Who's keeping score?

The woman who watched my children, well when they were too young for day care, her name was Barbara and she was a grandmother and a retired school teacher, she was also my neighbor. She and I became friends the moment I moved into the house next to her. She had a little dog that loved my children and would bark and bark until my children and I went outside and she would waddle over to the fence and try to stick her nose through so the kids would pet her, they, my kids were one and two. Before her, one of my ex husband’s nieces had watched them, and while she was good to the kids and a good child care provider, she married a man that I just couldn’t trust, so, in came Barbara.

I had known her for a few months and a couple of times she had watched the children for me while I ran to the store, or while I paid bills, and my children loved her. So, one day she and I were talking and I asked her if she would watch them while I worked and she jumped at the offer. That’s how it happened and soon, she moved in with me, into the extra bedroom and she and I and my children became a family.

Barbara was a horrible cook, yep, she knew how to make a couple of things but over all, I did all the cooking, I also did all the laundry, because she just couldn’t carry the baskets of clothes to the wash room. Really I did everything but I didn’t care, as long as she doted on my babies and that she did all day and up until they went to bed and even then, she would get up and go peak in on them.

Her moving in with me gave me a lot of freedom to run, and I did do that, for a while. So, I would get off work at eleven and call and tell her that I was going out and did she mind and she would say of course not, go and have fun, your young and so, only on the weekends, I would go run and play with my friend K.C. that’s how I got by with so much bar time, only gay bars, well there were a few times we went to straight bars and fought over the men. I usually won but sometimes, he won and that would just piss me off to no end. K.C. liked red necks, go figure. He said that rednecks are one step above ballet slippers and two steps behind cross dressing, he was pretty much right on that one, or the red necks we met in Bakersfield California.

One night, we were at a bar called the Red Rooster, I know, there is a Red Rooster in every town and they play country music and the place smells like new boots and back in those days, high karate cologne. So, we go to this bar and K.C. bought a new cowboy hat and boots and we practiced doing a line dance that was pretty much all the rage with the red necks and we were out there dancing around and around and he was twirling me and waltzing me and no one on the floor could dance like us and then it happened, he dipped me and his eyes looked at me and he smiled and I looked at him and smiled and we both looked at the man next to us and we both lost our minds. Oh my was that man pretty. K.C. almost dropped me and I wanted to kick him and we both began to stutter and it was all so juvenile and the man asked me to dance and I dropped K.C. like a hot potato and went straight to the dirty dancing and K.C. was pissed, oh was he pissed. I still have it, I thought. So we go back to the table and he buys me a drink and joins us and we are talking and K.C. is putting on his charm and it is so gay and I’m giving him the look that I always gave him when we were among red necks that meant for him to pull in the gayness and exhibit some studliness, and he was so overwhelmed with this man’s beauty as was I, that he just didn’t pull back and soon he was fanning with his cowboy hat, and I’m rolling my eyes, and so I as carefully as I could unbuttoned the top button and reveal a little cleavage, that was a certain eye pleaser and for sure I was going to up the fanning flame and then K.C. pulls out all his artillery and begins talking about head, yes he did and how there is nothing like good head. Well, there you go, I will not talk about head on the first drink, or dance, but I am not trashy like my flaming, fanning, friend, and so I am out of my league because Mr. Good-looking-redneck-stud is intrigued and loses his senses when someone begins discussing the art of a good blow job, and since I am not jumping in on that one, K.C. hits a home run. Later, when K.C. came back to the bar, he sits down and says, what did I miss and I look at him and say, was it good, and he says, nope, my dear, I just saved you from a boring asshole, and I say, hey, don’t talk like that, you know that I’m not into assholes and he says, exactly. He bought me a drink, we toasted, we finished our drink and decided to go to the gay bar, the music was so much better, plus, the men there could at least dance and had better clothes and were not so easy, well, they were easy, but not like the men in the straight bar.