Games

I've been thinking about do-overs. You know when you were a kid and you messed up in a game you called "do-over" and you were granted immediate clemency. You got to do it over. And whether or not you did better, it didn't matter. You felt like you were part of a team because you were granted the do-over. Everyone knew how you felt when you first screwed up and liked you well enough to say, "hey, yeah, let's give her another shot."

I thought about it yesterday when I was sitting at my hair salon and the hairstylist was asking me if I wanted the same color as last time or try something new. I looked at her and thought to myself, who the heck cares what I look like? Certainly not my husband as he sits and stares at a letter. Definitely not my kids. Maybe the guys at Kroger? Nah. Perhaps the guards who sit at the gate to the Army Post? Heck no. So I answered, "It doesn't matter, whatever is easiest." As I sat there dwelling on that cheerful conclusion, I noticed a bottle of shampoo that I was a sucker enough to buy the last time. Only the bottle was different. And there was a big sticker that said, NEW AND IMPROVED!

Now wait a minute. I paid a lot, I mean a lot, for that stupid bottle of shampoo. And now they are saying, "you know, that last bottle...not so good. But THIS bottle!!! THIS bottle, you gotta have! " I wanted a do-over. I wanted to say something to that hairstylist and demand I got that new improved bottle for free. But, I could tell this twenty something girl was not on my team and it just wasn't worth it. I will just have to deal with the less than perfect shampoo sitting in my shower. I was a sucker with no do-over clout.

That was more apparent last night when I was talking to my girlfriend. She and I were talking about how it really stings when we bring the kids to different events and there are daddies everywhere. Yesterday was our first time bringing our boys to a soccer game. Well, there were daddies everywhere you looked. For being a military town, there were plenty of guys playing soccer, or giving pointers to their kids. And it really stings.

I mean, if we noticed it, it makes you wonder how the kids are reacting to the men who are not their Daddy. And as we were talking about this, my friend started crying. You see, her husband has been gone since late September. And he won't be back until the week before Christmas of this year. I didn't have words to comfort her. I just said, "It is just too much. It is just too much."

It is on days like this, you just want to cry: do-over! do-over! Whoever made the decision to have these Daddies, brothers, husbands go to war for a year and three months please please call a do-over. It is just too much. Because it isn't the big events that are straining the wives. It is the little things. It is the spilled milks, the arguing, the flat tires, the wet newspapers, the bugs in the house, the doctor's offices, the middle of the night fevers, the bad dreams, the creaks in the night, the oil changes, the bottles of really really expensive shampoos that we find are not that great and the hair color decisions that we know don't matter because, really- who is looking at us anyway?

I wish I could call a do-over for my dear friend and all the women out there who do both parent's jobs with seemingly no team behind them...but I am just a sucker with no do-over clout.