Troubles and Treats (4 page)

I need to do something to re-erect our love life.

Re-erect?  Is that a word?  That’s the word I’m looking for, right?  Whatever.

First, I need to do something to get myself in shape.  Three months post-baby and
I still feel big as a house.  I lost all the baby weight pretty quickly, but I still
feel like my ass is huge.  I also need to do something about my vagina.  There is
no way it feels the same to him when we have sex.  Although, we haven’t really had
sex since Billy was born.  I let him get halfway in and then he made some comment
about my sloppy vagina and I told him to get off of me.  Plenty of women have natural
child birth and they don’t have floppy vaginas. I've looked it up on the internet. 
I've tried to look at mine with a mirror and my leg up on the sink of the bathroom. 
That had been right after I got home from the hospital with Billy though and it was
a hot mess.  I probably should have waited a few more weeks, but now I can’t look
at raw ground meat without crossing my legs and wincing.

Basically, I’m afraid to have sex with my husband.  He’s always loved my vagina. 
He even has a shirt that says: I love my wife’s vagina.  What if having sex with me
now is like fucking a bowl of Jell-O Jigglers?  That is not at all hot, especially
if they’re green Jell-O Jigglers.  I’m not saying my vagina is green, but I’m sure
it’s jiggly.  I shook it a little when I had looked at it in the mirror and it definitely
wiggled when it jiggled.  Vagina’s should never jiggle.

I am going to leave work early and go to a yoga class.  Getting my body in shape might
help make me feel better and then I can work on getting Drew to help out more around
the house so I’m not so tired all of the time.  Drew doesn’t work tonight so he’s
home with the kids all day.  Maybe a little bending and stretching will get things
back to where they’re supposed to be, and I won’t have to worry about the lips of
my vagina hanging low and wobbling to and fro.  You should never be able to tie them
in a knot OR a bow.

“HE CALLED SHIT, POOP!”

I laugh out loud and put up my hand so my daughter can give me a high five.

I can’t help but laugh whenever Veronica quotes her and her brother’s namesake movie:
Billy Madison.  We are curled up on the couch together, watching the best movie of
all time, and Billy is asleep in his swing a few feet away.

Jenny walks in the door a few minutes later.  Actually, she limps in the door and
hobbles across the room until she makes it to the couch and sits down on the other
side of Veronica, giving her a kiss on the head.

“Mommy, you gots a boo-boo?” Veronica asks her.

I stare in horror at Jenny as she pulls the footstool closer and props her leg up
on top of it, leaning back into the couch and pulling Veronica onto her lap.

Oh my God.  This is it.  This is the fake injury.  How should I play this?  Should
I call her out immediately and tell her she’s a big, fat liar?  Wait, never call a
woman fat.  Especially after pregnancy, even if you’re just joking.  Lives will be
lost.  Maybe I should just play along and keep my cool.

“Yes, mommy has a boo-boo,” Jenny replies with a sigh.

“HA HA!  YOU GOT HURT!” I yell.

Jenny gives me a dirty look and I quickly wipe the smile off of my face.

What the fuck was that?  I shouldn’t be happy if she’s injured, right?  Play it cool,
man.  Play it cool.

“I mean, that sucks that you got hurt.  You hurt yourself.  That’s just sucky.  I
mean, because you know, you hurt yourself.”

There. Much better.  Be calm, be cool. She’ll never know you suspect anything.

Jenny’s dirty look never leaves her face and I start to squirm.  “You couldn’t have
picked up a little today?  This house is a mess.”

I look around at all of the toys on the floor and the dirty dishes on the coffee table.

“We were busy watching movies,” I explain.

She turns and looks at the TV, noticing for the first time what we’re watching.

“You have seriously got to
quit
watching this stupid movie.  Veronica doesn’t stop quoting it as it is,” Jenny complains
with a sigh.

This worker’s comp fraud has already changed her!  She used to love this movie.  Nooooooooo!

“So, how did you hurt yourself?  You know, when you really hurt yourself,” I ask,
folding my hands in my lap and acting concerned.

She can’t know that you know.  What if it’s like that TV show, When Animals Attack? 
She might just come at you, bro.

“Well, I decided to leave work a little early and try a yoga class.  It turns out
I’m not as flexible as I used to be,” she tells me.

Is yoga her code word for something?  Is that what she’s calling “sticking it to the
man” now?  I wonder if she has a group of minions working for her, helping her with
this elaborate lie.  Yoga – yeah right!

“I tried doing that Downwind Lapping Dog thing and I twisted my ankle,” she finishes,
resting her head on the back of the couch and closing her eyes.

See?  I totally caught her in her lie.  Downwind Lapping Dog isn’t the name of a yoga
move. It’s a Chinese proverb or something, like, “He who fart in church sit in stinky
pew.”  I think it goes, “He who is downwind of lapping dog make bump-bump in pants.”

“So does Claire know?  Did you tell Claire?  What did Claire say?” I question.

“No, why would Claire know?  After class I just wanted to get home and put my foot
up.  I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet.”

Ahhhh, so she’s biding her time, formulating a plan.  I got ya.

Jenny picks Veronica up from her lap and sets her back down next to her, pushes herself
up off of the couch, and starts hobbling towards the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“I need to get some ice for my ankle,” she replies as she uses the wall to support
her as she goes.

Wow, she’s good.  She really thought this through.  I would have never thought to
go get ice.  That limp kind of looks real too.  She must have been practicing.

I jump up and go to her side in a show of “helping” her with her “injury”, when really,
I just want to see if I can trip her up.

As I help her walk into the kitchen, I stick my foot out in front of her and she stumbles
over it, grabbing onto the table at the last minute before she falls to the ground.

“Drew!  What the hell?  Did you just trip me?” she yells.

“How’s your ankle?” I ask, staring down at the foot suspiciously as she holds it a
few inches above the floor.

“What is wrong with you today?  You’re acting weird,” she mutters before using one
of the chairs to help her stand and then hops over to the freezer to grab an ice pack.

“I’m onto you, Jenny,” I tell her menacingly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she asks as she sits at the kitchen table,
brings her foot up to a chair, and sets the ice pack on top of her ankle with a wince.

Man alive, how is she so good at this?  I never knew she was such a good faker.  Oh
Jesus, what if this isn’t the only thing she fakes?  Oh my God.  This is why she never
wants to have sex with me.  She’s tired of faking it!

“You’re faking it when you have sex with Claire and now you want to cheat me out of
my money!  Sons a bitchin!” I yell, before stomping out of the room.

~

In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint exactly where I went wrong with Jenny. 
I blame it all on natural childbirth.  No man should ever have to see his wife in
that position.  No man should ever have to look at a live vagina in that position. 
Although a dead vagina in that position would probably be just as bad because it would
be dead.  A dead, gooey vagina.  It’s a sight you can never un-see.

The day had started off fairly well.  Jenny was a week overdue so the doctor had her
check into the hospital first thing in the morning so she could be induced.  We took
Veronica with us since the day would mainly consist of us sitting around waiting for
something to happen.  Carter and Claire agreed to take her home with them for a sleepover
once things started progressing.  We did everything we were supposed to do so Veronica
wouldn’t hate her brother at first sight.  We included her when we picked out the
name, we let her help decorate the nursery, we brought her to the hospital, and we
had a present hidden in Jenny’s overnight bag that would be given to Veronica, “from
her brother”, as soon as he was born - everything necessary so she wouldn’t step on
his nuts and call him a shitbag when she saw him.  Considering that was the name she
picked for him, calling him that at first sight actually wouldn’t have been that weird. 
It was her new favorite word, and it was a hard sell to get her to pick another name
out for him when we were going through the baby name book.

“But I wanna call him Shitbag!  Baby is a shitbag!”

It was kind of hard to be mad when she strung together her first swear word sentence. 
It really was a proud day for me.

Around lunchtime on the day of delivery was when things got serious.  And by serious,
I mean seriously fucked up.  Jenny’s contractions went through the roof and the woman
I like to refer to as “Crazy-Ass Bitch” made an appearance.  And I mean that in the
nicest way possible.

“WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GUY WITH THE DRUGS?”

I put my hands over Veronica’s ears and stared in horror at my wife.  Jenny never
yelled or cursed in front of Veronica.  Ever.  She raised her voice at times, but
it was usually just because someone couldn’t hear what she was saying.  This was a
whole new side of her I wasn’t used to.

“The nurse just paged him like two minutes ago, baby.  He’ll be here soon,” I reassured
her as I removed my hands from Veronica’s ears.

“FUCK YOU!”

I glanced at the contraction monitor and saw that the little squiggly lines were so
far off of the top of the page that the thing was flashing a red warning light.

“Breathe, baby.  Just breathe.  Think about something else,” I told her.

“I’M THINKING ABOUT SHOVING YOUR BALLS STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS, YOU SHIT HOLE!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carter and Claire standing in the doorway with
equal looks of horror on their faces.

“Um, so we’ll just come back later,” Claire said as she quickly darted in the room,
scooped up Veronica, and made a mad dash back to Carter whispering, “GO, GO, GO!”

With Veronica out of earshot, I walked over to the side of the bed and tried smoothing
hair off of Jenny’s forehead and telling her it would be okay, but she bit off my
hand.

And that wasn't an exaggeration.  She literally leaned over and clamped her teeth
around the palm of my hand.

The doctor had showed up a few minutes later, but when he told Jenny he wasn’t the
one with the drugs, I actually feared for the poor guy’s life.  Then he had told her
he needed to break her water to really get things going.

What has been happening in here for the last hour?  A mother fucking tea party?

I really wish I could erase this part of the story because I look like a giant douchebag,
and if I could take it back, I would.  But I guess it’s necessary for you to understand
everything.

The doctor had ripped open a package and pulled out what could only be described as
a crochet hook.  It was a long stick with a hook on the end, and it instantly made
me laugh when I looked at it.

The doctor went to the end of the bed and asked Jenny to spread her legs.  And before
you ask, yes, I laughed at this too.

“Hey, hon, looks like the doctor is going to do some knitting while he’s down there
between your legs,” I joked.  “I bet you he could make a blanket for ten people with
all that long-ass pube hair you got going on.”

Can you hear that?  That’s the sound of my nuts being clamped in a vice.

After the doctor broke her water, and I apologized profusely for not shaving her ridiculously
long pubic hair before she gave birth, it was back to the waiting game.  No, not waiting
for the baby to be born, waiting for the god dammed drugs.

“I don’t think we should name him Billy,” Jenny stated in between breaths as she “heeee-ed”
and “hoooooo-ed” and “hee-hee hoo-hoo-ed” through the pain.

“What are you talking about?” I asked her in horror as I paced back and forth over
by the door.  My nuts still hadn’t recovered from the pubic hair crack so there was
no way I was getting within five feet of her right now.

“Who names their kids after a stupid movie?” she questioned as she took a big sigh
of relief when the contraction ended.

“You must be delirious from the pain.  That is the only excuse for the nonsense coming
out of your mouth right now.”

She glared at me and I instantly covered my nuts with my hands.  I wouldn’t put it
past her to pick up the phone, yank it from the wall, and chuck it at my dong.

“Did you just call me an idiot?” she questioned softly.

I really should have just run right then...turned around and darted out of the hospital
room and down the hall until I reached the ward with all the comatose patients who
wouldn’t scream at me.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like an idiot, then yes, yes I did,” I told her
boldly, putting my hands on my hips.

Mistake number two.

Jenny’s cell phone smacked against my junk two seconds later, and I squeaked out a
groan and clutched onto the boys.

“Cheese and crackers!  That hurt!  Dude,
Billy Madison
was the first movie we ever watched together.  And it is the greatest movie of all
time.  There is no way we are naming our son anything other than Billy.  We already
have a Veronica, named after his hot teacher, Miss Veronica Vaughn.  We can’t leave
our daughter hanging like that.  Think of the children,” I pleaded.  “Do it for the
children.”

“You don’t love me anymore, do you?” she wailed as tears started running down her
cheeks and she put her head in her hands.

Sweet Jesus what is happening right now?

I rushed over to her bedside and wrapped my arms around her while she cried.

“Hon, of course I love you.  Calm down,” I told her.

“YOU FUCKING CALM DOWN!  I’M SITTING IN A PUDDLE OF MY OWN UTERUS WATER!” she yelled.

I tried to hold it in, really I did, but I couldn’t.  I dry heaved.  It was just…uterus
water.  Water from her uterus.  She was sitting in it.  She was marinating in uterus
fluids.

“OH MY GOD!  DID YOU JUST GAG?” she yelled.

I started furiously shaking my head “No”, but the damage was done.

The anesthesiologist came in then and pushed his cart of drugs in front of him and
I almost begged him to give me a hit of whatever he had.  I really should be numb
from the brain down for the rest of this day before I fucked anything else up.

The doctor let me stay in the room for the epidural and let me tell you, nothing prepares
you for seeing a needle as long as your arm, being pushed into your wife’s spine. 
And since she was in the middle of a contraction, all she did was sigh when it went
in.  Until I opened my mouth.