Like pulling teeth pt.1

You may or may not be arguing about previous ex's hanging around and waiting in the wings for the opportune time to strike. Or the need for attention from someone who is a 'real' man, but the ride will be tumultuous at best because there will be an elephant in the car with you.

The place might not be as hard to find and you might not get asked by a strange looking white woman "Are y'all heading to _____?"

But eventually you will find it. For some reason the door has a buzzer and a sign telling you to leave your cell in the car, no food allowed either. So you might have to go to the car and put that shit up, I know I did. So you go up to the counter and they'll give you a packet of information to fill out. As you take it to your seat you might scan the room. Everybody is doing there own thing, whether it's reading through a magazine they don't particularly have an interest in, staring at the floor and some of the girls jut have their heads down. But they all have that same expression on their face that says.. "How did I get here"

As we sit I see that they have a tv playing 'Divorce Court' and the case involves paternity. I think to myself, "that's kind of the wrong thing to have on right now...especially here!"

So I tune it out and assist you with your packet of info. I really only know a few ways to deal with tense situations and that's to lighten the load with a little comic relief... you know a little joke here and there. So we work through the packet fill out the questions. Watch out for the carbon copies because they'll bleed right through...too late.

After getting the packet we just wait to hear your name. The only thing that we were left with was information about what was gonna be happening to you, what to expect and aftercare and so on and so forth. We talk about everything but whats gonna happen, how I think you should be with me afterwards because who knows how you'll be feeling and I know you don't want your parents to know! In a waiting room you can't fill every minute with foolish banter so I take a look around the room and take stock of my surroundings. Some girls came with there boyfriends, so with their mothers, and one like the one in front of us, came with their fathers.

She puts her head on my shoulder to just rest while they call her name. I want to hold her hand but I can't imagine what is going through her head right now. So I just sit there and sya to myself. "It's for the best". We play 'hangman' but you give up because you say I don't play it right. Oh look, they just called your name.

You come back with a Garfield band aid on your finger and I ask you what happened and you tell me...

"Let's go outside"

My heart is racing in my stomach and a million questions are flying through my head.

"You don't want to go through with it?!" is the first thing I think, because a change of heart right now would be completely understood, followed by "Was there any complications?"

Instead of lambasting you with questions, I just wait to see what you have to say.

I listen as you tell me that you need a few things from the car because once they call you again, you'll be back there for two hours and won't be able to come back. They showed you a picture and you said it looked like a comma. I started to ask you what you wanted when you'd get out but I know you and I know that a grape fanta and cupcakes will do you just right. After getting buzzed back in we sit and I tell you that I feel like 'In elementary school when your teacher would call home and leave that message telling your mom/dad you were suspended for _____, and your mom had already picked you up and there was that window of time with that uneasy feeling before she found out.' That's how I felt now.

You scoff because you say I'm too dramatic, but I scoff right back to myself because I'm surprised because of how calm you appear, but I know that it's you 'telling silly jokes as you walk through a graveyard' because I don't think the brevity of this has hit you yet. I mean you've researched it, your friend told you about it and we've talked in length about it. But I still don't think you know....

They call your name and although I wish I could go back there with you, I can't. I have to find something to do with two hours before I can pick you up. Before I get in my car to head out I think to myself... "this is what I gave up Costa Rica for...This?" (once I got over the sadness of bot being somewhere tropical, I went to work to find a new vacation and that place was either the Dominican Republic or Costa Rica. Both relatively easy places to get to from Atlanta and with the hotel deal I found, awww shit. But when I told you about it you weren't as nearly enthralled with it as I was and when you told me "It's says it's gonna rain all week in Costa Rica. I don't wanna go somewhere rainy." I was heated because I'm like, you've only been to Chicago and Panama City and you're now scoffing at a fucking trip to Costa Rica! I knew that I'd have to forsake yet another trip and handle our situation headon.)