I don't know if it's a universal thing, or if it's just the guys in my house.
They have specific times of the day when they suck. For the small one, it's pretty much whenever he doesn't get his way. He's a teenager, and when you tell him "no", his teenager-y brain produces some sort of hellish hormone that tells him to make everyone else around him miserable. And he does it. Well.
For the grown-up one, his "suck" is normally all concentrated into one big ball of suck during the morning. I won't mince terms, here...he's an ass. A big, giant ball of suck and ass. A suck-ass. He's grumpy and tired, and everything he says and does is pinned to that excuse, and there's just no getting around it.
About 90% of the time, there will be an apology later in the day, followed by the "you know how I am in the morning" excuse, phrased within some glob of manipulated nouns and adjectives, that's supposed to make "this time" a little different from "the last time."
I hate it.
This morning, I hated it enough to get up out of my chair, put on my jacket, and walk out the front door, away from the huge, suck-ass argument we were having, that would have no resolution, because I wasn't arguing with my husband, but instead, a great big suck that takes his place every goddamn morning. Fuck that guy.
Unbrushed, wild hair in every direction, tears blowing across my cheeks, splattering my glasses, and looking like a crazy person.
I skipped the park next door. It's always populated, and I didn't want people. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to be allowed to be angry, to hate the stupid, suck-ass person who replaces my husband every goddamn morning, and to cry in public like a weirdo without worrying about looking like a weirdo. So I kept walking...
I found funny little secrets that I never would have found, had I not left my house this morning on foot.
I discovered that even tho I'm mildly disheartened at the city's decision to chop down the wild berry bush at the park, there are so many more hiding in unexpected places to take its place.
I found the perfect hidey-hole to make out like a horny teenager with my secret lover...should I ever acquire a secret lover. I also discovered that it's full of trash, and (I very much suspect) the urine of a bunch of teenage boys. (Note to future, hypothetical-secret-lover; we might need to carefully consider said secret make-out spot.)
A little further up the road, two little chihuahuas were signaling my arrival, and warning me of their viciousness as I approached. The furry one took a nip at one of my exposed ankles, while the little squeaky one yapped frantically from the safety of the yard. I stopped and tried to make friends, but neither one of them were having it, and they both disappeared like little furry rockets when they heard the neighbor approaching with a noisy trash can dragging behind her. Weird little things.
My flip flops squeaked under my feet as I walked uphill.
I found myself face to face with a man who appeared from his backyard, and found myself unable to take my eyes off of him as I walked past. No thought to my crazy, wind-blown hair, or the fact that I'd left the house crying, in my yoga pants and pajama shirt. Just an expressionless taking-in of him, without regard to what he might be thinking of me. I wanted to see him, and so, I saw him.
He jumped into his big redneck truck which was at least four-thousand feet from the ground to the driver's seat, and fired up the engine as I rounded the corner.
Walking past his house, I was suddenly smacked square in the nose with the most powerful, fragrant honeysuckle bush I have ever smelled in my 33 years on this planet. I breathed so deeply that I got dizzy, and forced myself to keep walking, rather than stopping to bury my entire head in the bushes.
I was briefly reminded of one of the games I used to play with my weird step-sister. "Feed the Queen," we called it. The Queen wasn't allowed to move. She laid with her head in the other girl's lap, and was fed, usually honeysuckle nectar, by the rest of us...usually my step sister, and her creepy next-door friend. I hated being The Queen. My goddamn nose would itch so bad, and I wasn't allowed to scratch it, because The Queen wasn't allowed to move. Those little bitches would giggle while I squirmed, twitching my nose, and declaring "I'M The Queen, you're supposed to do what I say! Scratch my nose!" They wouldn't. But I never moved...
That four-thousand-foot-tall redneck truck was coming up behind me now.
Yes. Come up and get me. Snatch me up from the street. Yank me up out of my shoes, and stuff me into your giant piece of shit truck. Take me back to your crappy house and throw me into the hole you've dug in your basement, where you'll feed me stale bread and dirty water for weeks, until I'm Stockholm-ed to you. Like a weird, day-blind stinking basement pet. And I promise I will love it. I will love you. That'll teach that husband of mine to act like an asshole...
He drove on. Obviously.
And anyway, my kidnapper doesn't drive a big obnoxious lifted truck, with stupid redneck stickers in the window. My kidnapper doesn't cut the sleeves off of his dirty T-shirts, or wear backwards baseball caps, and say "hey, ya'll, I seen a UFO while I's feedin' the cows."
My kidnapper is much more Hannibal Lector, and his suits are always freshly, and professionally cleaned and pressed. He's polite, with proper diction and grammar. When he does drive, it's certainly not some shitty Larry-The-Cable-Guy truck. And my bread absolutely won't be stale. I mean, the nerve of that kid, offering me stale bread.
On the way home, I passed the house of one of the lovers of my mother's fourth ex husband. I found her driveway littered with garbage, and wondered why that seemed to be such a fitting metaphor for the women in my step-father's wake. What the hell was so special about him, anyway? Egotistical liar on a sociopath level is a *very* kind way to describe him.
Of course, this leads to thoughts of my mother. My least favorite thoughts in the whole world. If thoughts were poop, thoughts of her would be the maggots in the poop. And she's in town right now, which makes me loath her even more. Don't ask me why proximity makes a difference. It just does. The closer she is to me, the more I can feel her DNA writhing and wiggling inside of me, creating this strange, temporary insanity that I can't ever seem to explain. Her genes literally make me crazy...
Then, like a rainbow-colored hug from the universe, I see a sign stuck in the ground advertising lawn service or something, and the owners share the same last name as a friend of mine, to whom I have recently found myself drawing very near, and finding much love and support. Thoughts of my mother sailed away, and thoughts of my friend swooped in and surrounded me, as my squeaky shoes and I plodded up the hill, smile spread across my face.
I rounded the corner to my house, trying to figure out what kind of environment I would walk into when I arrived home. I'd been gone for nearly an hour and a half, and it was good for me. I doubted it had been good for him, and certainly wasn't looking forward to coming home to it.
No car in the driveway. Mr. Grumpy Suck Ass had gone to work. I had four missed calls on my phone. And a voice-mail saying that he'd tried to find me, but couldn't. Big, big happy.
It isn't as tho I have never taken a walk around my own neighborhood before. I have. Lots of times. Normally, however, it's with some destination in mind, or because I feel I "need the exercise." I've never just walked before. Just to walk away.
I had a therapist tell me once just to "walk away" from an argument when it was too heated, and obviously going to get nowhere. It isn't in my nature to do that. I *need* to fix things that are broken in that way. After today, tho, I might just start walking the fuck away from this nastiness the moment it starts in the morning.
At this rate, I will be a waif by summertime.
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