A grain of sand weighs some where in the area of a couple of grams. Approximately how many grains of sand do you think it would take to crush a man? I'm a pretty big guy and could probably handle a couple hundred thousand grains of sand at least.
Now for arguments sake, lets just say that each grain of sand represents a lie told to you by your wife. That changes it a lot doesn't it?
The first couples are only an annoyance, something like a little bug flying around your head as you try to swat it. Multiply that number by ten, now you start to get a little concerned. When you increase it to twenty-five, your uncomfortable now and you start to feel a dull pain in your chest. At fifty you feel as though an elephant is sitting on your chest and all the air is being squeezed out of your lungs. Anything over sixty collapses the chest and crushes the heart. Now all you've got is a straight line on the monitor and a loud whine that brings nothing back to life.
In my case, the elephant just walked into the room.
After being married to the same women for eight years you get to know her pretty well. Lisa and I have been together nine years and married for just over eight. We have one daughter, Jackie, who is six and a son, David, who is almost two.
I'm not going to bore you with how we met, fell in love and married, because right now that's not the issue. My problem is, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear Lisa was cheating on me.
No she's not working a lot of overtime with her boss, or staying out late on girl's night outs and our sex life is pretty strong considering how active our home life is. It's just that for a while, she just hasn't been the Lisa of old and is acting different but I just couldn't put my finger on it.
That is, until just recently.
I do a normal 8:00 am to 5:00 pm boring office job five days a week. I work in the accounting department and I'm in charge of the payable division for Ajax Sign Company. I, along with my two clerks, make sure our companies bills are paid and on time. Pretty exciting stuff wouldn't you say? I sit in front of a damn computer screen all day long comparing purchase orders against vendor invoices. I'm pretty good at what I do and have caught more than one employee committing fraud. It's just that sometimes it is so boring I just want to scream.
Lisa works for a marketing firm in town that does quite a lot of business with our company. We met when her firm opened up a new account. I did the paper work myself, and Lisa was my initial contact.
I don't think our life is wild and exciting, but at least I thought our marriage was pretty strong up until a couple of months ago.
Our downward spiral started off so slow I never saw it coming, even though the clues were right there in front of me. And I guess I had a small part in her changing, but it was all done out of love.
After the birth of David, and the subsequent night feedings, Lisa's body clock went off kilter. She would wake up some where around 3:00 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep for a couple of hours no matter what she tried. The doctor told her it would pass, but instructed her to do something when she woke up to make her sleepy or tire herself out.
We tried sex for a couple of weeks but that just made us both tired in the morning, even though it always brought a smile to my face. She then tried watching TV but at 3:00 there wasn't much on. Finally she started surfing the net on the desktop computer in our bedroom. That wasn't going to work either with me trying to sleep.
"Happy Birthday," I said when I came home Tuesday night with a colorful wrapped box.
"It isn't my Birthday, Rick."
"I know, just open it," I said handing her the small carton.
"Oh my God," Lisa said as her eyes lit up as she opened her present.
"This way, if you get up at night and can't sleep you'll have something to do that won't keep me up too."
Lisa ran her fingers across the shinny silver top and moved her finger around the Apple emblem.
"It's not new, but refurbished and upgraded. It has all the normal software, a CD and DVD player and upgraded memory," I said with a smile. "It's all yours my love."
Lisa hugged and kissed me saying, with an evil smile, that I'd get my present later that night. She started it up, set up her password and connected to the net. She was like a kid with a new Game Boy.
I got more sex in the next twenty-four hours than I'd gotten in the last three weeks. I walked around with a stupid smile on my face for the next week.
She still woke up at all hours of the night, but at least now she didn't keep both of us up. After a couple of months however I noticed she was staying up longer and longer at night. More than once I'd get up to check on her and I would find her in the living room or kitchen pounding away on her computer.
"Honey, you've got to get yourself some sleep," I told her. "I thought the doctor said this was only a temporary thing and your body would go back to normal. Maybe you should call and make an appointment and get yourself checked out," I suggested.
"Don't worry Rick, it's getting better, it's just that since you gave me my computer there's a world of things to do and I can't do it during the day or after work while I fix dinner and take care of the kids."
"What are you typing?" I asked.
"Just an entry in my journal among other things."
"Can I see read it?" I asked.
"Oh my God NO!" Lisa said as she closed the cover. It's personal, it's like my private diary," she told me. "I'd never ask to see yours."
"Ask away because I don't have one. Don't worry, I won't go looking on your precious computer," I said as I tried to smile. "Now put it away and come to bed, or you won't worth shit at work tomorrow."
You know the story about the Garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit? Well that computer was now my forbidden fruit. I had to see what she'd been writing in it all theses past months but I didn't have a clue how I was going to accomplish that.
The first time I tried was when Lisa went out shopping with the kids.
"Shit, password protected."
I could see her password had nine characters but that was all. I tried every imaginable combination of birthday, anniversary, names, dates nothing worked. I then tried pet names, phone numbers, and her social security number. Struck out again.