...On Lemons and Beer

Sometimes God gives you lemons, and all you can do is make lemonade. Other times, He gives you beer. Even more ironic is that one person’s lemon is another person’s beer. Today I received an extra-tall draw of Guinness, served in a frosty mug.

My older daughter is taking tennis in middle school. Sometimes she has practice before school, so my wife or I will take her in. Even when the kids stay with their mom, it’s my wife or me that shuttles the kids to and from these extra-curricular activities. Though I loathe getting up early, it’s something for the kids and worth the extra effort. Today was my turn to take my daughter to early morning tennis practice.

I got to my ex-wife’s apartment, and noticed two cop cars parked in front of her building. “Dammit,” I thought. “They took my parking spot!” I went around back and parked my truck. Just as I was getting out of the truck, the kids came strolling out to meet me. “Cool, now I don’t have to go to the door.”

My younger daughter climbs in to the back seat and says “Daddy, there’s two cops in mom’s house.”

“Really?!” I responded, suppressing a smile.

My older daughter continued “Yeah, I thought it was you knocking on the door. I opened the door and there were two cops there. The lady cop says ‘Are you (ex-wife’s full name here)?’ Mommmm!”

I kept silent; not even asking what was up. The kids were a little nervous, with just a touch of amusement thrown in, and I didn’t want to do anything to wind them up more. Besides, I figured they’d tell me the story without any prompting.

“I asked mom what was going on,” my older daughter added. “She said ‘You know how you sometimes don’t get you homework turned in to the teacher on time? Well, that’s kind of what happened here. I didn’t turn in some paperwork, now I need to go to court.’”

My younger daughter picked up where the older one left off. “They were talking to mommy, and mom said ‘Can we please not talk about this while the kids are here?’”

“I wonder what’s going on,” they both mused aloud.

I stayed out of it, not wanting to make the kids more nervous, but I’ll admit that I was curious too. As some of you know, and the rest of you can imagine, I’m not really fond of the ex. At the same time though, I don’t want my strong dislike of her to carry over into the kids’ relationship with their mom. They know that I don’t like her, but I’ve also instilled the understanding that I want them to continue having a good bond with her. If I failed to do my part in nurturing their connection with her, then I am doing my children a disservice – as long as it remains a positive, loving relationship. But I’m digressing.

On the way back to the house after dropping my older daughter at school, my younger daughter asked “Daddy, does mommy shoplift?”

“That’s a question you should ask her.”

As I said earlier, I’m curious why the cops were there. I figure that’ll come out in the wash. In the meantime, I’ll keep my mouth closed because there’s nothing I could possibly say to the kids that would help ease their minds about this, or help things get back to normal. The only way to fix this is for their mom to explain what happened in detail (assuming it’s something minor and stupid) or to not say anything and wait for the kids to forget all about it. I won’t even speculate on what happened. Knowing her, it could be anything from unpaid parking tickets to… well, it could be anything.

For now, I won’t focus on it. I’ll just kick back and enjoy that cold, frosty beer that God delivered me.