Last Saturday Shirley told me that she heard something that made her quite sad. She said that once your kids turn 13, or some arbitrary age around that number of years, you as a parent spend one year with them. I feel like my Mother-in-law is a complete outlier when it comes this alleged statistic. It feels like we have spent at least a decade of our almost fifteen years of marriage with her parents. One year, 365 days, seems like quite a bit of time to have left to spend with your kids upon them turning into teenagers. Obviously Shirley felt that amount of time was insufficient where as I felt like it was more than enough. Are there any children out there that when their parents get old and weird say “hey, we should really spend more time with our parents”? Probably not, especially if the parents live in a shitty place like Michigan. I get it if your parents live in Hawaii or Sandusky Ohio, but other than using your parents to get some nice weather, what’s the point? I guess there is an additional reason to want to see your parents when they get old and weird, to drop your kids off with them. Let’s be honest, willingly spending time with old and weird parents is something that is done more out of obligation and a result of guilt, not because it is an enjoyable experience.

Here is the bad news for Shirley. I am already weird and once the old part kicks in, our kids are not going to want to be spending much time with me. I guess that doesn’t really impact her all that much since I am not really around that much anyway. However, if she thinks I am helping out with the grandkids if we are around for them, she has another thing coming. I don’t get what the big fuss is about grandkids? While on the subject of how much of an inconvenience kids are, Shirley had to go to Indianapolis for a work related endeavor on Tuesday afternoon, she told me about this roughly around Tuesday afternoon. When our kids were younger this was a bit more problematic, in that it curtailed my ability to engage in my early morning activities. However, my kids are old enough now that I don’t have to be around early in the morning. Ok, let me restate that, I shouldn’t have to be around. Unfortunately, Shirley has basically ruined our kids, as most parents these days do, by coddling them. The bus stop is about a quarter of a mile from our house, that is one time around a standard size track for those of you who have no concept of distance. Every single morning up until this morning, the kids, who get on the bus at 6:25am, have been driven by one of us up to the bus stop. Yesterday morning the plan was to have them go on their own to the bust stop but they called an audible as they were going to bed and asked me to take them in. I agreed to this so I could play basketball but did have to leave ten minutes early to make sure they weren’t late for school.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are tennis days and it is nearly impossible to get tennis in in the morning and chauffeur the kids to school before it starts. So, I told the kids they were walking up to the bus stop this morning. While the pack of wolves, pit of snakes, and moat filled with crocodiles on the way to the bus stop make it a risky proposition, I figured they could handle it. However, I did half expect a call at 6:30 from them, while I was warming up for tennis, informing me that they had missed the bus. (no such call came in and when I arrived back home only Max and Murphy were waiting for me). The reason Shirley is down in Indianapolis is to engage in some executive coaching. Last night as I was leaving pickle ball I received the following text “will you and the kids text me some things you think I am good at?” Talk about putting your husband and kids on the spot. I didn’t respond promptly for a number of reasons, one being the hope that she would forget the request and I wouldn’t have to do it. Another reason is that she doesn’t really do a lot of stuff most wives do, I do pretty much all fo the cooking, a lot of the laundry, (although she is an incredible folder due to her stint working at Abercrombie & Fitch prior to law school) and a myriad of other things that a traditional wife would do if she was a stay at home mom and her husband actually worked a lot.

Shirley sent out the following text “Hi everyone. I am in Indy with my executive coach (humble brag) for work. She asked me to poll my family about what I am good at. My family (Jason and kids) are not responding. Would you mind please sharing what you think I am good at.Please just text me directly so no pile-on or sarcasm….Appreciate and love you!!!” What Shirley should know after almost 15 years of somewhat wedded bliss with me, is that I am not good at telling people what they are good at. Telling people what they are good at is similar to complimenting someone and I was raised in a Dutch CRC family where compliments were almost as much of a no no as premarital sex. As I prepared dinner I thought about how I should respond and finally texted this: “You are good at: Staying calm, not over reacting, thinking things through, analyzing problems and finding solutions.”

“Are you serious about staying calm? That is something I said I need to work on”

“Yes, you do a good job of that. I don’t count how you deal with the kids, no one should count that.” (if someone is calm dealign with their kids I figure they are either autistic or a serial killer)

“Well, I almost never feel calm”

“I do a lot of dumb shit and you seem to handle it well”

Mid way through grilling smash burgers I received a face time call from Shirley, I was on the fence about answering it but did, she wasn’t crying so I took that as a a sign that she appreciated what the kids had to say or that it was at the very least somewhat benign. She went into how she watched a reality show about some people dating without actually seeing what the other person looked like and when they met in person the chick picked apart the guy. She said she talked about how she picks me apart with her “executive coach” and feels bad about it. Not bad enough to stop it obviously as evidenced by the “are you serious about staying calm?” She was picking apart my list of things she is good at for crap’s sake! She does pick at me but one of the things I am good at is not listening to people or really giving a shit what they have to say when I am actually listening. The other thing I am really good at, which doesn’t have much practical value, possibly none what so ever, is getting extremely angry and acting irrationally when I lose at something.

I do think the best response, obviously as a joke, to her question about what she is good at would have been “not blow jobs, due to their infrequency” which leads me as I close to something that transpired on the Florida trip that I left out of my last blog, at least I think I did, that last blog was way too long for me to read again to see if I had already mentioned this. One of my buddies had texted me about borrowing our corn hole set right after we landed in Florida. I texted him back and we were in an exchange most of the afternoon. Upon leaving lunch I gave Shirley my phone to get directions to our beach resort, upon doing so my buddy texted “are you guy’s banging yet?” She actually took it in stride and thought it was funny. That being said, one thing she is really good at is being married to me, because it sure takes a certain acumen to put up with this guy for as long as she has.