The Day I Met The 'Other Man'

I don’t cheat. Ever. On anything. Except for when the dentist asks if I floss, but that doesn’t count because he knows I don’t floss. He’s got his latex coverd hands in the evidence.

But see, one day in 2007, I became a mother. And this funny thing happens when you become a mother. You turn to things you never had before. I’m not saying you’re going to start doing k trains in the Gymboree bathroom, but you do find a vice. Some thing that makes you feel a little more like a normal person.

The thing varies from mommy to mommy, but each of us have it. For some mommies, it’s nice things. Church, volunteering, baking. The types of things that make us other mommies feel like, at times, we’re a little less-than.

It wasn’t long ago that I found my thing. I hadn’t even realized I was looking for it, but I’m sure that’s how it goes for most of us.

Jeep Man (my husband) and I were in the Mecca known as Costco one day when we stumbled across it.

JM: Hey, you wanna check out the wines?

Me: Really?

JM: Yeah, let’s go look.

Now, neither of us have ever been wine drinkers. I love beer. Lots of beer. Jeep Man drinks anything really. But never wine. Of course, I’ve had plenty of Arbor Mist, like any good completely unrefined twenty something has. But I’d never had much of a pallet for wine.

That day, I realized it was because I was drinking the wrong kind. I had never had white wine, and that’s what made me grab the bottle of Riesling. It was different and I’d heard good things about it. So I said, “Sure, let’s grab this.”

That evening we used a wine bottle opener that we had gotten as a wedding gift for he first time. And I fell in love. I was all “Oh sweet baby Jesus, I love you wine. Will you be my sweet young thang on the side?”

And so started my affair. Wine became the other man. It’s the thing that makes me not only relax, but also feel like I’m something other than Monster and Roo’s Mommy or Jeep Man’s Wife. I’m a living, breathing woman. With feelings and stuff. Plus, it makes me feel like a grown-up. Which is a big deal since I still get mistaken for a teenager at times. I’m sure I’ll appreciate this looking younger thing when I’m 40, but right now the evil glares I get from the GrannynGrunt types in the grocery store for being a ‘teen mom’ are enough to make me flip my skittles.

And it’s a whole lot easier to get than Xanax. (Which I believe should be given to women in lifetime supply quantities immediately after delivery)

I know for a fact that some women are reading this going “Oh hush, drugs are bad.” But they’re secretly thinking “MOTHER OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, I would drive my minivan to the ghetto in my pajamas just to buy one Xanax off a dealer dressed like a pimp if it meant I had one moment of quiet, peaceful solitude.”

You might think you’re totally wholesome, but I know your game. We all have the thing. Mine is wine. Cheap wine, actually. In fact, at the moment I’m drinking a mango and strawberry flavored Arbor Mist moscato. Trashy? Abso-effing-lutely. But as me if I care about the dozen or so toys sprawled across my living room floor, the enormous stack of folded laundry on my bed that’s becoming less and less folded by the minute, the fact that my dining/crafting earring is utterly trashed or the fact that I’m sitting on Jeep Man’s feet while he snores next to me when he knows how much I hate it when he falls asleep on the couch and takes up the whole. damn. thing.

Go ahead, ask me. Me and ‘The Other Man’ are going to sit here and wait to see how long it takes you to figure out that right now, I just don’t give a ferk.

Whats your thing?

~ Dee