I realized that I never told you how we got engaged the first time. Note: this post is an attempt to describe what went on, I am writing this many years after the fact and my experiences since have tainted my memory of the day.

We went to a bar, I don't remember which one. Or maybe, probably, we were on the way to a bar. We start fighting in the car, I say "I've had enough" to myself, turn around and go home. So we take the nearest exit, go around we're coming back up the on-ramp to a 55 mph highway. She either threatened to jump out or something, so I pull over real fast before we actually get on the highway. She jumps out of the now stopped car, runs towards the highway, I grab her. It's raining.

She says in no uncertain terms that if I do not propose to marry her, she'll kill herself. I take the bait, say yes and we head to the nearest jewelry store. She picks out a ring, cause that's the way psychos like to do it, and I hope that my credit won't be good enough. Damn! It's good enough. I don't have the balls to say "hey bitch, fuck off" or excuse myself to go to the bathroom and never come back or anything else to get out of this situation like I should have. Of course I'm writing this from the prospective "hind sight is 20/20". For the sake of her children, I hope that somehow I can find out and fix what's causing this kind of suicidal threat to get what she wants.

It's her birthday. I don't have anything very special planned, but we are going out to a bar we hit at least every other weekend for drinks and dancing.

Everything is going well, I get up to go to the bathroom. I need to ride the porcelin pony. I hate doing that in public places. It took me months to be able to do that at work. You gotta go you gotta go. So I sit there for a couple of minutes. Everything is sealed up tighter than a submarine, so I give up. I go back to the table. She's upset. I don't know why. I ask what's wrong. She says I should know. I'm running things through my mind, what did I forget. It's her birthday, I wished her a happy birthday. We went out. I didn't get her a present or a cake, but she said she didn't want one.

What did I forget? I buy her a drink. She sips it after it sits for a good 10 minutes or more. This is getting really uncomfortable, what did I do? What did I say? Stupid women and their PMS, that must be it. What could it be?

She gets mad, hands me the engagement ring back. I put it in my pocket while I try to figure out what the problem is. I ask again and again what's wrong?

Finally, she tells me, she knows I'm cheating on her because when I got up to go to the bathroom, some woman went behind me, and when I came back, so did she. Therefore I must be screwing around on her.

I tell her I have no idea what woman she's talking about, no one followed me and if anyone did, it was a coincidence. I told her that I had to take a ride and that it wouldn't work. But I tried for her because it's her birthday. I would never cheat on her and I'm not that stupid or insensitive that I'd do it right in front of her.

I get her in the car, fuck it, no woman is worth this bullshit. I intend to take her home, not my home, her home and be done with this for ever.

As if I don't have enough to worry about, disgruntled girlfriend in the passenger's seat, plumbing problems, we get stopped at a drunk check point three miles from the house.

The good news keeps getting better, my license is expired. Not the license, just the card. I told the cop I had a few beers to drink. He asks me to get out of the car, let her drive it into the parking lot. This is a problem. I'm scared shitless! I'm going to have to take a drunk test, I gotta shit, this won't work. I tell him that I really need to take a shit. I ask him if they've got a job johnny somewhere. He says "We go behind (the grocery store)". I plead with him, if he'll write a ticket for anything, I'll write him a check. I just gotta go.

He runs my license, sees that the only thing I didn't do was have my photo taken, gives me a "fix-it" and off we go.

Since she's now driving, plan A is shot. I gotta take a shit really, really bad. We go home, I take a shit, I'll worry about this mess in the morning. 

I had a good talk with a co-worker, Jill, about April and the kids.Her boyfriend has a six year old son and it's helpful knowing that someone else I know, respect and trust has gone through the same "step-parent" type stuff I've gone through. We are the only two people in the department that smoke, so it's a good opportunity to talk about that and anything in general.

Jill's one of those people who I just instantly connected with. We had a long standing freindship built on cynisym towards the government and  the corporate machine. All in all she's really down to earth and cool. One of the few women I've met who ride motorcycles and snowmobiles.

I mentioned this to April. Boy she didn't like that one. I think it might have something to do with the fact that she doesn't have the kids yet. I just won't mention it in the future to April. 

As hard as I've been trying to socialize the kids with my dog, who's big and loud and loves to play, it's very slow progress.

Doug told April that he won't give her the kids unless I give up my dog. I told her no, I'm not giving up my dog. She threw a fit, then threw a cookie jar I bought her at me and demanded to be told she's more important than my dog. She told me it would just be for a little bit. So I made arrangements with my mom, who's old and somewhat feeble to watch my dog. 

Doug's lost his mind.  He spends all his free time playing bingo. But the good thing is that means the kids have been with us 24 hours a day for a week. This will be good when it comes to court and custody arrangements as well as child support. Speaking of which, he's still collecting it from April even though we have the kids.

That's ok, court is next month. 

Doug finally gave up.

He's agreed to give April the kids under two circumstances, she pays him the $1,000 she "owes" in back child support and he pays $75 a week for child support. $75 a week! C'mon man, you make $40,000 a year $75 a week! Oh well, that can always be revisited by the court. And paying you for the kids! what the hell? I don't care, it makes April happy and it wasn't about money.

Speaking of which, I need to go sign the paperwork for that loan I requested so Doug can be paid off. Dumbass. Does he realize how bad that would make him look if the kids found out?

I gave April the money. Don't gamble it all in one place Doug. 

I don't know where April comes off. I had temorarily set my home computer to read my work email through a POP3 account.

April opened it and read all the messages that were downloaded on my local machine. That takes some nerve. Then she confronts me "what's all this 'let's go out to smoke' 'meet me at the fountian' who are you screwing around with?".

I explained to her that I go out from time to time with people at work to smoke and bullshit. She didn't talk to me all night long.

She also tried to send an email to Beth "Stay away from Chuck". I laughed secretly to myself, she had the email address wrong.

Must be that time of the month. 

Mom called to tell me my dog just doesn't want to stay in the yard, can I come fix the fence. I did.

When I got back, April was mad because it took me four hours to fix the fence. I reminded her that I can take the dog back to my house and then I won't need to go fix the fence.

She didn't seem to like that. I told her I want my dog. She says when we get a bigger house, it's just too small at my place with five of us there and a dog.

I miss my dog.