I’m so Glad Their Mine
For reasons I can not explain Bob and I are friendly with a lot of couples that do not have children.
It is not really odd, only just a little unusual to have so many friends without kids. Unfortunately, we really can’t be as spontaneous or available to do things with them and often they end up coming over to our house. I don’t know if they like being around us because we are fun or just to watch the antics of our kids and then be able to go home and feel justified in their decision not to have kids – if it was a choice. If it was fate, then do they go home and say to themselves “the Gods must have been smiling on us”, particularly if they have witnessed a story like the one I am about to tell you. Either way, they do go home feeling very satisfied with their lives. I, on the other hand stand at my front door and watch them leave my driveway waving pathetically, wishing I could go with them. How does it feel to come home to a place that looks exactly the same as you left it, no dishes in the sink, coats hung up, no pile of muddy shoes or the footprints they left around the house? How does it feel to go grocery shopping and come home the next day and still have some oreos left in the cabinet? How does it feel… ? Well, let me tell you the story and then you can tell me how it feels.
Last Friday night Bob and I went out to dinner and decided that since all the girls were were spending the night at their friends’ house we would go to the Faux Farm for the night. A nice, quite, alone time out on the farm. So when we drove up the driveway it was with some degree of confusion and shock that there were cars in the driveway and all the lights were on. My brain did not understand. Am I at the right house? Did the Amish invade my house and use it on weekends when I wasn’t there as a party house? Did the local neighbors kids decide to break in and have a party. I flew out of the car like Bat woman with my coat flying behind me and my scarf blowing in the wind. About 5 boys were standing in the open garage drinking beers. I yelled ” Who are you and what are you doing here?” The boys looked at me like deer stuck in the headlights. I did not know any of these boys and decided I should call 911 and was just about to do that when who should come out of the house but my dear daughter.
She was mad – she said ” You never told me you were coming out here!” EXCUSE ME? No you didn’t girfirend!! ”What is going on here?” I yelled. (I was doing a lot of yelling at this point). It was a stupid question. The ping pong balls, the jello, the beer. It was clear it was a party, even I could tell that although I am told that I am old and don’t know anything about what teenagers do because it was so long ago that I was a teenager. And even if i was a teenager a hundred years ago I probably had no friends and never had a party. That’s nice dear and now clean it all up. I threw all the beer in the trash and told them all to leave. My daughter and her friends got into the friends’ car and backed out of my driveway. And then there was a crunching sound. A metal crunching sound. Bob had parked my car out of the street so that all their cars could get out of the driveway. This car crossed my front lawn, drove over my tall perennial grasses and crashed right into my car. Great! JUST FREAKING GREAT! Parents were called, kids were picked up, kids were grounded, cars were taken away. JUST ANOTHER FUN FRIDAY NIGHT. The only good thing about the whole evening was that no one video taped it and we didn’t end up on youtube.
So I think the way it feels when you have kids is that you never know what is going to happen next, but you know something will happen. Something will always happen. And I think our friends without kids just enjoy the show. We are a walking birth control show. It’s like watching Jerry Springer – it’s OK to be in the audience but you know you really don’t ever want to actually be on that stage! We are a live action affirmation for these friends that they have a much more comfortable, predicable, cleaner, safer and calmer life without kids.
Now you might say – that’s fine for now what will happen when we all get older, Bob and I will at least have our children to be with us. However, they have told us that they will not take care of us in our old age, they have told us that they will put us in a gross old age home. They have told us that they are not having children so we will not have any grandchildren and if they do change their minds then we can’t see those grandchildren. They truly are such a joy! and by the way, the next time my friends leave I am hiding in their trunk and leaving with them!
Faux Farm MOM