The last couple of days of spring break and my daughter comes down with a nasty cold. She wants to curl up next to me in bed, so I spent the past two very restless nights with her stealing the covers every time she tossed and turned (which was A LOT), with her various body parts being pressed into the small of my back (alternating feet, knees, elbows and an occasional skull), and listening to both her and my dog snore. In fact, everybody but ME was snoring!!
And I had all these grand plans to get up on this fine Sunday morning, pour myself a couple cups of coffee, turn on my laptop and catch up on everything I’ve missed during spring break. Having your head buried in the sand is actually rather pleasant for a week or so… But instead, I’m sitting here two cups of coffee in, depressed by the headlines, and completely swimmy-headed and bleary-eyed. I think I’m going to go lie back down in my daughter’s bed for a while since she and George have taken over mine.
Okay! So that was an exercise in futility, and now I’m back to blog.
So I was wondering, how do you — as a single mom with your kid in tow — hit on a single dad with his two kids in tow? You just don’t, right? First of all, I have to assume he’s single because he’s not wearing a ring and his daughters were acting a little TOO excited to be out with Daddy on a Friday night at the Super Walmart. We single moms, however, make it blatantly obvious that we are up for grabs. We even throw in lots of ring-free, left-handed gesturing for added insurance. Without verbalizing it, you can hear us practically screaming, “See?? No ring on this finger! No siree, Bob! I’m free as a bird!! Well, except for my really great kid. We’re a package deal, you know! But please excuse the fact that she’s pitching a fit for the jumbo-sized box of Lucky Charms after I told her no for the fifth time and now I’m threatening to leave her flailing alone in the cereal aisle if she doesn’t get her act together right this very minute. She’s really not like this all the time! But again, Potential Single Dad, do you notice how I’m gesturing a lot with my jewelry-free left hand?”
And then he grabbed his instant oatmeal, told his two girls, “Come on!” and was gone. I guess he didn’t hear my inner monologue. Or worse, he DID hear it and ran away from aisle 9 as fast as he could without being too incredibly obvious. Or WORSE, he wasn’t even a single dad. He was a married dad WITHOUT A RING!! See now, THAT is just plain cruel. I don’t care how a man feels about jewelry, if you’re a married man with kids, you gotta put on that ring! Write it off as a charitable contribution or SOMETHING, but don’t be walking out of the house with your kids setting us single moms up for disappointment like that. And stay out of Super Walmart on Friday nights. Geesh.
