Archives for February 2015

When I wrote about the first time I moved to Texas I played around with telling you about the dumbest mother ever but somewhere in the midst of writing I simply forgot and moved on.

If I hadn’t wandered through Costco Friday afternoon I might have forgotten about it entirely but than coincidence and or the universe put a wrinkle in my day.

You see the dumbest mother ever is a 53 year-old man I play basketball with. A short man who upon our first meeting told me to be careful because he had a broken rib and didn’t want to get hurt.

I smiled at him and suggested he choose to sit out the game.

“No, I can play you just have to be careful.”

I shook my head and told him grace and I are at odds.

“I am not responsible for protecting your broken rib. This is a contact sport and though I won’t try to hurt you I won’t promise not to bump into your either.”

He didn’t like my answer and it wasn’t long before he had words with me and other players.

I Am Not A Tourist

It is my first February in Texas and I am wandering around the Stockyards in Fort Worth. I am watching the Longhorns amble down the street and a man is pushing against me because he wants get a better picture.

 

The second time he elbows me I glare at him and he tells me to move.

I smile at him and he doesn’t know what to make of it. I don’t care, it is not worth my time or energy to fight.

I am not a tourist here. I can come back any time I want.

Twenty years before I wouldn’t have remained silent. I might grabbed the camera cord around his neck and made him eat it, or at least tried to but now I just don’t care.

There are no family members with me, no one to protect or be concerned about it so it is easy to just walk away. Who needs the trouble, I don’t.

*****

Later that night I tell a buddy of mine about it and he laughs.

“Man you have either grown up or gotten soft in your old age. Maybe it is both.”

Wasn’t really a need for me to do anything, but some people want the world to accommodate their needs.”

He laughs and tells me he is sure Texas will bring out my inner cowboy and I’ll be in a good bar room brawl sooner or later.

“Just make sure you are the guy busting the bottle over the other guy’s head. Holler if you need me and I’ll be there. It will be like old times.”

This time I laugh.

“We sound like a couple of altercockers. Next thing you know the wives will be telling us about how much we have embellished these stories.”

The Dumbest Mother You Ever Met

Months have passed and the dumbest mother you have ever met and I have played on the same and opposite teams on multiple occasions.

I don’t enjoy playing with him. His over inflated sense of self makes him a poor teammate.

He still expects the world to accommodate his needs but I am unwilling to  cater to his particular brand of insanity.

One night we’re on opposite sides and guarding each other. He is talking smack and I tell him since he can’t back it up he should be quiet.

He tells me he is going to score on me and I say it is a bad night.

“I am not in the mood, just play the game.”

A few moments later he scores on me and I have to grit my teeth and take it because it was a good shot.

I make a point to play tighter defense and he tells me I need to back off because I am too big. I tell him it is part of the game.

We jaw back and forth and when he tells me I can’t deal with him I block his shot.

The next two plays he intentionally fouls me.

“You better stop or there will be consequences.”

He tells me he is not afraid and tries to insult me.

“Ok, you made your choice and I have made mine. You don’t exist anymore.”

My team loses so I walk off the court. The dumbest mother ever fights with two players on the other team.

It is not me, it is him.

We play one more game against each other.

This time I play most of the game under the basket and he the dumbest mother ever cries it is unfair that I am bigger than he is.

When he pushes me I catch him in the side of his head with an elbow.

He tries to call a foul but no one listens. Not just because the play is clean but because everyone is tired of his bad behavior.

Dad, Who Was That Man?

Friday afternoon the kids and I are at Costco when the dumbest mother ever walks down the aisle.

I turn my head before we make eye contact. I don’t have any interest in talking to him.

“Daddy, there is a man giving you the stink eye.”

I look at my daughter and ask if it is a short man wearing an ugly shirt and she says yes.

“We play basketball together and he doesn’t like me.”

She asks why and I shrug my shoulders.

“It is his problem, not mine. I am not making eye contact because he is not worth my time. Sometimes the best thing you can do is ignore someone. People hate that, it takes all of their power away.”

My daughter smiles and says he looks angrier.

“You must have taken all of his power away daddy.”

Twenty years ago it probably would have been different, but I think this way is better. Always makes me happy to be a good role model and I won’t lie and say I didn’t appreciate being able to aggravate him without doing anything.

His name was Max. He was a 47 year-old single father who would sometimes bring his kids to the office. They would sit in the conference room and watch movies. Max was one of the new guys and I was told to show him the ropes. It didn’t matter that I was 27 and married for less than a month or that I had been with the company about three months longer than he had because I had seniority.

Seniority meant that I technically knew more and that he was obligated to watch, listen and learn from me or so our branch manager told him. I was too green to recognize that he was shoveling a load full of manure over both of us. Maybe Max knew, maybe he recognized that he was being shuffled off to go work with some kid and was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.  I really don’t know or at least I don’t remember him saying anything to me about that.

What I do remember is that he and climbed into my new Honda Accord and rode off into the wilderness to go sell copiers. It wasn’t what anyone with sense would call a great job. We spent hours walking up and down the street and visiting offices where we would try to convince the people there that they needed to spend a lot of money leasing a piece of equipment that would depreciate by 75% in a month. Ok, that might be an exaggeration but the point is that by the end of the lease the best offer they would get would be from us. At least that was the goal- sell them something that worked really well for a short period of time so that 24-36 months later you could provide them with credit for the new and improved version.

Hotter Than The Sun But Twice As Bitter

The first day that Max and I went out the thermometer outside the building said that it was 103. I was dressed in a black suit and armed with a twenty pound briefcase. Six hours and 3 miles later I had lost twenty pounds in water weight. We had secured a few leads but not as many as I would have liked. More than a few of the receptionists had taken pity on the sweat covered men and insisted on providing us with glasses of cold water.

Max asked me if it was true that I was going to the Olympics and I nodded my head in affirmation. When he asked for details I said very little and told him that I had won a regional sales contest. He congratulated me and told me that he was jealous. I said that there was no reason to be jealous and he shook his head. “If I was your age I could just start over.”

The words hung in the air. I didn’t know how to respond. So I went with the “you can always start over” and told him that all he had to do was try. He sighed deeply and told me that he wished it was so simple. He had too many responsibilities and that kept him from doing anything. I told him that I thought that he was wrong and he asked me what I would do if my wife stopped putting out, stopped talking to me, had a mortgage and kids. I laughed and told him that he painted a very pleasant picture of the future. He looked at me and said that I didn’t have a clue as to how life could push, pull and yank two people apart. Looked at me and said that I didn’t understand how you could love kids so fiercely that you would be willing to do almost anything to protect them from pain and said that I should call him in 15 years.

I didn’t say anything but my poker face gave betrayed me and he knew what I was thinking. “Jack, you only think you know about life but you don’t know dick yet.”

That was enough to elicit a response from me. I told him that I thought that it was sad that he would just give up without a fight and that I didn’t need to have kids to know about life. He looked at me and smiled, told me to call him again in a few years after friends had died and gotten divorced. I thanked him for being a ray of sunshine and said that while I couldn’t say for certain that all of my friends would stay together statistically speaking it was highly unlikely that any of my friends would die any time soon and really, it would probably be a while before anyone got divorced.

Fifteen years later five couples are no more and there are five fewer friends walking above ground. I guess that Max was right about a few things. In all fairness he wasn’t bitter all the time. He had a presence and personality to him and could tell a great joke. I learned a few tricks from him on how to make a proper presentation and I came to like his kids very much. I sometimes wonder what happened to Max but I really don’t have any way to find out.  You see, several months after he came on board he had a major heart attack and that was the last we saw of him.

To the best of my knowledge he didn’t die, but while he was recovering I got a new job and left the company. I can’t say that I have thought about him all that much, but I can say that when I have I always remembered that I promised not to be as bitter as he was. Even during the darkest hours I have always figured that they were just moments in time that would one day be nothing but specks in the past.