Man Maid- Keepin’ It Awkward Since 2013

I awoke to my phone ringing at 6:10 a.m yesterday. It was the school district calling to inform us we were on yet another 2 hour delay, due to icy conditions.

“Icy conditions? What the hell?” I grumbled under my breath then fell back on my pillow. Sleep threatened to take me back under till I had the startling realization of what day it was. I shot back up.

“No…no….no….,” I whimpered. Today was cleaning day or more specifically, the day Jack came to clean our house. Jack is what I like to call a man maid, who comes just twice a month. I invite you to click on the man maid link for context of the level of crazy we are dealing with here.

3 hours later I’m in the kitchen, jamming a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich in my mouth while my youngest is enjoying his 8th viewing of a Disney movie.

Knock, knock…..

“Oh shit….I mean shoot,” I say with a mouth full. “Sorry,” I mouth over to my son as he grins from my poor choice of words.

As I walk to open the door, Jack is already opening it.

“Hello, hello?” He says as he sticks his head in.

“Hi…you….we’ll get out of your way shortly, just packin’ lunches and eating breakfast,” I say grabbing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Lunch Box.

“Oh no worries. I saw you’re on Instagram,” he said as serious as one would say that there was traffic on I-70. These were the first words out of his mouth. Now note, I know nothing about this man other than he is crazy and cleans my house twice a month. As what I would later deduce was a defense mechanism, I looked at him as if I had never heard of this phenomenon known as The Instagram. Somehow in my mind, if I played stupid, my Instagram profile would instantly delete it’s self temporarily. My goal here was for him not to ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, request to follow me.

“Instagram?” I asked perplexed. “Oh, of course. Yeah, I haven’t been on Instagram in like forever,” I lied.

“So how have you been?” He asked like you would ask a friend you haven’t seen in 5 years. Now I want to make something clear. He could care less about “how we have been”. I have learned over the years this is just a formality he is rushing to get through so he can get to the topic he clearly wants to talk about-himself. I decided to make this quick and painless for him and like a flu shot, I wanted to get this over for myself.

“Ah great, just finished Christmas. Just trying to put away everything. How have you been?” I rushed through the words.

“Divorcin,” he responded. Barely letting 1 second squeeze in between my question and his response.

For what felt like a minute but really probably 1 second, I pursed my lips and shook my head up and down in complete disbelief. The following raced through my head,

‘Really ass hole? Really? Divorcin? I mean, every conversation is awkward with you but this is how you have been? Normal people say fine or good. If you’re really fishing for sympathy you can be vague and say I’ve been having family issues but when someone asks you how you have been, your answer should never, ever, ever be divorcin‘.

While my next move may sound cold, this is how you have to deal with Jack or it just becomes a downward spiral of awkward, odd conversation that makes you want to punch yourself in the face.

“I’m sorry to hear that Jack. Would love to hear more but I promised C I would take him down to the bus stop early today.”

“No you didn’t mommy,” C chimed in.

“YES, yes you did,” I said slow and firmly as I shot him a death look to comply or be grounded.