DD in Seattle

I don't like being told what not to do. Generally, making some sort of reasonable argument as to why I should or should not do something will only encourage me to take the opposite tack. Call it a fatal flaw if you will, but more often than not, you will enable yourself to win whatever argument you have with me by just fighting vehemently for the polar opposite. For the sake of the simplest explanation I can come up with, let's say that Kim would love for me to find a job in Texas before we move in June. The best way for her to ensure that I find one is to make comments to me like, "Honey, you know that your job here isn't that bad. Now that you've put in a year there, it can only get easier. After all, you understand what the members are looking for and they trust you now. I would imagine that in the next twelve months, you would be able to really make your mark."
As soon as these words would leave her mouth, all of the hairs on my neck would stand up on end and I would be ruthlessly tearing through my resume and sending out cover letters to every possible job in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Instead, she has inherited the incredibly honed nagging skills that I thought were reserved for Gramma G, and the search for the job that I desperately need in order to make this move a reality has stalled greatly and the stress level in the house has grown exponentially with each passing week. You would think that Kim would understand this dynamic, and truly realize how I am wound. She could play this up for all its worth, and I would believe that she is playing me in this case, but I know that she really does want to move. So I am forced to fight the good fight by not doing what I absolutely realize I should be doing because somebody is insisting that I follow a logical plan. 25 years from now, when my psychotherapists have all given up on me, I will figure this all out for myself, but for now (to my own detriment in most cases) I will remain stoically stubborn to the point of ludicrous, because I know no other way.
So my brother-in-law who alegedly reads this blog makes some off-handed remark to Kim on the phone tonight that he hopes he is never a subject of my venom, but if he is, he knows how to fight back (even if he has to lie). The gauntlet has thus been tossed, and I have no choice but to preserve what is left of my manhood by making Stevie F the focus of a posting.
In doing so, I could dredge up the past. I actually hired Steve as a dishwasher when he was 16 or 17 years old, before Kim and I were even dating I believe. To be perfectly honest, that period of time is still a little hazy as the remainder of the toxins I had poisoned my body with for a decade were only slowly seeping out my pores, but he definitely worked for me for a time, and I am certain I could come up with a dozen good stories that go back over 10 years. He turned 28 last week, and there is nothing like watching some kid you have known since he was a scrawny, scraggly, awkward teenager closing in on 30. It is pretty frightening to be certain.
Today, Stevie F works for the Air Force, and lives in Guam with his wife and two boys. He has his own little slice of island nirvana in the South Pacific, is an incredibly devoted father and husband. His two sons, Trevor and Tyler are among the best behaved children I have ever met, and there probably isn't a waking moment that his thoughts are not with the two of them. For the next month, he is separated from his family stationed in Seattle for a couple of weeks of training followed by filling in on the flight line for two more weeks due to the number of airmen currently deployed. It is the first time he has been back to the mainland since October 2004 and the first time he has been separated from his family for more than a week. Not bad for a guy in the United States Air Force during wartime. Conversely, Kim's brother Khris (also in the Air Force) has spent probably half of the past 10 years galavanting across the globe from Yemen to Anchorage, back to Diego Garcia and all the way down in Bogota. Again, I could utilize this avenue as my opportunity to tear into my brother-in-law, as this would be as simple a topic as anyone could imagine, but taking him to task for doing whatever he can to spend time with his family is not exactly a fair topic. After all, who can blame the guy for utilizing whatever means necessary to watch his boys grow up.
So instead of talking about the Little Dishwasher Who Could or the GI in paradise, let's focus on the here and now. It is more topical and frankly just as easy fodder for my pen. Stevie F is a 28 year old, with a month of freedom, where he can taste the lusty flavors of bachelorhood without guilt, remorse or fear of retribution. Let's face it, trapped halfway between Hawaii and Japan, Lindsay doesn't exactly have the access to Stevie's whereabouts, entertainment choices, debauchery or rondez-vouses (that must be the plural of rondez-vous--I took a semester of French, so I don't expect any kind of contradiction on that one). He has the opportunity to enjoy a month of his twenties before they expire completely. I am pretty sure he was married right when he turned twenty, so he has spent the best decade of his life trapped in a marriage with two kids. I am not for a second suggesting that he would change that for anything--he would be the first to tell you that he loves his life, and I would never question that for even a second. But come on, if you've got a month on your own to taste the freedom that you haven't experienced in almost eight years (he's never legally been to a bar as an unmarried man--digest that one for just a second), you owe it to yourself to take advantage of the situation.
Let's look at my own limited experiences in this arena. November 2004, there was a labor stoppage in San Francisco in the hotel industry, so we rotated out to fill in for the line employees over a two month period. I was called to duty so to speak at the tail end of the negotiations and my anticipated two weeks of slavery turned out to be a week of slow shifts behind the check-in counter, followed by a few days of hanging out because the work stoppage had come to an end. I was geared up to be working 18 hour shifts with no days off, cleaning rooms, working room service, cooking in the kitchen--whatever was necessary, but my timing turned out to be pretty damn good. Based on my good fortune, I could have taken a couple of different roads. I could tell Kim that they were working me like a dog; I was barely getting any sleep; my hands were writhing from scrubbing so many toilets; the out of work employees were hurling bottles at us as we crossed the picket line--whatever. It didn't matter because whatever I told her, she would have believed. She had no way of getting in touch with me. I didn't have a cell phone at the time, so I called her when I called her and to be fair, she was understanding of the whole situation and if I was able to only call once a day, she would have been fine with it. But I was in San Francisco--an absolutely incredible town, staying at one of the crown jewel hotels in the city right on top of Nob Hill, within walking distance to Fisherman's wharf on one side and Chinatown on the other, and there was no freaking way I was going to sit in a hotel and mope if I didn't have to. You just don't get opportunities like that very often, and you owe it to yourself to take advantage of it.
It didn't hurt that Esch was out in SF with me the entire first week. Our trips overlapped, so he had a week to acclimate himself to the area, and we had another week to indulge in the offerings of the city. Needless to say, we enjoyed the experience. There were a couple of days that neither of us remember the last bar we went to or how the hell we got back to the hotel. We acquired tickets to The Big Game (Cal-Stanford) one Saturday. We ate out and partied after every shift. When we didn't go out on the town, we loaded up on scotch and beer from the mini-bars. Esch was in charge of that aspect of the hotel, so getting 30 or 40 mini bottles of Macallan 12 was not really too challenging. There was a hospitality suite set up for all of the managers from all over the country, so when the bars closed, we would often find ourselves playing poker late into the night with some of our counterparts or sitting in our hotel rooms with Ginormous Calzones from up the road and a six pack of Heineken, watching Napoleon Dynamite or Anchorman on Spectravision. It didn't hurt that I was working the front desk and could reverse any charges that made their way to our rooms. We were, after all, here because they needed us, and we weren't about to pay for booze, movies or hookers--did I say hookers, I meant booze and movies--how the hell could we charge hookers to our rooms? That just doesn't make any sense.
The point is, I didn't lie to Kim about any of this. I was going to be in trouble no matter what I did. Call it a Catch-22 or call it damned if you do, damned if you don't, but these situations are untenable when it comes to a marriage. If I did nothing but work like a dog for two weeks, I wouldn't have called enough and would have been made to feel guilty. If I worked like a dog for two weeks and went out once in a while to unwind, I would have been spending money irresponsibly and would have been made to feel guilty. If I worked like a dog for two weeks, spent time networking with managers from other hotels, I would be accused of spending too much time talking to women while I was away from the familiy and would have been made to feel guilty. If I had all the time I needed and stayed in my hotel room, following all protocol set out by the arrangement of my parent company, I would have been an absolute loser and would have insisted that Esch shoot me in the scrotum. Instead, I tasted the fruits of the city. I reached out and enjoyed the chance to experience San Francisco, because I didn't know when I would have the opportunity to do so again. Would it have been better if I had my family there? Well, carrying Lauren up those insane hills would have sucked worse than any hell I could have imagined at that point, because she would have refused to walk and nobody would have wanted to wait for one of those cable cars. But other than that, it would have been incredible to have the family there. I would relish the chance to bring Kim back there for a week to take in the sights, smells and sounds, but that is a moot point. I didn't have the choice of bringing them with me, and due to that fact, I was left with a different set of choices. I wouldn't have changed one of them, because it was one of the best weeks I can remember.
So this brings us back to Stevie F, trapped in Seattle for a month. When Kim talked to him tonight, he waxed poetic about being the designated freaking driver for all of his buddies for the month. What the hell kind of sense does that make? Do you think you get bonus points for hiding from your manhood? I have no problem with rotating the DD responsibilities over a month long period, but making March your Designated month seems a bit of a stretch of goodwill. Stevie, for the love of God, tell Lindsay to take your balls out of her jewelry box and ship them overnight (hell, I'll foot the bill) to Seattle. She may not think you need them there, and maybe you have been bamboozled by being trapped on Exile Island for too long, but you will never forgive yourself for toting the guys all over Puget Sound, only to get home at three in the morning, just in time to validate your husbandry and fatherhood to your wife 3000 miles away. Tell her whatever you want. For that matter, maybe you are already doing that. Perhaps you were just telling Kim what you want her to think, and if that is the case, I have all the respect in the world for you. But please, for the love of all that is holy, do not spend the first and probably last free month of your twenties in your barracks calling Lindsay at three in the morning without having at least enjoyed your self. You don't get this chance very often, and believe me, you are going to be in trouble no matter what the hell you do. You either won't call enough; will call too much; will sound drunk on the phone; she'll swear she hears girls giggling in the background; she tried calling you while you were playing Malik, the emerald city's finest Limo driver and nobody answered the phone; your flight home will get delayed; Tyler will need stitches and it will be your fault for not being there; you sound like you don't miss them enough on the phone; you haven't even made an attempt to see if they can all fly out to see you; she found out that you spoke to your mom before you spoke to her about how your classes were going (only because you didn't want to wake her at four in the morning--but it will still be your fault)---Hell, I could go on for days. Bottom line--YOU ARE SCREWED. Don't fly back to Guam wondering whether or not the rest of the guys had a good time. Lead the way. To quote one of my favorite bosses (and as your former boss, this should resonate well) "Ask forgiveness, not permission." When you get home, the balls go back to the jewelry box--you may as well see if they still serve any function.

Editors Note--The balls references throughout this posting have nothing (repeat nothing) to do with any suggestions of infidielity. They are merely meant to represent Stevie F's bravado, joie de vive and youthful exuberance. Any supposition by anybody that the writer would even lightheartedly imply that Stevie should do something outside the bounds of his marriage are erroneous. Stevie--if you are confused by all the big words, no matter how much fun you are having due to my advice or in spite of it, keep it in your pants. That oughtta do it.