It had been an extremely busy day! I was running a Day Care in our home so that I could pay the rent and put food on the table. Since CP wasn’t working I really had no choice. He was too good to go out and find a job, any job, to keep our heads above water. He was resigned to sitting and waiting for his last employer to call him back to work. He had been laid off for months! Landlords want to be paid. Kids need to be fed. What the hell is wrong with this man?

On this particular day, I had 7 kids altogether, two of them were my own. I was taking care of kids ranging from 8 months old to 5 years. I wasn’t just babysitting. I ran my Day Care like a preschool. We had planned activities throughout each day. I didn’t want the kids getting bored and I wanted them to go home having learned something and ready to tell their moms what they did at Debbie’s house that day. I didn’t want them just sitting in front of the tv all day.

The last kid was picked up at 5:00pm and that was my time to prepare dinner for my family. CP came home around 5:30pm and normally I had dinner on the table at just the right time. If he decided to eat, that is. More than half the time he just went to bed. There was never any conversation or interaction between me and CP or he and the kids. His job was finished, so ended his responsibilities for the day.

This day, however, he showered and actually sat down to have dinner with us. It wasn’t anything fancy. Grilled cheese sandwiches and ramen noodles, simple and filling. My daughter was about 5 and my son, 2. They were hungry from playing and socializing all day. I always got my son’s food ready first because he was smaller and just couldn’t wait as long as my daughter. I gave him 1/2 a sandwich and a bowl of ramen that I had let cool and cut into shorter pieces. Those noodles could be quite long and hard for little kids to eat.

My daughter was anxious for her food, but her sandwich was still in the pan. The ramen noodles were done so I scooped her up a helping. I sat it on the table near CP and asked him if he could please cut her noodles for her. His answer was remarkably stupid and I’ll never forget it. He said, “You can’t cut noodles in a bowl!” I asked, “Why the hell not?” He just looked at me and pushed the bowl over to our daughter. I was pissed. I grabbed a fork and a table knife and marched over to the table. I proceeded to cut the noodles as if I were cutting a steak. Then I moved the noodles around and repeated the same thing. I said to CP, “That’s how you cut noodles in a bowl. You’d think I could get just a little help from time to time because as you can smell, I’ve just burned SR’s sandwich.” I gave him the burned sandwich and started a new one for SR.

He ate his burned sandwich and as we’ve established in the last posting of The Ex Files, he was too big of a coward to say or do anything. Oh, except pout. He pouted while he ate and then he went to bed. Goodnight, asshole.