Someday in Stuff

I walked through the door yesterday at home after a long stressful day in court to find Mercer and Megan (the neighbor) on the couch playing video games. I remember I stopped and stared at what I was seeing, I’m not sure if I actually verbalized my confusion in the form of what the fuck is this? or if I just thought it in my head.

I mean, there’s nothing bad about it. I think I wrote before that it seemed like Mercer and Megan had a lot in common and that she almost seemed better at communicating with him on his level than I am. But the scene was so unexpected that it really caught me by surprise.

First of all, we don’t own any video game console. I don’t necessarily have anything against them, I just didn’t want my kids to fall into the trap of playing video games for hours on end and ignoring the rest of their lives. Seriously, just reading people on Prosebox, it feels like the number one complaint that women have on here is that their husbands or boyfriends spend too much time playing video games.

I try to preach moderation, but in some things it’s better to avoid them completely. I don’t know almost anything about video games and the kids only know what they see at their friends’ houses.

But I don’t have a problem with someone bringing over a game console to play for a while, which is what Megan apparently did. I wasn’t upset or angry, I was just surprised.

The bigger source of my surprise was her being there. Again, I wasn’t angry or upset, but it was weird. Only a few weeks ago she was virtually a stranger. I started being friendly with her and now she’s hanging out at my house with my kids. Should I be concerned?

She seems very harmless. Maybe it’s just the fact that I know a bit of her past? And even then, most of what I know about her past is from neighborhood gossip, not anything she has told me directly. She’s a nice person, somewhat lonely, somewhat needy, but nice.

And should I think there’s something more than platonic friendship with her and Mercer? He’s 16 and she’s…I don’t know, I think she told me....somewhere around 30? Maybe I shouldn’t think like that. Not everything is about sex.

And what if the two of them really hit it off and have a great friendship? That’s just what Mercer needs in his life.

I’m probably making too big of a deal out of nothing. She stuck around all evening and I served her dinner. Not a complaint, there’s always plenty of food. She was good company.

When she was ready to leave she made it really awkwardly obvious that she wanted to me to walk out with her. So I did. Out in front of the house she says, “Do you smoke?”

“Cigarettes?” I asked. “Not for many years.”

She rolled her eyes so of course I knew what she meant. I answered her honestly. I told her that I went drug and alcohol free several years ago because I thought it was taking too much control of my life. But, I told her that a little pot from time to time sounds like a nice thing.

She seemed happy with my non-answer. In her normal awkward way, she said she was just asking because she’d be happy to share with me if I was interested. I said, “Maybe someday.”

Last updated November 07, 2017