a man or a woman, what your sexual orientation or race was; the answer was the same – our pickers were broken. Sure the relationship didn’t work, but we were picking them.

      Most people have at least one story about a bad choice. Not just a bad one-nighter, but a real I should have known better. There’s a month/a year/ half my life I’ll never get back story.

      Some of the stories were funny. Some were sad. Most were both. I thought I should write a book. Change the names and towns, but keep the laughs – and the tears.*

      It’s usually about picking someone that reminds us of one of our parents and because half of America is divorced, that means at least half our parents were using broken pickers too. So, we have bad examples and continue to make poor choices which are pretty funny, but kinda sad.

      To be fair, I didn’t talk to a lot of people that are in good relationships. Their picker isn’t broken or at least it’s in decent working order. Where’s the entertainment in that?

      I wanted to start the book with my story, but that would drag my ex-wife into it and that’s not fair to her. In all the other stories I change the names and cities. Nobody gets hurt.

      I don’t care if my dirty laundry is out in the open, but I can’t throw her under the bus. Plus, I know she has a much different view of what happened between us. It would be great if I could interview her, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think her picker is, or was, ever broken. I think she’s of the new age school, We’re exactly where we are supposed to be, nothing is a mistake. Our infinite spirits needed to learn those lessons.

      Well, here on earth, when she left the reality of our marriage and headed on her spiritual journey, I felt like my picker had let me down.

      Here’s what I’m gonna do, I’ll change my name and city and tell my story somewhere in the book. You try to figure out which one is mine. There’s no prize, just the joy of knowing you’re right. If you’re anything like me, that’s worth a lot.

      *I was going to have a MFT (marriage and family therapist) write a little about the things we could learn from the stories, but after we broke up that idea had to be nicked. So that just leaves me taking a couple of random shots in the dark.

      Enjoy your read.

      CHLOE

      I should start this story by admitting I’m not smart enough to write it. It is beyond my understanding, due either to my lack of education or my abundance of common sense. Probably a combo of the two, but what is clear to me, Chloe operates on a higher level of thinking than I do.

      Chloe speaks three languages, fluently, and she’s a doctor. Not an MD, but she has a PhD in Music Composition. She can help you understand Bach, but if you need CPR; dial 9-1-1.

      She uses words, big, smart- sounding words, in normal conversation that I have to guess at their meaning. But right when I think I’m lost, she says, idiot or motherfucker and I feel like I know where she is going.

      She’s truly overeducated and too much woman for so many of us motherfuckers.

      I met Chloe at a New Year’s party years ago and we ran into each other at the drugstore the other night. I told her about this project, and asked if she had a story, she said, I have to pick just one?

      I told her I would buy her lunch and I would listen to all of them. After we caught up, she started her story with this line; I dated this guy for three months and I wasn’t even attracted to him. He was narcissistic and spoke in sound-bites…

      What? Wait. Start over. You don’t like him AND you aren’t attracted to him? Shouldn’t it be at least one of those? Isn’t the goal to have both?

      Ignoring me, she continues, I know. I know. But you get used to someone’s smell and…

      I’m in over my head. Wait, how do you even get to ‘three months and smell’, if you aren’t attracted to him and you don’t like him?

      The questions don’t seem to faze Chloe. She thinks this all makes sense. She shrugs her shoulders, I don’t get a lot of attention from men and he was…very aggressive. He made it clear that he wanted me. That felt good, that he openly wanted me.

      I say, Okay, I get that. You’re smart and beautiful, you use big words. That is intimidating to a lot of us idiots. But men must hit on you all the time.

      "No, I think I scare a lot of them and frightened men aren’t

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