So I called in sick to work and headed over to J.'s. I had planned to spend the day just hanging out with her. When I approached her parents' house everything looked relatively normal. They lived in a nice enough subdivision in surburban Atlanta.

J., it seemed, was constantly cleaning the house. It was how she earned her keep, I guess. Well, she should have been thrown out. The house was disgusting. Now, I'm not the best housekeeper (that's why I hire somebody to do it) I couldn't believe this place. It smelled like month old garbage and I literally couldn't get through a single room in the house because there were boxes upon boxes of crap just pilled up everywhere. J. was sitting in on the couch surrounded by dirty dishes and empty soda bottles. It really was surreal.

What really freaked me out, in retrospect, was that to meet J. you would never have guess that she lived in that type of environment. It completely shocked me.

Next to J. in the squallor sat a stack of unopened Christian rock CDs. She really loved Christian rock. I never quite understood it on many levels. First of all, everything she played for me sounded exactly the same - overly earnest boy bands who scattered a few "He's" and "amens." Not exactly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Second of all, she went to church on a regular basis but wasn't what anyone would call a good little Christian girl. I think it had something to do with approval from her parents.

At any rate, I was baffled by the CDs appearance because she literally had no money. Literally. Where she would have gotten what had to be 10-12 new CDs was beyond me. What followed was yet another conversation that I'll never forget --

MRW - Where did you get all of those?
J - Oh. Uh. Someone got them for me.
MRW - Who? Bobby? (her church "friend")
J - Uh. A bunch of people. You know Bobby couldn't afford them.
MRW - A bunch of people?
J - Yeah.
MRW - Who?
J - A bunch of people. I don't know who they were.
MRW- A bunch of people who you don't know bought you CDs?
J - No. My friends. The Christian bookstore has a program where you can leave a list of the CDs that you want and your friends can buy them. All I had to do was go pick them up.

That's correct, my friends. She was stealing CDs from the Christian bookstore. Clearly nothing was sacred with this girl.

I made up some lame story about not feeling well and went home. I didn't call her for quite a while and pretty much lost track of her for a few months. She'd page me from time-to-time but I never returned her calls.

She made one more appearance in my life. It was quite the exit. Sometimes life lets you know that chose correctly.