The Rinse Cycle!

When I was a small child my favorite thing to do was to stand at the washing machine on a stool and watch the clothes go through the cycles. This of course was before the safety days when you could just leave the lid up with out some sort of device to "trick" the machine into thinking that it was closed.

At first my mom was a bit apprehensive but as with most parents when you realize that your fears are really unfounded and it occupies the toddler for at least an hour you cave in. I mean for heavens sake, there were no DVD's or cartoon networks. Geez, we only had 3 channels and 1 of those only worked if you stood on your head, held the antenna toward the southern sky and prayed. Even then it was full of static.

So there I stood for hours on end, yelling for my mom when the rinse cycle started and gleefully cheered when the whole process was over. It was during those years that the laundry was never ever behind.

I had a sensation today that was reminiscent of one of the cycles that was so familiar from my childhood. It was the cycle when the water starts to drain and the machine begins to spin to ring the clothes out. That slow gradual pull of the gears and the water starts to slowly drop out of the bottom and the centrifigal force begins to push the clothes against the wall as the machine spins faster and faster!

My phone begins to vibrate today as I am standing in the file room of my dead end, unfulfilling job trying to decide whether the file for "Jesus Sanchez, Juan" should go in the J's or the S's. I know it's a number I'm not going to answer because it is just that, a number and in the 21st Century if you don't qualify to at least make my phone list you certainly aren't going to get me to answer blindly. But this number sends my heart rate up a couple of knotches because I recognize it as Abigail's new land line! The moment I ignore the first one, they start coming rapid fire as if the world is over and I missed it and my ex-wife is heralding the news that I'm late for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb!

But with the possibility of jail time, 1 to 10 years according to the really nice lady who was in her dead end, unfulfilling job issuing restraining orders, I was resilient in my restraint in answering the call. But my ex-wife was just as resilient in her pursuit and the calls went from vibrating in my pocket to ringing in my office and all of my co-workers were screening calls per my request. After about three denials in the midst of this flurry of activity at work, one of my co-workers whispered in my ear between customers, "It was your daughter!"

After not seeing my children for over a month and only talking to them once, I caved and took the jail time risk because I realized my daughter was in the middle of something that she was too little to be orchestrating and I was furious with Abigail for allowing her to even be a part of it. On the other end of the phone, was my sweet little Alex's voice asking for Jeff Batton. It broke my heart. She didn't recognize me. It melted me to hear her little voice trying its best to be strong and adult in a world that she was treading in prematurely. When she realizes it me, she begins talking as though she's being chased and has just a few moments to get out a ton of uncomprehendable information. She's desperate for me to talk to her mom so that I'll understand that things are all better. I instinctively, because of the flurry of work around me, begin trying to explain to Alex what was happening when I caught myself and let Alex off the hook. I told her that I missed her so much and that I had to go because I was at work. She frantically responded with the most earnest plea she could muster to please talk to her mom. I calmly told her that that wasn't going to happen and then as I'm saying my good byes, I ask her why she wasn't at school...She was home with the flu!!!

The one thing that I did get from Alex was that her mom had gone to court and changed "the thing" and that I could come over for 2 hours every Wednesday and see them! You could hear Alex's excitement through her flu symptoms as if her mom had done something! She's going to LET me come and visit MY children 2 hours a week! 8 hours a month! 72 hours a year! I was doing the math and scratching my head wondering what I had done to warrant such actions. Sure I screamed at her sister! It was long overdue! I should have screamed at her unhealthy, passive aggressive actions, years ago. I hate that she drove off because I had plenty more to vent, I mean, say!

I'm being treated as if I'm a pedophile or something. Could it be there's some sort of tranferance going on to me from her issue's with her dad? I scratch my head again!

The kick in the teeth is that after our amazing time on the sofa where I thought Abigail and I had made a break through and things were going to start heading in a different direction, she proceeds to lie to me. I mean bold face lie! After she's sitting inside while I'm outside getting served a restraining order, she proceeds to tell me not to go to the hearing because we'll just take care of it with the child support court date at the same time. So like a big old "doof-ous" dog with his tongue hanging out, I believed her. Psyche! She goes to court anyway and signs into effect, not a 30 day restraining order, oh nooooo! This really nice lady in her dead end, unfulfilling job at the court house information desk tells me in her "scrumptious" Southern accent that "OH it's not a 30 day notice, it's one year!" No one in the world but Southern people could draw the word year out as long as she did!

With "year" still ringing in my ear, there it was! The rinse cycle! I could hardly stand up. My whole body felt like the rinse cycle. The centifigal force was so strong I didn't know which way was up! Now I just wonder if I will ever get to shout with glee that the whole bloody thing is over!?!?