Ahem. (Have to clear my throat because this is something I haven’t said out loud)
After twenty-five years of making you, the kids, the house, and my job the totality of my universe, I’m taking back my social life. I will make some friends. I will no longer feel guilty when I say I’m going out somewhere. The “tsk” sound you made when I said I was going out on Saturday to meet dpr, whom I may never have the chance to meet again, was the clincher. Sitting on the sofa watching Cops while massaging your feet is not how I like to spend my Saturday nights.
No, I don’t know WHAT I like to do on Saturday nights. It’s been a long time since I had a choice, and my old hobbies of drinking and getting high are no longer options. It’s a brave new world, and I want to see what it’s like.
When I was depressed and unable to socialize it played well with you. But I’m not like that anymore. Perhaps you’d benefit from a little counselling, yourself.
Our oldest is almost sixteen; I think we can leave the eleven-year-olds with her. Do you know how many times we have gone out without the kids since the first one was born? Two weddings and one time Christmas shopping. Oh, and two times when THEIR social lives took them out and we had nothing better to do. FIVE TIMES IN SIXTEEN YEARS! Kinda creepy.
You are welcome to come along. You’d like these people. You’d fit right in and any antisocial feelings you might have you can put aside. We are grownups. We are allowed to enjoy ourselves.
You go, boy! WTG drop. You should get out and enjoy life!
You want to know something ironic? Drinking it up, getting high and sitting on the couch rubbing psycat’s feet sounds like a good time to me. Although, I must admit, I hate TV, so I can understand the COPS part.
But seriously, we have a 14 y/o and a 10 y/o and we’ve felt (mostly) comfortable leaving them on their own while we go out for the evening over the last year. Unfortunately, we’re lazy homebodies, but reading this inspires me to take her out more often. Thanks for getting off the couch and letting us know about it dude.
NONONONONONO! I don’t drink (well, hardly) or get high (at all) anymore. I gotta do that SOBER! I break up when Sideshow Bob has to massage Selma’s feet during MacGuyver. But I really don’t know how to have fun. That’s what the liquor and drugs provided.
OTOH, compared with Shirley’s and Tater’s problems, this doesn’t seem like much to rant about, which is why it isn’t in the Pit. Maybe if I add in that I sleep on a worn out hide-a-bed in the living room because we realized that, with her snoring and my tossing and turning, only one of us can be asleep at any one time…
Oooh, it’s nasty! The mattress started out four inches thick, but is squashed to a tiny fraction of that. The only crossbar that doesn’t poke into me is the one that has sagged into a gentle arc. I have to sleep diagonally because it’s too short. I have to arrange myself so my soft parts match up with its hard parts. Ten percent of the wires and clips have broken and replaced with coat hangers and macrame twine, the suburban equivalent to baling wire and rope.
And then there’s the damned fish tank, bubbling all night and keeping me awake. After years of sleeping with a pillow over my head and earplugs in my ears in a vain attempt to block her snoring, I’ve gotten used to sleeping with my head “naked.” But this aerator thing sounds like Niagra Falls. And the stupid air cleaner that pulls a small amount of dust from the air–did she have to put it on what amounts to a large, empty tin can? Of course–it was about the only open surface. But what happened to the sheet of foam rubber I put under it to muffle it?
Tonight, both noisemakers go on a timer. I hope it’s not bad for the fish.
