How I Got Picked Up…And Put Right Back Down

Well, it takes a certain combination of charm, aggression, fatigue and love of family.

Every once in a while I release my death-grip on the remote control, the iMac and all other forms of male-dominated technology in our home so my wife can have the night off from me.

I’d had a long day of last minute writing deadlines. My wife had had a long three years of child-wrangling. We were both crispy enough to get served up in a basket with ketchup and chicken fingers.

So I left my beloved so she could enjoy a little peace ‘n quiet and headed to a bar to veg.

Margarita in hand, swallowed whole in a sea of pretty happily buzzed twenty and thirtysomething or others I was staring vacantly at the TV like I actually understood the colorful pictures when I felt a nudge.

I look over and there’s a table of cuties~buzzed, naughty and as I was about to discover out for a bachelorette party.

None of which has applied to me in even the remotest of possibilities for about fifteen years.

So this blonde arm-nudger says to me “What’s going on?”.

I’m like, clueless. I’m also like, married. So I quickly do the math, look back up at the television and reply “Oh, um I think Damon just homered for the Yankees~its 5-2”.

Cutie doesn’t blink. Which makes me think “Uh oh, Red Sox fan”. In fact, not only doesn’t she blink, but she doesn’t even look at the TV. Instead, she goes “So, what else is going on”.

Now I’m thinking, “Shit~I just summed up my entire grasp of sportstalk in one sentence”.

Then I notice she’s not wearing a Yankees cap. Or a sports jersey. Or a boyfriend. And despite all the noise in this place for some reason I can hear my heart starting to accelerate, like someone just asked me the answer to a math-quiz question.

So basically there’s this nubile athletic Cheetah staring down a past-its-prime wildebeast. I mean, let’s keep this well in perspective.

I was at best, the helpless defenseless mouse this feline was batting around just to keep its game sharp until something worth it time ambled in to view.

So I did the only thing a red-blooded, not-entirely-past-its-prime, can enjoy the painting without smudging the canvas, hot-blooded male would do.

I had an outburst of “Marriage-Tourettes”.

In the entire space of one sentence I managed to blurt out something like MARRIED I HAVE A THREE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER I NEVER EVEN GO OUT THAT OFTEN HOW ‘BOUT THOSE YANKEES HAVE I SHOWED YOU PICTURES OF MY GIRL?!!!!

And, true to spastic form the next thing I know I’m flashing them cell-phone pics of my family.

Which Cheetah could care less about and proved the point by responding “You know what? Everyone always thinks their kid is like, the cutest. You can’t be objective”.

Which is when I realized, Cheetah’s may be fast, but Wildebeasts are made for the long haul. And I said something like “Oh, you mean like when girls say they’re a size six but they’re really like, a size eight?”.

Yeah, I guess you could say that kind of put a damper on our little Tom And Jerry flirt-fest. The last I saw of Cheetah, she bolted off to the bar with a well executed eye-roll/hair toss to her friends, “Well, enjoy talking to the guy who’s married with a three year old…”.

By the time I got home both mama and daughter were curled around each other, fast asleep. I took Advil, wondered to myself since when on a school night do I have three drinks, then crawled in to bed just in time for Ella to do a full-out toddler stretch by planting a kick to my chest.

Which made me gasp for air and wonder how many pounds-per-square inch force can a rib absorb before it hairline fractures?

But it also made me smile, like I said~us Wildebeasts are built for the long haul.