The Two Space Parker

I went to the YMCA with my children today, and spent fifteen minutes circling the gigantic parking lot for a vacant space. Feeling frustrated and angry I finally saw a miniscule parking spot far away from the entrance. I was thinking, DAMN these ginormous cars with only two carseats inside them! They don't need to take up so much space, and why do people with small families need freaking huge vehicals? That was not the case today, however. The cars next to me were reasonably sized. I felt angry at the white car to my right for being two close to the line and looked over to see why that made my space so small. The brand new SUV to my left was a foot and a half into my parking spot. I drive an older car that spent its youth in the garage of an elderly couple who apperantly had a small garage because it has more dents in the doors than it has smooth sections. I think there is a dent every other half inch on both sides of the car, so I figured what's one more dent. I should pop my door open and slam the crap out of this beautiful shiny luxury SUV. Now you may be gasping in horror that I would consider intentionally denting a beautiful car that doesn't belong to me, but let me tell you that unloading a carseat and a three year old is a task alone, and being fat doesn't exactly help my situation. Doing it in 2/3 of a parking spot is nearly impossible. So I opened the door...slightly more forcefully than I would have usually. And when I say slightly more forceful than usually, I mean I slammed the crap out of that selfish, rich, entitled, idiot's car. People, I don't care if you are a crappy parker. I am terrible at it. I don't care if you are on the line. It is gray area in my book. But if you are a foot and a half in a parking spot thinking nobody can fit in the miniscule spot and that your precious new car will be untouched, think again. You may have an angry hurried woman more than willing to squeeze into whatever spot she can find, and she will ding the hell out of your car. You are not doing yourself a favor by assuming people just won't park there because it is near impossible for a car to fit. I will find a way to make my sedan fit, and you will have several dings in your car, because I will not warn my children to open the door softly, I will tell them that the person who drives the fancy car is an ass for making me have to flip the car seat upside down to try and get it into the car, and that they can practice opening and closing their car doors as much as they want for two minutes, and to put some muscle into it!

Fatalistic Valentiner

I hate Valentines Day. It has nothing to do with the fact that I punctured my son's eardrum last valentines day, had a miscarriage the valentines before, or had my babysitter run away from my house and be chased down by her parents the year before, I really just think it is a putrid holiday. I hated this holiday before all that crap happened. The real reason I hate Valentines is the reason I LOVE Halloween. People pretend to be something that in fact they are not. I think about romantic relationships and have them placed into several categories in my head. The Cheaters, The Cowards who want to cheat (but are afraid of getting busted), widows, those who have never loved, those who were in love but have drifted apart as a result of trials and life, those who despise their spouse but are too lazy to get divorced, the "friends", the lop-sided relationships where one person thinks things are picture-perfect and the other partner is suffocating in marital despair, and the the floaters who float by comfortably. I am, of course, excluding newlyweds since they are mostly freaks and are hormonally altered. I am not saying that there are no happily married people. They are few and far between in my opinion, but I am sure they exist. I think people can be happy, and be married, but Marital Bliss is as realistic as the easter bunny. My question is this....why for one day, do people pretend? It is as strange a practice as someone who doesn't believe in Christ having a Nativity in their yard at Christmas time. I think that those flowers husbands buy their wives would be far more productive on a day she has spent with a GI bug barfing into the toilet all day. Or a husband could surprise her with her favorite perfume one day because he notices that she is out. Women, why not make our husband a special candle-lit dinner on a day we know he has a rough schedule, or fill up his tank of gas when we see it is empty and know he will be rushed in the morning on the way to work. Don't you think if we did these things along the way, we would quit floating through marriage, or despising our partners, or cheating, or helping them feel justified about cheating. I wouldn't know....I don't do these things. My marriage has fallen into several of these categories in our ten years of being together. Right now we are floating. Floating is good....it buys us some time, but you can only float so long. I can tell you one thing I will not be doing on Valentines, and that is writing an ooey gooey mushy Hallmark Card filled with fflowery bullshit just because it is February Fourteenth. I will talk to my husband about his day, give him a realistic gift and a card that is sincere, and hope that nobody dies or gets hospitalized.