CAUSE WHEN YOU GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL...YOU KNOW EVERYTHING

I was raised right. I had a wonderful childhood. We moved around some but never over 3 hours from where my parents were born and raised. I grew up with my parents and brother, 2 sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. My family has a law enforcement background. I have lived in towns that were good places to raise kids. We all played outside and went in when the street lights came on. We did not wear bicycle helmets...heck we did not wear seat belts!! Life was way simpler then.

We were not allowed to plop down in front of the TV set except for Sunday morning cartoons. And when we wanted the channel turned, you got off of your bottom and went and turned it. TV was not at all like it is today. We learned educational things from TV like the ping pongs balls were ALWAYS going to drop when Mr. Rabbit was around!! We did not learn about sex on TV. Certain things were not discussed out loud. I never got *the talk*. I got a book to read. I remember it being about all different sorts of animals and a cartoon man and woman in bed with the blanket covering them. My mom whispered to me *I have put a book in your bottom drawer for you to read. Please do not let your little brother see it.*. Before *that time of the month* started for me, I was prepared with the Kotex starter kit that came with the pastel pink brochure about how I was now a woman. There were no sticky tabs or wings. There was those gosh awful belts!!

I moved to small town with college on the hill the middle of my freshman year. It was like SURPRISE I am sure that you will like it here. I was like SURPRISE you cannot make me!!! It was awkward for me. I made friends. I learned to adapt. I never felt as though I fit it. As it is the way with smaller schools, everyone had basically started kindergarten together. I later learned that I was popular but not in a cheerleader way but in a Miss Congeniality kind of a way.

And I met the ex.

How do I describe his family? If you had a portrait of my family, you would hang it in the living room over the couch. Everyone would be dressed right and smiling. The portrait of his family would have lots of people in it and everyone would be arguing and pushing. It would be hung on the men's room wall of the Texaco station three counties over. That is just how TOTALLY DIFFERENT they were/are from my family. The family business was trucking. He was the youngest. All his brothers had already gotten girls pregnant before high school was over. His mom drove a truck and wore a truckers hat with a little pom pom on the top. She ran the family business. She could out cuss, out drink, out shoot and out drive any man. She had gotten a divorce in the 60's when it was taboo and, on top of that, had lost custody of her children.

I graduated on May 21st, 1981. I was 4th in a class of 36. I had a small scholarship to go to little college on the hill and a dorm room. I had that diploma and thought I was so damned smart. Instead, I married ex on September 5, 1981 and moved just about 6 hours away from home. Babygator was born February 24, 1982.

Go ahead....I will wait for you to do the math.

I was young and stupid and very ill prepared for life. Being in law enforcement, you tend to see the seedier side of people and shield your family from it. I had never ever heard my parents argue or raise their voices to one another.

I truly believed that love was all you needed and married life was a sweet little house with a white picket fence.

It isn't and it was not.

Eight months after babygator was born, he feel in *love* with a married woman who lived next door to his brother and sister in law. She was still in high school. He sent me home. She immediately moved in with him and, three months later, she was pregnant. He divorced me and married her. They had a girl. She and babygator are a little shy of two years apart.

I went to work at a little insurance agency as a secretary. I hate insurance work. *spit spit spit* It was a job that I got up dreading to go to. I was not bright enough to realize that I could move from little town. The idea never occurred to me. My boss was a very nice man who suggested that I start taking classes at little college on the hill. He allowed me to take classes during my lunch hour. I would take a class one semester and a class another semester. Life moved on in the little town and it was good.

Then the ex came back....


............trust me, this gets worse........