Idiot

I sat in a famous fast-food restaurant today and watch a guy of maybe 35 with two young children, it suddenly occurred to me that he was trying too hard for this to be a normal father and kids stop off for a quick meal. This is what I imagined.

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I'm sitting watching my two children eating. Jake and Milly, 7 and 6 years old respectively, Jake with his cheeseburger, Milly a chickenburger. Both nutritiously suspect despite the worldwide giants claims, but who cares, this is their favourite restaurant, why wouldn't I let them pick it, why ruin their day?

My time with them is so precious to me, I'm not going to waste it arguing that we should eat somewhere where there are no toys with the meal, where meals come with recognisable vegetables. No, it's their choice, even if I hate it. I've never eaten a 'meal' in one of these joints and walked away feeling satisfied, that I don't need to call in somewhere else on the way home to satisfy my hunger.

As we sit and eat, I quiz them about school, about their friends anything new in their lives. I'm trying hard, they of course don't want to talk about things like that, too boring.

I sit and realise the information deficit I have about my own children, how did I ever let it come to this, my own flesh and blood, almost strangers too me?

Too many working hours, too much time spent on things outside of work and more importantly, home, too many distractions to give these little people I helped to create the attention they deserved. Time that I stupidly squandered on the other transient shit that a waster father such as I finds to do rather than take responsibility for the really important things in life.

It's taken me time, sadly too much time to understand what an idiot I've been.

I thought I had it all, growing up I was a popular guy with my friends, male and female alike. I had a quick wit and a turn of phrase that people found appealing, quick to create a laugh in a room when it was needed, sometimes the life and soul of the party.

Seldom without female company, I was a good-looking guy and was lucky to have a solid above average sized cock and no complaints about how I wielded it, so I had no problem getting plenty of girls in the sack and coming back for more, and happily telling their friends, so that when either of us moved on, there was always someone auditioning as the new girl in my life.

When I joined the workforce, my education saw me getting in at a high level and landed on my feet with a great firm with a high salary and great benefits. Yeah, I had it all on a string, what could possibly go wrong?

Well of course, lots can go wrong, I've already told you that I'm an idiot, I've told you about my dumb lack of sensible adult responsibility so it will come as no surprise to you that my wife, Jessie, agrees one hundred percent with my self-assessment.

Indeed, she agrees so much that she is in the process of divorcing me. She claims she still loves me but she has to much respect for herself to put up with a cheating asshole.

Yes I told you pulling good-looking women was easy for me so when Sarah at work made it obvious she was interested, it didn't take many days before I was laying some serious pipe in her in a local motel two or three times a week.

It took about seven weeks before a mutual friend of ours, but mainly Jessie's friend, saw me and Sarah at the motel and spilled the beans to Jessie. Was it worth it? Fuck no, Sarah was a nice lady, she liked to fuck but she was not a sensational fuck, Jessie beat her hands done in bed, so why? I told you, I'm an idiot.

So yeah, now I am sitting here trying to talk to my children, trying to let them see I'm worth their time taking an interest in, through the stilted conversation about everything and nothing that is such a struggle, for you see that for all the accomplishments I have gathered in my erstwhile successful young life, one I never managed was how to be interesting and to appeal to my own young children.

They make all the expected noises about loving me when I pick them up and drop them off but I have no idea how to make myself genuinely interesting to them since I don't live at home with them and their mother and I realise that it would take very little for me to become even more of a stranger to them.

As they were polishing off their ice cream with some hideously sweet caramel sauce, Jake said, "we won't see you for the next two weeks daddy, we are going on holiday".

I was briefly stunned, one of my first thoughts was how the fuck can Jessie afford to take them away for a holiday? Yes I'm helping to support them but with paying for my shitty little apartment as well as half the mortgage, the cars and family healthcare insurance for Jessie, the kids and me, I can't afford to give her as much as I'd like.

Milly joined in, "Yes daddy, Uncle Joe is helping mummy to take us to Disneyworld, we are going to have a great time and mummy says Joe will be with us all day, just like you used to be when you lived with us."

Jake chimed in, "Will Uncle Joe be our new daddy, daddy? We like him, he buys us lots of things and he drives a much better car than you do, even though your car is cool. Mummy says that he is her boss, but only at work. I don't really understand what that means daddy."

Shit, suddenly the conversation becomes -- well, very fucking interesting and yet the last thing I ever wanted to hear. For the last 3 months since she kicked me out I've been trying to do the right thing, hoping for forgiveness and a second chance. Looks like that isn't happening.

I'm sitting in a crappy fast-food joint, talking to two tiny people who I belatedly realise that I love so much, hearing that the woman I love more than any I've ever met is moving on and my life looks like its fucked.

And still, I try hard to be just a little bit interesting to my kids. They seem, if not all in with 'Uncle Joe', then very well disposed to him. I quietly wonder how long will it be until they are calling him daddy or, least bad, 'Daddy Joe', how long until they, like their mother don't think I'm worth the trouble anymore?

It all confirms, I'm a fucking idiot.