Archive for the ‘marriage’ Category

The scam

Monday, May 4th, 2009

My wife was scammed.

Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but the results were clear. She met someone online, like on Craig’s List, and bartered an exchange of gift cards. Several cards with about $200 dollars on them, plus $10 of actual dollars, changed hands. My wife came away with cards for Starbucks, Borders, and Macy’s, in amounts like $54, $26, and $38, the kinds of stores that fit her personality better than the shoes-and-hardware combination that she had collected over a recent birthday. She was excited, despite the rigmarole it took to make the arrangement work: twelve emails, last-minute trade-off meetings and no-shows, haggled negotiations to get the dollar amounts to almost match. And then she calls me, furious.

The clues were abundant and, at least in hindsight, agonizingly obvious. Over-the-top haggling. The eclectic card collection. The don’t-call-me, I’ll-call-you behavior. The lack of real name. The Starbucks card was real, with the $54 that “Tag” said would be there, but that’s it. The other cards were empty. After five busy days of negotiations, being scammed for $50 seemed, well, it seemed neglectfully cruel.

My wife began to beat herself up, angry at the naturally trusting nature that I find so inspirational. But she called me, so I took over. I had her call the shoe store, the hardware store, to claim the cards were stolen. (After all, they were.) It worked, and we got paper certificates in the mail. Meanwhile, I transferred Tag’s Starbucks balance before she could retaliate. We won, and I was proud. My wife emailed the scammer with an angry but surprisingly fair message. She wrote, “You really thought this would work?” and “I CANCELLED your cards” and “Give me an address and I’ll mail you back your cards.” Trapped behind her own anonymity, there was no response from Tag.

I didn’t understand why my wife was prepared to undo the transaction. Tag had been dishonest, and either careless or malicious. We wrought karmic justice upon her, and at a profit. But when Tag never accepted the do-over, never identified herself, never acknowledged her defeat at the hands of the superior couple that my wife and I comprise, well, that extra money started to burn a hole in my pocket. Had we sunk to the level of someone like Tag? Should I worry that I beat Tag at her own game, earning us more money in one hour than she didn’t after her five days? Does it matter that the scam hadn’t been my idea?

Every time I go to Starbucks now — a coffee, a sandwich, a snack for the kids — I wonder if I’ve used up all $54 dollars. And if I’m free.

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Collision of Perspective

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Enough time has passed that now I can share this story.

One of my work-at-home responsibilities is delivering the kids safely to day care in the morning, but this day had started off as troublesome as it gets. I needed thirty minutes to shovel a wide-enough space through the snow for my wife to extricate her car from the garage. After she left, Oren threw a tantrum because he didn’t want to get dressed. Siena couldn’t find a particular stuffed animal. Thirty minutes behind schedule—I had a phone meeting in under an hour—I had two screaming kids in the minivan. I began to shovel and scrape the windshield, refusing to abandon the kids to get my gloves. Then Oren soiled his diaper, and since I wasn’t willing to bring both kids (or just Oren) inside for a change, I began the ten-minute drive in olfactory overload.

The storm was rotten. The minivan failed to take a nearby hill, and so we half-slid toward an alternate route. Parking was impossible. Both kids insisted on being carried: sixty-five pounds of child, twenty-five pounds of clothes and baggage, three flights of stairs. On wet carpet we undressed, the kids clinging and unhelpful and smelly, when my phone rang. It was my wife, calling to tell me — you ready for this? — that she was in a car accident. Over the kids’ screams I got the most important details: no one hurt, car still functional, my wife psychologically stable enough to drive. Knowing she was safe, I reassured her I’d call back in two minutes. Quickly now, I did everything I could to rush through all remaining responsibilities, ridding myself of these loud, stinky, burdensome creatures, my mind racing with possibilities as I wait impatiently to call back my wife. When I finally do call, I get voicemail and leave a concerned message.

Phew.

Now here’s my wife’s version of the story. She leaves the house late and twenty minutes later gets struck from behind by a car, which causes her own car to spin around on the slick blacktop of a highway onramp. She calls me, offers me a perfunctory summary of events, and hears me say to her, “I need to finish this. I’ll call you back.” Click.

There really is no substitute for a little bit of perspective.

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Single Dad for a Week, Again

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

Once again, my wife is traveling for business. She’ll leave me alone with the kids, along with whatever support network I build, for four full days. On the fifth day, we’ll intercept my wife in Montreal. It will be the first time I’ve ever flown while outnumbered by my kids.

I’m starting to focus on the kinds of details that will make the days pass more easily. I can prepare large meals and lunches in advanced, wash kids’ clothes (especially pajamas), and even record some appropriate television content for those desperate moments. I’ll start writing down the events and demands for each day in advance, on paper, and refer to these “cheat sheets” all day long to make sure things get done. I’ve also mastered the timekeeping and note-taking functions on my mobile phone — alarm clock, countdown counter, text reminders — because I know I’ll get distracted.

My weeks of single-parenting always seem to end with greater disruption than I experienced during the weeks themselves. That’s because a week of rigorous effort creates a controlled environment, something much more rigid than what my wife and I create together. It is, perhaps, a more accurate glimpse at who I am as a parent, because it’s all me. I even enjoy the challenge, because I know when it ends.

It doesn’t take much to appreciate just how much easier dual-parenting is over single-parenting. Still, I embrace the reminders. Appreciation is good.

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Mountain Daylight Tied

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

The day care center closed for three days because of accidental water damage. My job allows me to adjust quickly to these kinds of surprises, though sometimes it means working late at night.

This time, however, I was in Denver at a business meeting and conference. The school’s phone call woke me at 6 a.m. MDT, after only three hours’ sleep.

My job has so much flexibility that I take for granted my responsibility to compensate for my wife’s in-house job. Her employer is wonderful, with fantastic benefits and a profound cultural understanding of “real life,” from births to funerals, but her working hours are billed to customers. She has to work the whole week. So it only makes sense for Mr. I-Love-To-Do-Four-Things-At-One-Time to be the first line of defense against sick children, cable guys, broken cars, Girl Scouts, and anything having to do with exploding plumbing.

Only this time, my hands were tied. While I hobnobbed with my colleagues, my wife was in charge of everything. When that 6 a.m. call came, with the announcement that day care would be cancelled for the remainder of the week, all I could do was phone home. My wife would have to do the rest: emergency childcare, extra mothering, part-time apologies at the office. I felt ridiculously inadequate, and even ashamed.

Giving up work is a major component of being a parent, but as the one who stays at home, my wife’s sacrifice is kept at a minimum. I adjust, so my wife doesn’t. This was a dramatic reminder that those roles can be reversed, and quickly.

Despite my pride in it, it seems I’ve been taking my flexibility for granted.

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