As I've gotten older, I've realized that in my extended family, there have been 2 wives from hell and 1 husband from hell. These individuals were some distance away in time or location. In all three cases, the 'sane' spouse was part of or later joined my extended family. If there was a spouse from hell today, my responses would be very different. The gloves would come off to protect the defenseless.
The other thing I can say is that I do get involved when I see things that are not right. I've called in drunk and high drivers, taken away car keys, called spouses...anything to stop a very possible tragedy. I've have two acquaintances that won't ever talk to me again. But I can sleep at night because somebody didn't get killed that day. If they want to be self-destructive, I let them. If somebody else will get hurt...fuck 'em.
There's other thing that I've noticed in life. If an individual is sleazy in their attitude toward others, they also tend (but not always) are sleazy toward things like laws, unsafe driving, drugs and alcohol, finances, responsibility in many forms in life...
Once again, I have fun writing BTBs. I also enjoy writing stories that don't depend upon mega bucks, 8 inch cocks, ninja's, high tech super-secret, squirting (which is the modern day equivalent of the equally implausible Victorian gallons of semen) ... You get my drift. Writing about people that we all know and live with is the challenge. This feels real. If an author brings in tons of money, professional help, jetting off to a private island in the Carribbean... whatever, I tend to pass on that story. I feel that those stories are so much easier to write because with enough time and money, anything is possible.
This is MY OWN PERSONAL TASTE. Readers get to make their own decisions on what thy like or don't like in life. Read what you like. You don't have to like what I like or feel important. The same for you to me.
Escapism is important in life and I don't knock it. I try to incorporate the things I see, have heard or would like to see.
1) On Break, Robin and Dorothy
"Any real gems this morning Dorothy?" We were on our morning coffee break. When you work customer service help lines, taking a break is critical. The work gets to you because the job is all about LISTENING TO PEOPLE COMPLAIN.
Dorothy and I are two women in our mid 50's with a grandchild each. Each of us also have child that's in a marriage that's in trouble. My son lives on the West coast with his wife and their 2 year old son while Dorothy's daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter live in Chicago's trendy Wrigleyville neighborhood, very close to 'da Cubbies' and those bars. Both of our children married young and are well on the road to professional success. Unfortunately, each has a spouse that is not maturing with parenthood. When we were married decades ago, we could be adolescents till the time we would have graduated from college and had to earn a living. It's not the same now.
Now I see blue collar and even white collar types of people - people on the other side of 30 - still acting like adolescents, college frat boys or party girls. That's true for the people our kids married. Neither is at the divorce stage yet, but it is a real possibility. That's what we talk about when on break and away from the phones.
The call center that we work at is ok money, but it gets hard sometimes to listen to people complain. When things are really wrong, we both understand and really try to help the callers. Missing a flight to a parent's funeral or a daughter's wedding, or going to a final visit of a friend dying from a sudden illness are not unusual problems. We both do all that we can and actually even got in trouble a couple of times. But really helping people is what makes the job worth it.
There were times when the caller complains about something trivial. We both had to bite our tongues to not tell them that they were damn lucky and that they should stop feeling so entitled. "STOP THE WHINING" was frequently thought, but it was never said. We are professionals at work. We would only vent to each other. However, today was the day for whiners. Not all the whiners were callers.
Sitting in the corner of the outside patio behind the potted plants, we heard one of our 'favorite' co-workers sit down with her back to us. Marcia was an immature spoiled 'piece of work' that felt the world owed her a living. She had a tendency to 'accidentally hang up' while having a difficult caller. The caller would come back and her coworkers have to fix that damage as well as the original problem. Marcia was not popular at work.
Because breaks are scheduled and we're in the same break group, we get to hear more from Marcia than we care to. This week we overheard that Marcia's husband walked in on her screwing her lover Jason. Then the bitch kicked the husband out till he asks HER to be forgiven. From what we've overheard over the last year or two, it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens.
We got to hear about how she was going to see a lawyer, get child support and alimony and with her mother live in his house rent free. She was planning on cutting down on her hours at work. Some of what she said could be true, some of it was pure self-delusional bullshit. Either way, we knew it was going to be hell for the husband. Hell for the next two decades.
She sat down this time with her bitch-in-training. She was actually giving lessons to Carissa on how to get what you want by lying and manipulating. We both knew from before that Marcia purposefully damaged the condom to get herself pregnant. All we could do today was to grit our teeth and wait for break to be over.
"Carissa, it's Thursday and I haven't been out all week. That asshole husband of mine hasn't asked to be forgiven yet, so I stared moving in Jason's stuff yesterday. I tossed all of Rich's junk in the basement and only kept the good shit he had." She exhaled a long drag of her smoke. "Jason's got lots of real nice stuff. He's got one of the biggest fucking curved screen TV's I've ever seen. He had a smaller one at his apartment, but this one is one big fucking TV.
"I asked him how he can afford it all. I know that he works construction as a laborer and that's good, but not that good money. He tells me that in certain neighborhoods, you can buy good stuff ten cents on the dollar. It's just a little used that's all." They both laughed.
"The other thing," she turned to Carissa and spoke in a slightly softer voice. She was always so loud that she was still clear as a bell. "He's been getting some good stuff lately. Fucking good stuff...well good stuff to fuck with." They both started laughing again. "A great buzz, let me tell you, a great buzz." She pretended to put something on her crooked finger and snort it. They laughed again. We just got more disgusted.
For the next 5 minutes, Dorothy and I got to hear all about Marcia's sexcapades with her lover. Break time was almost over and not a minute too soon.
"Carissa, my bitch of a mother told me that since I fucked up, I was gonna have to stay home with the kid tomorrow night while she went out." She extinguished her cigarette on her paper plate. "Fuck that shit. I'm gonna stay home long enough to feed the kid and slip a little something in her formula. Put her to bed and let her sleep it off." Carissa gasped, but Marcia laughed, "I've done it a couple of time before. I'm leaving her in the crib and going out. No problem for the kid and that is that." She flicked her cigarette well short of the ashtray as she and Carissa continued laughing.
Putting the child at risk? That struck a nerve. Drugging an infant and leaving an infant alone at home? Dorothy was about to get up and give Marcia a 'what for' when I pulled her back down and whispered into her ear. "Say nothing now. We can fix her clock on this one. Trust me." I motioned her to follow me.
We quietly walked to the bathroom. After checking to see if anyone was in any of the stalls or outside the door, Dorothy whispered, "Robin what gives? How? We know why."
"Remember Dorothy, my late brother-in-law was a Chicago cop. I heard plenty of stories like this. If you just call Children and Family Services to make a report, it takes them a while to get to it sometimes. Get a cop to the scene because there's been a crime and they find an infant home alone?" She grinned and continued, "Maybe a broken picture window or two? Somebody tossing an M-80 into the house? Some 4th of July smoke bombs that they sell in Indiana along I-90/94? Even if that smoke bomb was placed just outside the house, just outside the window, it would bring the Police and the Fire department. They have to investigate. They'd have to go inside.
"We've been hearing Marcia bitch about the neighbors. They haven't liked Marcia, her mother and now Jason. Will one of the neighbors tell the cops about everything they know or think that they know?"
We both smiled. "Look, it's worth a try. With all that stolen stuff in the house, there'd have to be 'some 'splaining to do Lucy' ". They both laughed at the old Ricky Ricardo "I Love Lucy" line.
"We both know where she lives. One of my nephews from the south side blew out a neighbor's window which is why I thought about it. He got into a heck of lot of trouble from his mother from that. She made him work that neighbor's yard for a solid year, all for free. It included snow shoveling and leaf raking, weeding, planting, whatever... He also had to pay for the new window. In the end, those two became friends and still are. He's in college now and..." Dorothy looked at me with impatience.
"Oh, I'm sorry about the story. Now back to the dirty deed. My nephew proudly told me that he took a lit cigarette and inserted a fire cracker fuse into the other end. Then he wrapped the bottom of the firecracker fuse around the M-80 fuse. Takes a couple of minutes for the cigarette to slowly burn down on its own to the firecracker fuse, then that one flashes and ignites the last one. It goes boom and we be far away when it would go off."
"Robin, that sounds as if it would work, but I'd like see it work first. OK?" I nodded yes while Dorothy continued, "I worry about possibly harming the infant."
"Dorothy, we do know that the infant sleeps on the second floor in the back. Remember how she complained about being able to hear the Ravenswood trains from the second floor?" Dorothy nodded yes. "We'll ring the doorbell first to see if anybody is home. Look in the picture window into the living room from the front porch to be sure that she's not there.
"Marcia said last month that her husband was taking classes on Tuesdays and Fridays at Loyola. Friday was her fuck night. I know that there is another two weeks of classes till night school finals...so he'll be in the clear.
