The Waitress Likes Me

They only had the one car, so she had to load up the girls to pick him up. They were always together, the three Musketeers, and always without him. He always had better things to do than to be with his family. Today was no different.

Typical Sunday, she was taking the girls to church like she always did – alone – because he no longer attended. He had stopped sometime between her having their first daughter and becoming pregnant with the second. A lot of things stopped during that period of time, but that’s a story for another day. Just like every Sunday morning, she would wake up and get the girls ready while begging him to wake up at least to help her, which inevitably led to an argument because she dared to wake him up and ask for help. Didn’t she realize that she was the mom?

Anyway, he had his own plans that day. His best friend was picking him up for their Fantasy Football draft, and he didn’t need anyone messing with his morning. She always rolled her eyes at the mention of Fantasy Football or Fantasy Any Sport. Seriously, the name says it all… fantasy. Well, that was right up his alley. He definitely lived in his own world. Why couldn’t he live in her reality? The one where he works and pays bills. She sighed, realizing that those thoughts were her own fantasy. Besides, he actually thought because he won these fantasy leagues from time to time that he was earning an income, regardless of the fact that it was only $700-900 maybe twice a year. Oh, she mustn’t forget about the enormous trophy – fringe benefits – that he would display on the faux fireplace after each fantasy win.  

At some point during his yelling at her, she began to ignore him and focus on the girls. She packed the bottles, extra diapers, and snacks, along with some of their toys and books, then got herself ready. She was not happy about the fact that she would have to not only attend church with their girls alone but travel with them for an hour to pick him up. She loved her girls and loved spending time with them. She was just tired of doing it alone. She was expected to work fulltime as well as be the full-time parent to two very active kids, age two and under. She also dreaded the place from which she would pick him up – Hooters.

She hated Hooters, for obvious reasons. She was only six months out from having the baby and felt less than beautiful and fit. She also had no trust in his remaining faithful to her, even when it came to flirting. Everyone knows that the waitresses who worked there had sexy figures dressed in fitted wife-beater shirts with the restaurant’s O’s prominently displayed on their perky breasts and orange short-shorts barely covering their voluminous butt cheeks. She already notices his looking at other women when they are out “as a family”; did he really need to go to a place where the beautiful women abound?

She expressed her concerns to him when he first told her about Hooters being the venue for the draft, even though she knew it was pointless: “Does it really have to be at Hooters?”

“I’m not the one who scheduled it,” he responded.

“But you agreed to it and you’re going,” she continued.

“No other wives have an issue with it.”

“I find that hard to believe but okay.”

“Look, you’re the one who has an issue with it, so you are the one who needs to deal with it. I am just going there for their chicken wings.”

Again, her feelings were dismissed, even almost blamed on her, and she had to laugh at the absurdity of a grown man, gaslighting a grown woman and trying to convince her that the food was the only reason he liked the restaurant. That was like men who claimed to buy Playboy for the articles. At least she did not have to enter the establishment or take her girls inside. She always tried to focus on the positive side even when there wasn’t one. Accepting defeat, she ended the conversation before it became a worse fight than it had to be.

Time for her to load her rambunctious girls into the car and head to church. She was ready for some time to “rest” even if it were during Bible class. Her girls went to their age-appropriate classes while she stayed in the main auditorium. It was nice to breathe and know that someone else had them, even if it was only for an hour. Too soon, the class bell rang, signaling the end of that hour of rest and study. Out her girls came, smiling and excited to see their mommy and show her their class projects. They eventually settled down in her lap and beside her on the pew with their snacks and milk or formula. The rest of church service was a blur between their tantrums and giggling and the preacher’s sermon. After the dismissal prayer was ended, she and the girls said their goodbyes to everyone and packed themselves into the car.

She buckled them into their carseats and started their movie for the hour of driving time to go pick him up. She never knew how the car ride would go because it completely depended on the unpredictable attitudes of a hyperactive two-year-old and her six-month-old baby sister. She went to grab herself the cheapest lunch she could grab to eat in the car and headed to the interstate. While she ate her fast food meal, she prepared herself for the almost manic version of her husband she was about to pick up and the non-stop talking about himself she would have to hear. She knew that she would have to pretend to be interested in order for him to not become angry with her apparent disinterest he always claimed that she showed during these conversations.

She pulls into the parking lot with two sleeping babies. She was so thankful for the calmness before he entered the car. She really had hoped that he would hurry out when he saw her pull in, knowing that the girls might be testy after the drive. Of course, that was too much to hope for because he was not done talking to the other guys, so she had to sit and wait with her sleeping babies.The longer they sat there, the more frustrated and nervous she became that he would not be out there before they would awaken in harmonious cries for bottles or food or diaper changes. Could he not – just once – put them first? 

Just as she was working herself into a frenzy, he walks out but on the phone. He gets into the car with no acknowledgement of the sleeping children, speaking in that stupid raised voice that allows all people within a one-mile radius to hear his conversation and make him the center of their universe whether they want him there or not, and startles the kids. Both start to cry for their after-nap comforts from her. He began to huff and puff when she was not moving as quickly as he expected her to in order to quieten the kids so he could finalize this last fantasy trade. Once she had changed diapers, distributed snacks and bottles, and used the restroom herself, she climbed back into the driver’s seat with a heavy sigh.

“What’s your problem?” he asked, not looking up from his pad of paper.

“Nothing, “ she replied. “It’s nothing. How was the draft?”

He proceeded to ramble on about the successful trades he made that only real coaches could dream of making and his ability to convince the newbies of not-so-good trades that would end up helping his fantasy team in the end. Then he started on a subject that actually captured her attention and forced her to listen.

“There was this waitress that really flirted with me. She basically ignored all of the other guys and focused on me, constantly asking me if I needed refills or if I needed more to eat. She was all over me, even Michael noticed it and said something about it.”

“So, a waitress paid more attention to you than anyone else at the table?” she restated to be sure she was hearing him correctly.

“Yes,“ he responded, “it was more than just her job she was doing. It was like she was paying special attention to me.”

He rambled on as she drove in disbelief that not only was her husband bragging to his wife and the mother of his children about another woman – a younger hotter female – paying attention to him more than anyone else but that he believed that he was the only male in the restaurant to whom she was paying that much attention, completely disregarding the fact that those waitresses amp up the flirting in order to amp up the tips. She rode home as amused by his completely wrong interpretation of the situation as she was repulsed at his decision to share it with his fragile exhausted wife. She already speculated that he noticed other women and possibly flirted with them too. Did he have to confirm it?

“The waitress likes me,” he smiled in a predatory way. She knew now that this was not the end of this conversation and that the week ahead would prove to be even more exhausting than normal.