The Ring in Return

Sometimes you stop doing something and you think you’ll probably never do that thing again. Sometimes you’re totally right. But sometimes you don’t do said thing for about two years, then suddenly decide to do it again. This is one of those times. I may never write another OD entry again, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. A couple of months ago I found my password and decided to log on for no real reason, and re-read my old entries for even less of one. I didn’t read them all, just the ones from January ’06 forward– the beginning of my life in the awful world of retail. That was when I got the job at the now-defunct Movie Gallery. To think I used to avoid using the name of the place in entries for fear of losing my job. How ridiculous. That place didn’t have the resources for something like that, and now it doesn’t exist anymore. Good fucking riddance.

Now I work at a different retail establishment, and this one does have such resources and has stated pretty specifically that speaking ill of the company in blogs or social network posts will result in termination, so I won’t say the name. But for the more intelligent people who might stumble across this little smudge on the giant smudge that is the internet, it rhymes with lame flop. And I gotta say, not a day goes by that I don’t feel like a lame flop for working there. I’m nearly 30 years old and stuck in the hellish world of retail, and not only that, I work for one of the biggest goddamn companies going right now. Back in the Movie Gallery days, I didn’t know what "busy" was. Even during the holidays, it was never a big deal. Black Friday wasn’t even a thing, wasn’t busier than any other Friday. The place I work now… games are big shit, and Black Friday is the stuff of nightmares. And Christmas is worse.

But enough about all that. Suffice to say I hate my damn job, just like I did at Movie Gallery. The real reason I’ve been considering doing an entry has to do with the things that have changed rather than those that haven’t. I’ve been married for just over two years now. We live with my parents, which has its benefits as well as its annoyances. It’s really not where I thought we’d be, but we’re not very well versed in how the world works unfortunately, so we don’t really know how to go about getting a home of our own. I didn’t come to write about that either. Suffice to say that I love being married. It helps that my wife has also been one of my best friends for the past 12 years or so. What has changed is my relationship with my wife’s family. I can actually stand them now. It’s the strangest thing- I finally got her away from them after almost eight years of engagement, and now suddenly they’re not so hard to deal with. On top of that, her parents finally started to realize that I’m awesome. How’d that happen? Well, all Minnie’s (the wife, for anybody who hasn’t read my old entries) sisters have been married, or at least had some sort of significant other/baby daddy for years now. Those guys, sad to say, all suck. Their either full of shit, or just jackassy, or some combination. I’m neither. Who would you rather your daughter marry: a loudmouth who says stupid shit, borrows your tools and breaks them, pees off your back porch, and comes in your house without permission when you’re not home; or a guy who generally doesn’t do shit like that?

Now the other thing. The thing that’s really changed about me. Minnie and I do not plan to have children. Her four siblings all have them. There’s 8 in total ranging in age from about three weeks to 16 years at time of this writing. There are plenty of grandchildren to go around, and Minnie’s pretty tired of kids. I’m fine with that. She one that wanted them. But the interesting thing is this- I’ve been a part of every single one of these kids’ lives for as long as any of them can remember. The 16 year old was about 4 when I met her, and the next oldest one is her sister at 9, so I’ve known all but one of these kids (there’s only one boy in the lot, by the way) their entire lives. And about 2 years ago, that 9 year old girl (seven at the time, obviously) decided she wanted to come and visit Min-Min (that’s what the little ones all call her) for the night. I don’t know why that happened, and at the time I was actually a bit surprised her mother let her come. And to be honest, when Minnie called me and said, "I just wanted to let you know, Jaden is going to stay with us tonight. She’s already here, so I hope you don’t mind," my initial reaction was, "Oh shit, there’s a little girl at my house. Probably all in my stuff, probably running around making a mess, probably gonna yak my ear off… this is gonna be a disaster. I’ll let this one go, but we’ll have a talk about this and I’ll put the kibosh on this ever happening again." But you know what? Sometimes initial reactions are bullshit and you should simply ignore them. I came home, admittedly full of dread, and what did I find? My budding Transformer collection strewn about the house, my books thrown everywhere, and my PS3 broken? Nope. Nothing of the sort. Beyond a few sheets of paper with little-girl drawings on them lying here and there and iCarly on the tv, nothing all that out of the ordinary. 

"Okay," thought I, "this is a surprise. She respects my possessions. But now begins the verbal barrage. She’ll talk and talk and talk and talk, and I’ll just sort of stare into the middle distance and think happy thoughts till she goes to sleep." I think the problem is that I was remembering what a nightmare her older sister was at that age. Granted, Jaden did ramble on about school and what she did with her cousin over the summer and ask random questions and whatnot, but it was just sort of okay. She did most of that while sitting with me in my recliner. Maybe I’m just getting old (I definitely am), but all that was just sorta nice. I didn’t mind all the rambling and the questions. She stayed with us a few more times that year, and somewhere along the way, she and I became pretty close. Last time the 5 year old came too, and not only did she also not wreck my shit, she fell asleep sitting with me. I don’t

remember a hell of a lot about being 5, but I don’t think there are a hell of a lot of people I trusted enough to fall asleep on. I’ve gone soft, guys. The ol’ Mighty has a heart after all. 

So that’s the big change. I like my wife’s sisters’ kids. Listen, that’s a big deal to me. I used to hate kids. I’m still not fond of strange kids, like the ones that come in my store. But it’s really a big deal for me to discover that I actually like these tiny people, and that they like me. I’ve started feeling like part of the family. This past Christmas, I was the guy all 6 of the young ones were bringing presents to to put in batteries and help open difficult packages. I was Super Uncle. It turns out even the 16 year old, whom I thought just thought Minnie and I were weird, thinks I’m super cool. Don’t get me wrong, she still thinks we’re weird, but she thinks weird is cool. I wish 16 year old girls had thought I was super cool when I was 16 myself, but I guess if they had things might be very different right now.