Laboring to be a Buzz Kill
Holiday weekends and crowds go hand in hand. I don’t care for crowds, but I don’t avoid them either. If I know I’m going somewhere on a holiday weekend, it is safe to assume that everyone else will too, so I plan for it. This past Labor Day the day started with rain, which meant indoor activities like the cinema were going to be packed… anyone who expected different was smoking crack.
Which means that the grumpy crone sitting next to me on the bench in the concessions area was on the pipe, haha. Yup, she was bitching about the crowds. Unfortunately, it seemed she did not come alone and the poor man with her who had been looking forward to seeing Iron Man 3 was bound to be let down because her next statement was “Can we get our money back?”.
The disappointed look on his face was palpable, but then again, so was her selfish focus on all the people standing in the long line waiting to get into the movie, however that line of folks was going to see it in 3D, so all those people weren’t even going to be in her theater! I did mention this to her, in my nosy attempt to lend a helping hand to the poor sap, but no dice.
She gave me the impression that she was a ball buster extraordinaire because her one murmured comment was “They’re playing nothing but guy movies here this weekend. No chick flicks.” What? So now action movies and sci-fi flicks and old west TV show remakes MUST be just for men? What century is she from? I mentioned that I was going to see Pacific Rim, to which she turned her head to him and said “I suppose you’d want to see that too?!” Good grief.
His shoulders sank, resigned and went to get a refund on their tickets. I watched as her face scrunched up, she clutched her purse and stomped off, I assumed, to ruin what was left of that man’s day. You know what though? I’ve been in that man’s shoes before and it sucks.
Yes, this is yet another mention of Mr Horrible and shit he did that pissed me off. Yet another shout out in gladness that his toxic behavior is a part of my past! Learn from my mistakes, people! That scenario, and any similar to it, are clear signs that the person you are with couldn’t care less about your happiness, and sharing with you experiences that you’d enjoy.
Oh yeah, I stupidly tailored my life to curtail events and outings that mr horrible did not like. He complained about crowds, he complained about long lines, he complained about everything.
If we went to a movie on opening weekend (because that is fun and exciting to do) he would complain about having to get there early to get a good seat, then he would complain about the people, about the noise, about the sound of everyone laughing or exclaiming out loud to the movie. Then he would proceed to ruin it for me specifically by guessing the plot twists in advance.
Even if I suspected that was going to happen, or the movie was formulaic, did he have to voice it out-loud to ruin it for me specifically? At that point I would no longer enjoy it because I had to work harder to avoid listening to his sarcastic commentary about the movie.
Translate that scenario to any public event (church, school plays, PTA meetings, etc.) because they all went the same way.
If we planned a trip to the amusement park for the kids, he would make the outing an exercise in frustration from the beginning. He would either make it a point to take forever to get ready, or rush me out of the house so I would inevitably forget something important so as to necessitate driving back to get the item, then he would complain about being behind schedule.
Like the time that he was rushing me out of the house and I kept telling him I was forgetting something, but he insisted because we had to get on the road because of the schedule. Then about 45 minutes into the drive, 30 minutes from the park, it dawned on me what we had forgotten sitting in the foyer, the passes to get into the park, and had to turn around to go back home to get them wasting two hours.
By the time we finally got to the park, the parking lot was jammed packed, and then he complained for the rest of the day about the crowded state of the park, the long lines, the heat, the price of the food at the concessions… you name it, it was not worthy and we should never have gone to the park, whine, whine, whine.
I can count on two hands the number of things that we did together as a family that included him in the thirteen years we were married. I wonder if my children will ever realize how little he actually did with us because there were so many things that we did without him, both when he was in port and when his ship was on deployment.
It didn’t matter, he would rather stay home, or at work, or out to sea than spend time with all of us.
By the time the marriage was over, he added insult to injury by telling me that his reluctance to participate in family outings was my fault because he was embarrassed to be seen with me in public. I knew his excuses were lies, just convenient excuses to be an asshole, laying the blame on me like he always did, but the words still hurt.
I wonder if he realized that in the final month, I overheard him telling a coworker that he didn’t know why he was compelled to treat me like shit. What is wrong with a person who can confess to another that they don’t know what drives them to repeatedly hurt, disrespect, and mistreat their spouse, lie to their face and do so without ever feeling an ounce of remorse?
I wonder if my children will ever come to realize what a piece of crap their father really is.
I enjoyed myself on Labor Day, but having that woman behave as she did–and the unpleasant thoughts it awoke– was a major buzz kill.
I think back to that incident at the movie theater, and how it brought to mind painful and unpleasant memories of my life with mr horrible. I wonder how long it will be before I can go somewhere and do something that I enjoy without being reminded of how these events were tainted in the past by the ex?
