Separation: Day 89

The day started out late. After working my sixteen hour shift I went and picked up my boys from after school. I took them to the local bakery and got them, my wife, and her friend a snack and dropped it off along with my child support for the week. I had to get me in a little rest before taking them out to eat because I was just dead dog tired. We went to eat at Big John's Dawg House (it's coming quite the hangout for me) and had a really good meal. The whole time my youngest was talking to the kid at the next table. He had a robot dinosaur and my boy had a toy policeman. Of course they had to have a shoot out. I took the boys back home and dropped them off because my oldest had to get up early to go to the football game. I passed out on the bed when I got home like someone had drugged me (really two vicodin and a prozac). I was out from 9pm-9am. I was late getting to the house to get a shower so my buddy and I were late leaving. My wife knew a shortcut while my buddy knew the way the buses went (aka not a shortcut). It took us over two hours of curvy, hilly roads to get there. It rained the whole flipping time and my CD player wouldn't play his "road music". But we had some great conversation and done a lot of catching up. We stopped at a Wendy's for a pee break and when I came back out to the truck my buddy said your alarm went off while you were inside. I said funny because I don't have an alarm system. He said the horn was blowing while you were inside. WTF!! I told him no it wasn't and when we started out into the road it blasted like a siren. My buddy said this ride just got a little more interesting. We finally got to the school and I parked just as close as I could and walked out to watch the game. The boys were already into the first quarter and they were losing by a little. My youngest came running and give me a huge hug and my wife looked at me like I thought he wouldn't come. Ha!! Told you damn it I am a changed man. Then it started to sprinkle. No big deal. Then it started to pour. Oh Hell!! Then the bottom fell out. There I was with no umbrella. My youngest came and offered me a towel from his mom and I told him no thank you. Men don't need umbrellas men just stand there and get wet, and wet I got. I was ringing the water from my shirts. Every time I took a step you could hear a definite squish squashy, squish squashy!!! I looked like the redneck from hell who had entered a wet t-shirt contest and lost. I was soaked to the core. I hung around by my wife's truck because I wanted my son to know that I was there and watched the game in the pouring ass rain because that is the kind of dad I am. He lost the game but he played hard and I got out to help him take off his shoulder pads and got soaked again. Small price to pay for my sons love. While all this was going on my friend (so called) had been sitting in the truck because he didn't want to get wet. We have a mutual friend who has been having marital problems for like two years and she wanted to meet up with my buddy. He told her that he had plans but that I was available and that we could meet and talk. He told me that we would probably end up just talking about her problems the whole night and I told him fine I was getting tired talking about mine. I had to rush home and change out of my sponge and meet her at Longhorns. I got to Longhorns and she text and said I'm inside. I went inside and I text her back and said which location are you at this Longhorns or the one further north. She was out front alright. Out front at Outback Steakhouse. No biggie there just up the street from each other so we finally met up and had an awesome meal. We talked non-stop for four hours about each others problems. You could almost reverse the roles of our marriages and they would be carbon copies. Her husband has the same attitude as my wife and my friend and I are hoping against hope they will come back. It felt good to get a fresh perspective and a relief to be listening to someone else's problems for once. It came time to pay and she wouldn't even let me pay. It was kind of awkward and I told her I felt bad and she said you can get it next time. So....I left the tip anyway. If I hadn't had to come to work I believe we could have talked all night. It was good for the soul and I enjoyed it. I was glad my friend had plans.

Separation: Day 79

First off I would like to preface this by saying that I have no prejudices. I have always had the motto live and let live, to each it's own so on and so forth. But we have this person that comes into work occasionally and I don't know what this person's gender is. I mean they have breasts and also have a definite 5 o'clock shadow thing going on. So when I talk about this person I refer to he/she as It. Well this morning It comes in and decides it wants to vent. It starts talking to me about the economy, health care, workers rights, moral fiber, and his dads lack of it. Somewhere in the conversation It says that its dad in order to sale a car one time packed the rear end of the car with saw dust (apparently this helps the rear end temporarily). But the only part of the conversation that my buddy got was the part about the rear end and I never heard the end of it the rest of the night. They even went out and told another driver the story and he came in and told me that It radioed him and told him how good a person I was and that I was a good listener. I was like WTH!!!!!!!!!!!!! But then he mentioned the saw dust and I said ok you went too far you had me till you said saw dust. I have always been careful of using any gender specific salutations so....But It told me it had a girlfriend. But that doesn't mean anything. So I guess live and let live. So tonight me and the boys are going to meet my buddy with his family at this new "dive" and eat and fellowship for a while. I have grown quite fond of his kids and him and his wife text me all the time making sure I am ok. I'm glad to have reacquainted myself with an old friend.