It was bound to happen at some point, and that point was Saturday morning.  I attempted to do something productive with the family and get my family time out of the way so that I could golf by organizing a hike.  Rounding up the troops was like trying to herd cats and Shirley was of little help.  She wondered why I was in such a hurry and asked/stated “You aren’t golfing today are you?”  Hmmm, how should I answer that questions/statement?  The reality was that I had already made arrangements to play at 2:30 and Saturday was the last day for at least a week where the weather was going to cooperate.   “Well, I was planning on playing this afternoon” I responded meekly.  Shirley unloaded on me stating that she doesn’t ever get to do anything and that I am rubbing this golf thing in everyone’s face.  While I had a valid argument against the rubbing golf in everyone’s face since I typically try to sneak out of the house to golf without anyone noticing me, I decided to pull a Ned Beatty from Deliverance and just sit and take it hoping that without any resistance it would be over rather quickly.  Just sit and take it, don’t fight back, while that is normally against my nature, it seemed to be the best way to deal with the unavoidable barrage.

On top of the fact that I am not flaunting golf in anyone’s face (other than my buddies who are on a group text and unable to golf because their respective courses don’t have the balls to stand up to Whitler) it also isn’t my fault that women on whole don’t do much of anything hobby wise.  Seriously, other than having to work at home and not being able to get her haircut, this hasn’t changed Shirly’s life all that dramatically.  Granted, she now has to zoom video conference with her family to see them (probably a win for me due to the fact that I can disengage much easier from those as opposed to when her family gathering is at our house, which is basically 100% of the time).  I even told  her that if she wanted to go golfing I would gladly golf with her knowing there was a 99% chance she would rebuff my offer.  Turns out keeping my mouth shut was the correct play and I was able to shove off with the family towards the Ionia area a little after 10 am.  A couple weeks back, I think, I’m having trouble marking time, I took the kids to Ionia to go to the park we had previously gone sledding at so that we could go for a hike.  Turns out the park was closed due to the Cronona but the sign said they would reopen April 5.  So, I went back to that park hoping it would be open, once again I was turned away due to the Corona but the park is supposedly going to reopen April 15 according to the sign on the closed gate.  This is yet another example of how ridiculous this whole thing has gotten, just open the damn gate and let people use the park.

While the park we tried to go to initially is an Ionia County park, the Ionia State Recreation area is a state park and for whatever reason remains open, or at least it was open a couple weeks ago.  So, we headed over there, I had a bad feeling that it was going to be closed and that I would end up ramming the Chrysler Pacifica into the closed gate out of frustration.  Fortunately for the Pacifica and the gate the park was open.  We managed to persuade the kids into a hike with the promise of Jimmy Johns if they made it all the way back without being dickheads.  While the requirement is a bit subjective, they did fairly well on the hike and we headed to JJ”s after hiking.  What was noteworthy about the hike was that whenever we encountered other people on the trail they would move away from us as if we the evil villains from Hellraiser (a truly terrifying movie from my high school days).  Another complete over reaction from all the hysteria, pretty sure when they do figure all of this out they will let us know that the chances of getting the Corona outdoors is even less likely than the Lions ever winning the super bowl.

My kids loving JJ”s and being able to curb their behavior with the promise of it it is something I have yet to figure out.  Hey, I like JJ”s just as much as anyone, but its just a sandwich.  Regardless, JJ”s was not in the cards for us due to the fact that the location closest to our house was closed until further notice based upon Whitler’s latest executive order.  Fortunately, Culver’s was near by so Butter Burgers were going to have to do.  I managed to make it to the course in time and get my 18 holes in, when I returned home I discovered that Shirley had invited our neighbors over for a campfire in direct violation of the Executive Order in play, it was too bad I couldn’t find a place to sell me paint and landscaping materials so we could triple down on the violation.  Some of this stuff made sense at one point, but now it just seems like she is being a bitch to be a bitch, which rarely works out for anyone.  There’s something you need to know about my neighbor, his name is Joe and he is a man’s man. He is about 6’3 and has a brush cut, he has an awesome 4 wheeler, a lot of guns that he kills a ton of shit with, and he seems like the type of guy who can fix pretty much anything.  I  on the other hand am not a man’s man.   When I get out my chainsaw and cut shit up I typically am amazed that I haven’t accidentally chopped off an appendage. I also don’t cut anything up that is still standing because that would probably go terribly wrong.  My grandfather was a carpenter which makes me think I was adopted, because I have no DIY skills what so ever.  Unfortunately, God played a cruel joke on me and gave me an excessive amount of back and chest hair to make up for my over all lack of  manliness in every other area.

So, the pressure was on, I had to make a kick ass camp fire to impress Joe, which wasn’t a given.  I have had multiple miss haps with gasoline when trying to start a campfire due to my lack of confidence that the fire will continue to burn (me dumping way too much gas on an already lit fire).   My latest trick has been to take a beer can and cut it in half and put gas in the bottom half and light it on fire and put it in my firepit under all the kindling and logs.  Typically this works well but wouldn’t you know it just as they arrived it looked like my fire was going to crap out.  So, I grabbed a bunch of dead ornamental grass to throw on the fire and put an additional beer can of gas on the fire.  I realized that it exposed me as someone who would never make it on one of those survivor shows (pretty sure they don’t give you five gallons of gas and an aim and flame for fire starting purposes) to my neighbor, but having the fire go completely out would have been much worse and likely resulted in an additional therapy session.

With the fire going full force after the additional gas and grass, we began to converse about various things.  Wouldn’t you know it, they were starting to question the stay at home order and struggling with their two boys as well.  It was refreshing to spend some time with another couple in person and just talk about things other than Corona.  To be honest, there are very few people I have spoken with who don’t think this whole thing has gotten out of hand.  I even had a buddy who was full on board with everything that was implemented by the authorities, only to admit that I was right all along and that there was no need to take the extreme measures that were implemented.

Being right is great, I am right most of the time just ask me.  However, what does another couple week of having my liberties taken away really matter?  There is no need to extend this to April 30 but having gone this far we may as well keep it going now.  That’s not to say I am mentally capable of coming out of this with all my faculties fully in tact.  I’ll be honest, I can’t even remember what normal life was like, what was it like for Shirley to get a haircut and for me to either love it or hope her hair would grow extra fast before the next one?  What was it like to go into my garage and not see a constant reminder of how excessive my drinking has become (I may need to move my empties to the third stall so I don’t see them on my way to the fridge in the garage to get another beer)?

This morning was a painful reminder of how on edge things have gotten for me after what seems like months of quarantine.  What exacerbates things is that 2020 already feels like it should be over.  January seemed to drag on, February went fast but only because I was in Costa Rica for 10 days, March felt like 3 months by itself, and April is going slower than the automatic check out line filled with senior citizens.  My brother and his wife finally had their baby and there was a text string with the Jansmas sending well wishes.  They didn’t have a name yet so I suggested Corona May Jansma.  Eventually after a number of texts the name Destiny popped into my head and I thought I would send a list of stripper names for them to work off from.  Shirley immediately came down stairs and chastised me for being so snarky (she knew what she was getting into).  Well, if there’s one thing I don’t like being curtailed it’s my ability to be snarky.  I snapped and for the first time in recent memory told her to F off.  Not good, even in light of how awful Gretchen has been.

Fortunately, I actually had court this morning and I was able to clear my head on my way over to court.  On my way back I realized that I was mostly in the wrong, even though the stripper name list was gold, even if my mom was on the text.  So, I apologized to Shirly for losing my temper and responding to her instruction inappropriately.  Maybe there are some positives from this whole ordeal.