The inspiration for this story was BigGuy33's most excellent "A Surprise Visitor". Please read it if you haven't already. The initial plot is almost the same, as everyone will recognize. This is totally a work of fiction with fictional characters - but like a lot of authors I draw from a lot of personal experiences and people I've known throughout my life. And I do know how to clog, meself. Really. :-)
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I loved my wife. I loved my daughter and my whole family. Even my in-laws and mother-in-law. I even loved my job. I was happy and satisfied and felt very lucky and blessed.
My name is Joe and I was 40 years old when things changed. And not exactly for the better, though I was sure it had - at first.
I was just a good old boy from a small town in Tennessee. I wasn't exactly raised on a farm but I spent a lot more time outdoors than in growing up. My own dad was a jack-of-all-trades, a shade tree mechanic and primarily a welder. I learned a lot from him growing up, and from age 15 on started welding a little myself, but also did some engines work and also carpentry construction. Eventually I became a heavy equipment operator - tractors, bulldozers, cranes - but also a diesel and hydraulics mechanic.
I started working fulltime for my Uncle Bill at 18 right after I graduated from high school. Bill had his own construction company that just mostly did foundation and earth moving kind of work, Including major landscaping for entire subdivisions and commercial developments. Even small towns in mid-America get their new Walmarts and new Krogers or Winn-Dixies. Not to mention septic tank installations and the occasional McMansion going up on new "estates". I started out on smaller tractors like the caged Bobcats. I seemed to have a knack for it and was always very careful with good concentration. I started filling in on some of the Cats and larger stuff doing the simpler things when a regular operator was sick or hungover and didn't show. I didn't drink myself and was young and healthy. I was always there, Mr. Dependable.
I guess to most other young folks I was just a pretty boring average (or below average!) Joe. I didn't really date very much either. Often I was working six days a week and occasionally seven. I really didn't have the time or energy to date, though ironically I DID have plenty of money. If I had had a steady girlfriend I would have spent some time with her. I DID like girls and I had had a taste of sex a couple of times in high school, but I wasn't obsessed with it. Even in high school getting a girl to go out with me seemed a challenge. I wasn't rich, or a football star, or handsome or just "cute" to anyone, seemed like. At least no girl wasted her time chasing me. That I ever noticed.
One year out of high school I was making darn good money but I still started a community college program on diesel mechanics. They didn't teach me much more than I already knew but I knew some kind of certificate might just come in handy some day. I had already made a few simple repairs on Cats with the tools I always carried in my pick-up. Bill didn't say much, but I knew he was impressed. There was always a little extra in my paycheck the weeks something like that happened. Nothing kills productivity and profit like down equipment.
The one greatest benefit of me going to college was that was where I met Darlene. And Darlene DID start pursuing me. Hard. She didn't play hard to get or any games at all. She didn't ask me out - but she did everything else. She wasn't in my technical classes but she was practically waiting outside the door when every one ended just to "ask me a question" about something or other.
Darlene wasn't a raving beauty but just a normally attractive girl in that blue collar Tennessee wholesome way. She had a sweet voice and a sweet disposition. I finally DID get a free Saturday and asked her out for the first time. From then on we were steady.
We didn't have "all the way" sex for six months, and we were married six months later. After we DID have sex, we had it every time we saw one another - and we both wanted more.
Turned out both she and I were a couple of "sex every day" types. I just had never imagined marriage could be so wonderful. Our daughter Tina was born just eleven months after our marriage. Darlene went back on the pill after Tina but we certainly planned to have more children - at least I thought so. But somehow that never happened.
For twenty years things just went along great. Bill was a great owner boss. His business grew steadily. I became a foreman for many of his "away" jobs. A very much hands-on worker foreman, who spent about half my time as onsite mechanic and half as an operator. I made a comfortable living, not rich - but even had a pretty large and growing 401K.
"Away" jobs were those just too far away that daily commuting from home wasn't practical. When I was on an "away" job Darlene and I didn't have our daily sex. Well, by forty I HAD slowed down a little with my own libido - but not all that much! And I never stayed longer than 4 nights in a row. No matter what, I didn't - and Bill understood that.
I was living - we were living - the American dream life. Tina grew up with two loving and attentive parents but by necessity Darlene was the principal caregiver. Mostly Darlene stayed at home but occasionally she would find a job outside the home for a while. Nothing she ever got real serious about and our family always came first with her.
But we both weren't getting any younger at 40 years old - and I started worrying just a little bit about the rest of our lives - our happy retirement. My job wasn't terribly physically stressful - but working with your hands and around heavy equipment little accidents are always possible - and the wear and tear was starting to pile up on me a tad. I might only have 15 good working years left - maybe only ten. I knew Bill wouldn't just dump me and could probably move me inside - but I also knew he couldn't pay me at the same rates doing that. And I might just go crazy TRYING to do that. Who knew?
But then this absolutely GREAT opportunity came along - our occupation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. All kinds of civilian heavy equipment operators and mechanics were needed and with HUGE salaries and bonuses attached. Bill, as an owner networked person, had gotten an inquiry from Zapotec Engineering. He knew of my concerns a tad and would give me a leave for one year if I wanted to take the opportunity. Basically I would clear in one year what normally would take me five or six.
So Darlene and I had some serious, SERIOUS discussions about it. The one real negative was one whole year apart from one another. We would both miss each other like crazy. No daily sex. No daily just touching and little intimacies. Was it worth it? She cried and I almost did but we both knew we couldn't pass this up. I might even be able to comfortably and safely retire MUCH earlier than we had planned. Just get by on part time work and I would never have to be away from home any night ever again after this one year.
So, away to Afghanistan I went.
