Happy Fathers Day

“From Wits End to an Epiphany” will return after this special friggin’ Fathers Day installment.

It was Fathers Day, 2005; the last one before Cruella and I split up and just like every year before, I had plans to play golf with my father and my brother. It’s sort of a Fathers Day tradition for us and this particular year was the first year that my son Sam was coming with us. I had bought him a special set of junior clubs and he was very excited to be going with us. We always meet early in the morning… have breakfast… play nine holes and we’re usually done before lunch.

Sam and I woke up early and got ourselves ready to go while everyone else in the house was sleeping. Just as we were leaving, Cruella awoke and began screaming at the two of us, starting with the fact that we were leaving without saying goodbye, moving on to bitching at Sam for not wearing a golf shirt or a golf hat and then at me for actually allowing a nine year old to go out to play golf without the proper attire. She belittled the both of us so badly that Sam was on the verge of tears, as she tells me how I don’t give a shit about her or my daughters and we shouldn’t even be going anyway.

Needless to say we wound up late for meeting with my father and brother and Sam and I were both a little rattled to say the least. We all made the best of it, tried not to talk about “fuck-nuts” and actually had a pretty good time; but of course when we got back home, the shit started all over again.

Cruella was already half in the bag by lunchtime when we arrived. She was out on the back deck with the three girls and the Robins’. Leo & Annie Robins and their two children had been staying with us after their house burnt down, while they were waiting for their new house to be built. (That’s a whole different story)

So… Cruella immediately starts with her shit about how the girls were crushed and insulted that they couldn’t go with us… some more about how I just don’t give a shit about any body but myself and that the least that I could do would be to take everybody out for a nice Fathers Day dinner. So what does asshole me do ?... Yup… you got it… out to fuckin’ dinner we go.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the fiasco began. There were ten of us all together and as far as Cruella was concerned, nobody sat in the right spot and she had to make everybody crazy, including the wait-staff by pushing tables around and playing musical fucking chairs. After that was all said and done, then she wants to know what everybody wants to eat, including Leo, Annie and their kids so that she can order for everyone. When the waitress comes to take our order… it’s an absolute disaster just waiting to happen. For starters, she was very young, obviously new, right off the boat, barely spoke a lick of English and I’m quite sure had never run into anybody even remotely resembling the likes of Cruella before.

Well… just ordering probably took a half an hour, so in an attempt to make a long ass story just a little bit shorter, we’ll just skip to the last order which was Annie’s. Annie wanted the chicken marsala and wanted it over pasta. Cruella insisted “that’s how it comes, I get it all the time.” But… the waitress kept asking what kind of pasta she wanted on the side, while Cruella kept insisting that the pasta doesn’t come on the side even though it clearly states on the menu that it does.. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and stood up, pulled the waitress aside and simply said, “ Can you please put the chicken on top of linguini with no side of pasta.” “Yes, I can do that.” She replied.

Well… Cruella fuckin’ flipped, screaming like a lunatic in the middle of a crowded restaurant where everybody was already looking at us … “You just have to prove me fucking wrong all the fucking time! I fucking hate you!” and she stormed out and never came back. So… we ate without her. She was sitting outside in my truck when we all came out after dinner. We all got in (yes, I have a very big truck) and she actually didn’t say a word. On the way home I stopped at the mini-mart to pick up a few things. Leo followed me inside and while we were at the counter he patted me on the back and said, “You’re a good man. I don’t know how you do it.”

As we walked out of the store and towards the truck, Cruella jumps out screaming “I heard you talking about me! Fuck all of you!” and she starts walking towards the local bar. Now up until that point, normally I would have went after her, knowing that she would probably get herself hurt or in trouble or worse, but I was done. We got in the truck and left her ass there. Of course the kids didn’t really get what the fuck was going on but they were actually starting to become sort of immune to her madness like it was normal.

So we all went home… I got the kids ready for bed and sat up talking with Leo and Annie for quite a while. As the hours went by I was getting both more pissed and more worried both at the same time… I mean after all… I didn’t want her to wind up beat up or raped or killed did I… so what the fuck was I supposed to do. It was now almost 1am and I was starting to think that maybe I should go try to find her stupid ass when headlights started coming up my driveway.

Well… I was just about ready to kill anything that moved, so as the headlights got the top of the driveway to turn around to come back down… I went out the front door and straight into the middle of the driveway so that whoever it was that came up… wasn’t getting down without going through me and trust me when I tell you… at the point I was at… it could’ve been the incredible fuckin’ hulk and he was catchin’ a beatin’. I was walking straight at the car, chest puffed up, jaw clenched, fists clenched and eyes blazin’ but was blinded by the lights so that I couldn’t even tell what kind of car it was never mind who was in it, when all of a sudden I hear a familiar female voice (not Cruella’s) yelling out the window …”RG…it’s me… RG… it’s me, Liza.

I can’t even really describe the feeling that came over me… It was like I was deflated… I had been holding in so much rage for so long that I think I was almost hoping that it was going to be some strange guy that I could just beat to a bloody pulp, but it wasn’t… it was Liza… a friend who Cruella had called for a ride home. I just turned back around and went inside. I layed down on the couch in the living room… I slept there a lot… a few minutes later Cruella stumbled in… walked right by me… didn’t say a word and locked herself in the bedroom.

Happy Fuckin’ Fathers Day

Signed, Regular Guy