Chapter 10: Invitation to a Disaster

Seated in his living room, wearing a rented tuxedo, Jack McCullum was confused. He was still trying to figure out how his wife and daughter had talked him into going to someone’s house for dinner wearing a tuxedo. He had fought against the idea from the very beginning. His argument that it was just a waste of money should have been successful. Somehow, they had managed to win this one.

For Jack to be confused wasn’t anything new. Just about everything concerning being a husband and father confused him. The life he was living was not the life he had grown up expecting. No, not at all like he had expected. He wasn’t sure if the problem was him or the world. He leaned towards blaming the world.

It seemed to him that things were easier for men when his father was his age. During the weekdays, the man went off to work and came home to a hot meal. On Saturdays, the man mowed the lawn and washed the car. Occasionally, there was something that had to be fixed. On Sundays, the man took his family to church and then enjoyed a Sunday dinner. His word was law in the house. The man knew his place in the world.

It was a different world for women as well. His mother had a very different life than his wife. Women didn’t have jobs outside the house. They cleaned the house, cooked dinners, did the shopping, and raised the kids. She didn’t have to drive the kids everywhere. They walked to wherever they needed to go. He remembered his mother having time for herself. He couldn’t say the same for his wife.

Even the kids were different. They were more independent back then than the kids today. If they needed to go somewhere, they walked or rode their bikes. They spent the afternoon outside, playing. They didn’t require organized sports with coaches, special equipment, and all that. Back then, some neighborhood kids would get together and decide to play kick the can, baseball, or touch football.

He didn’t remember his father sitting up late at night wondering how to pay the bills. He felt that the credit card was an invention of the devil. Because of them, you ended up paying twice as much as what the item should have cost. It was just too easy to buy something when you didn’t have the money for it. Although he was tempted to blame his wife for the credit card debt, he knew that he was just as much to blame.

Of course, his money problems weren’t entirely explained by the fact that they used credit cards. In the past, there weren’t so many things that you had to buy and, once bought, replace when they broke. His father had a lawn mower, clippers, a tree saw, snow shovel, and a rake. He had all that, plus a weed-whacker, leaf blower, snow blower, and a chain saw. His garage was nothing compared to the rest of the house. When he was a kid they had a radio and a black and white television. Now they had two televisions, two computers, a video recorder, stereos, a DVD player, and an answering machine.

It wasn’t just the quantity of items and their individual cost that was killing him financially. He was lucky if something lasted for more than four years. Every year he had to replace a quarter of the things in the house. It was impossible to repair them since they were solid state. It wasn’t even possible to fix your own car anymore. The money drain was never ending.

Of course, not all of his expectations about life were rooted in the lives experienced by his mother and father. When he was a young man, he had dreams of marrying a sexy woman and dying an old man after having sex every day of his life. That hadn’t happened. With both of them tired all the time, he was lucky to have sex once a month.

He remembered the old stack of playboys that he had found when he was a teenager. The women in those pictures were incredible. He thought about his wife and remembered when she looked and acted like one of those women. Those had been the days. Every night they made love for hours. All of that ended when she became pregnant. Their sex life had never recovered. She had gained a little weight, but still looked good.

Having a child had changed a lot of things. There weren’t any dinners out with just him and his wife. That wasn’t possible since it would mean his daughter would have to stay at home with a babysitter and his wife didn’t trust others with her baby. Of course, Lisa was long past the age where she needed a babysitter now, but his wife still didn’t want her to stay at home alone. He didn’t understand the reasons why, but it wasn’t necessary for him to understand. He was just expected to obey.

He remembered when his daughter had been born. She was such a little thing that he was afraid that he’d crush her when he held her. He looked down at her, terrified by the responsibility that she represented. So many things could go wrong raising a kid. His wife didn’t like him holding the child though and, after the first few times, she wouldn’t let him hold her. He knew that put a physical distance between him and his daughter, but he didn’t know how to correct that over time.

Raising a daughter was so different than having boys. If he’d had a boy he would have thrown the baseball with him in the evening. He would have taught him how to use tools and fix things. He couldn’t do those kinds of things with a girl. Girls wore dresses, played with dolls and had imaginary friends. They didn’t wrestle in the middle of the living room floor. He had no idea what to do with her and there was no one to tell him how to be a father to a little girl.

She was smart like her mother and he took a lot of pride in that. She made good grades in school and would show him her grade reports. He’d tell her that she did well, but it seemed to him that she was disappointed by his reaction. His wife on the other hand jumped up and down on seeing the report. The reaction always seemed a little excessive to him.

The thing that puzzled him the most, though, was his position in the family. Somehow, he had become the low man on the totem pole. It seemed to him that his wife’s life revolved around the life of his daughter. She ferried the kid to this activity or that activity. His life revolved around the whims of his wife. His job was to show up where he was told and to do the errands assigned him.

Now that Lisa had a boyfriend, he was really getting worried about her staying a good girl. He had been a teenage boy once and knew all the tricks. He also knew that he wasn’t going to be able to prevent anything from happening. He had never thought there would be a day when he couldn’t prevent his little girl from falling prey to a teenage boy.

June interrupted his thoughts when she entered the room carrying a paper bag and said, “I’ve got the wine.”

He looked over at his wife and took in her formal dress. She looked great in it. In fact, he hadn’t seen her look that good since they were dating.

Rather than comment, he asked, “Why are we going over there?”

“To meet Harry’s parents,” June explained for the tenth time.

“We’re not dating Harry, our daughter is dating Harry. She’s the one who has to deal with his parents,” Jack said. That was another thing that was different now. When he was a kid all of the parents knew each other without having to be introduced. Scratching his cheek, he asked, “Why am I wearing a Tux?”

“It is a formal dinner,” June answered for the thousandth time. She hadn’t seen him in a tuxedo since the day they were married. Looking at him brought back such great memories. The early years had been filled with passion. He couldn’t keep his hands off her body. She wondered what happened to the couple they had been. She was curious about when they had turned into a pair of middle-aged fuddy-duddies.

“Oh,” Jack said hoping that a formal dinner included strong alcoholic drinks. He could go for a drink about now.

The idea that they were going to a formal dinner made him a little nervous. Although Harry was a polite young man, he wasn’t sure if he liked his daughter dating a rich kid. He tried to remember the words to the song that kept flashing through his mind. It was about how to treat girls based on the wealth of her father. He couldn’t remember the words, but the gist of it was that if her father is rich you have to treat her well, but if her daddy is poor you can treat her as you will. He decided that meeting the parents wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Lisa is nervous about this evening,” June said worried about how Jack was going to react to the Anders family.

“If those rich bastards make her feel unwelcome, I’ll...”

“What will you do?” June asked raising her eyebrow. It wasn’t a good idea to let him get worked up like this. She needed to get him under control.

“I’ll do something,” he said fidgeting with the collar of the tuxedo.

The truth was that he didn’t know what he could do. His little girl was falling big time for Harry. Soon his wife would be putting her on birth control pills. He shook his head disturbed by the idea. That boy was going to destroy his little girl and telling her that she couldn’t date him was out of the question. Looking at his watch, he asked, “Where is she?”

“She’s getting ready. She’s a young lady about to meet up with her boyfriend. She wants to look her best.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of that,” Jack said looking at his wife.

She just smiled that superior little female smile that meant he was about to lose the fight, the battle, and the war. Wisely, he decided not to say another word. He was saved when Lisa came out of her bedroom wearing a new dress.

Spinning around, she asked, “How does it look?”

“You look wonderful, honey.”

Looking at the dresses worn by the two women, Jack knew this evening was costing him a fortune. Depressed at the thought of more bills, he asked, “Isn’t that a little too fancy for school?”

“Of course,” Lisa said with a sigh.

His reaction to her dress was horrible. She wondered if she could ever please him. The idea of wearing the dress to school did bring a little smile to her face. She could just imagine the reaction of the kids to her showing up to class dressed as though it were the prom.

“She can wear it to church and to other formal occasions.”

“My monkey suit is rented. How much did your outfit cost?” Jack asked looking at his wife. She looked great in it, but he was sure that it cost five hundred dollars or more. He didn’t have that kind of money for one night. Even the tuxedo rental was more than he’d spend on a dinner out. He wondered if she’d be able to return it to the store and get her money back.

“Seventy five dollars,” June said. She had gone to a second-hand store and found the dress for fifty dollars. It was initially a little large and a lot dated, but she had taken it to a tailor. Twenty-five dollars later, she had a gown that was to die for.

Surprised at the price, Jack said, “That’s not too bad. You do look nice in it.”

“Thank you,” she said accepting the compliment as intended rather than voiced. She hadn’t seen that look in his eye in years.

“You look stunning in that dress, Mom.” Lisa said proud of the way her mother looked. She looked over at her father and said, “Really nice? You should tell her that she looks beautiful.”

“Okay, you look beautiful,” Jack said frowning at his daughter.

That was another thing they did to him. One would always be correcting him about how he talked to the other. It was two against one and he didn’t stand a chance. The fact that he was sitting there wearing a tuxedo was proof of that.

“That’s better,” Lisa said flashing a smile at her mother. Excited about the fancy dinner, she asked, “Isn’t it about time for us to go?”

“By the way, since I’m driving, where am I supposed to take us?” Jack asked while levering himself out of his chair.

“They live in the Glenwood Estates,” Lisa answered.