Fluffy

So there I was, minding my own business as I walked through the parking lot on my way across the street. A hooptie that had seen better days pulled up next to me and I heard a polite young voice say “Ma’am, could you tell me where the WIC office is?”

I peered inside the car and discovered a young man with a sort of small-town aura surrounding him, just the kind of guy who you know his entire family came out on Friday nights to watch him play second string kicker at high school football games. As I was giving him directions, I noticed his passenger.

I assume she was his wife. She looked as if she had not showered in a couple of days, wore a ratty sweatsuit over her chubby body, and had her chubby hands folded over her bulging stomach. Pregnant or not, that’s no excuse to fail to shower or do laundry, but perhaps she was not feeling well. What was unforgivable was the proud, smug look of satisfaction on her face that I remember pregnant girls from my high school displayed. The kind that says “HEY LOOK AT ME I HAD SEX AND GOT PREGNANT SO I MUST BE REALLY SPECIAL NOW”. Well, good for you. You managed to snag yourself a decent young man who was probably lonely and married the first girl who smiled at him twice, which happened to be you. Now the military has to take care of you, you who cannot figure out how to wash your hair, and now you are bringing a child into this world. You need WIC vouchers to assure that you can buy oatmeal and eggs because you don’t understand that you cannot buy a new stereo system for your hooptie every 6 months. Your husband will likely spend at least a year in Iraq, which three weeks into the deployment you will wail that you are unable to do anything on your own and annoy people like myself with your helplessness. You will then file for divorce, demanding as many of the military benefits as you can get without actually being in the military yourself. You’ll write checks in the express lane and file for disability social security at age 21.

But seriously, I see this kind of thing happen far too often. I am amazed at the number of 20 year olds here who are divorced with two children and are constantly fending off legal battles with their ex-wives. Even before they become exes, they are problem makers. Wives get upset because they are “scared to drive” and “can’t ship household belongings on their own”, yet hmm, they manage to make it to pottery shopping trips on the weekend.

Yeah, I’m cynical, but not mean. I wished the young man and his wife good luck and I truly meant it. Maybe it’s just the intense heat here that is getting to me. Apparently, only the South (back in the good ole USA) ever understood the value of air conditioning.

P.S. There is a guy sitting across from me with his shirt COMPLETELY unbuttoned. Another woman is parading around in a bikini top. Neither of them have hit the gym in the past 4 years apparently so it’s not especially appealing. I give the example only to explain how hot it is here.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 24th, 2005 at 3:58 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.