Chapter 1

I was just pulling into town after a week away on sales calls in a neighboring state. I'd had a good week. I decided to treat myself to a day off, and headed home at the end of the day on Thursday. I would arrive late. My plan was to sneak in, and slip into bed, and surprise my wife of only nineteen years. I still felt a thrill when I looked at her. She was tall and willowy and with a clear white alabaster complexion topped off with a mane of fiery red hair that would have put Maureen O'Hara to shame.

We first met on our first day of class at a local junior college in the first period class on English 101. I was a recently returned Vietnam Vet. She was a recently turned eighteen year old, away from Mommy and Daddy for the first time to the big college down the road ten miles from home.

Becky at eighteen was all arms and legs, elbows and knees. She reminded me of a spider crab, she was so thin. She was just over six feet tall, and probably weighed less than one-twenty. She had this glorious balloon of frizzy red hair the color of fresh grated carrots. She was a carpenters dream girl. Flat as a board. For me it was love a first sight.

I was twenty-three at six-five and two-hundred-thirty pounds of former Marine, fresh from the jungles of South East Asia.

Anyway, fast forward nineteen years and two kids later, and I was on the way home to my love. I had my favorite radio station on and was listening to a great oldies song from back in the time of my college years. It was:

"Makin' the best of a bad situation" by Dick Feller

I always got a chuckle out of the lyrics. This song and others like it were probably the first of the rap songs. The difference with it is that I can actually understand the words.

The first verse is really funny.

"Now, I know a man

He's a hard workin' man

He gets up real early, and he goes down town

And about fifteen minutes after he's been gone

There's a big milk truck pulls up on the lawn

And that milkman rushes up to the door

Where that man's wife is waitin' in a kimona

And she plants a big ol' kiss on his cheek and they go inside

And that truck never moves for an hour or two

Well it's none of my business

One day I called him aside and told him what was goin' on

While he was gone

And he said, "Well I guess that's so, but do you know

We're never outta' milk or cottage cheese or yogurt, ice cream, or none of them other cowy things"

I guess he's makin' the best of a bad situation

Don't wanta make waves, can't you see

He's just makin' the best of a bad situation

Reckon I'd do the same if it was me"

As I was coming down the street toward my house. I saw a car in my drive way. It was well after two in the morning. I was wondering what the hell was going on. As I got closer, I saw the front door open. It was a full moon bright night. There were no lights on, but I could see clearly none the less. I saw a man dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt kiss my wife and then skip down the stairs and around his car like he was Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, in one of those old dance movies from the forties. By this time, I had rolled to the curb and was only a couple of houses up from ours. I had turned off my lights. I guess they were so wrapped up in each other they never saw my lights.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I was gobsmacked. I have never had an inkling that not everything in our marriage was sunshine and lolly pops. I loved Becky unconditionally and she loved me the same ... I thought. Never in my wildest fantasy had I ever believed this would happen to me. Many of the men I worked with in our sales organization had gone through divorce for infidelity or something similar.