Frustrations of Dating, or “How That Footprint Got In My Back Window, Officer”

So the problem Kevin and I have been having is mostly one of custody schedules. He now has his kids every other week, which is more convenient scheduling for him in many regards, but does have the unfortunate downside of meaning that I’m not spending the night, as we haven’t quite gotten to the overnight-visitors-stage, with all attendant awkward discussions and repercussions. (We’re getting there, but there’s an acclimatization process…)

(My mother tried to explain this to me once, and I didn’t listen. When you fall in love as a teenager, you spend the whole time trying to sneak around your parents. When you fall in love as an adult, you do the exact same damn thing, except you’re trying to sneak around your kids. Mom, if you didn’t turn back at the warning note, you were so very very right.)

O, Irony.

So last night, the kids were going out to dinner with their mom, and we had a window ofopportunity to get together and spend some “quality time,” as t’were, then have a leisurely dinner, maybe watch a little Dr. Who…perfect geek evening. And indeed, that’s how it started. We fall into each other’s arms, have a little impassioned snuggling, utter a few endearments that in the interests of not gagging the readership, I will not repeat here, and just as things are startin’ to move from a simmer to a rolling boil ifyouknowwhatImean …the phone rings.

“Oh god no,” says Kevin, recognizing that particular ringtone assigned to his ex-wife (a particularly grim heavy-metal riff) and picks up.

The conversation was easy to follow, as he repeated nearly everything in the dazed tones of a man who’s primary bloodflow is not currently in the vicinity of his ears.

“They only wanted Subway? You’re where? They didn’t want to go back to your house? Five minutes?”

I have not been cock-blocked so effectively since Diablo 1 came out.*

He hung up. We looked at each other, snarled “SONOFABITCH!” simultaneously, and got redressed, which by that point really only consisted of putting my shoes back on and making some minor adjustments to my cleavage.

We looked at each other. We looked away. We went down to grimly prepare dinner, attempting to stay armslength apart, to avoid spontaneous combustion. We spoke in low growls, like a couple of wolverines who’d been chased away from a tasty tasty elk carcass. I sought solace in a cup of tea.

“Honey?”

“Nah.”

“Saltpeter?”**

“Don’t. Tempt. Me.”

But the evening was pleasant, and dinner was good, and pre-recorded Dr. Who makes everything better, even if it was one of those wallowing-in-masochism two-parters. We engaged in a little chaste snuggling, I learned still more about Pokemon,*** courtesy of his kids, and long about nine, they were in bed, and long about ten, dead to the world and we began plotting.

“Bedroom?”

“Hmmm….” The problem here is two-fold–you hate to have a small child awaken in the night, blithely open the closed door to Daddy’s bedroom, and wind up with an eyeful they’ll be telling a therapist about years later and their mom about next week. Also–how to put this delicately–while I am not loud, per se, the people in adjoining apartments definitely all know when Kevin is spending the night. (And his name. And that I was raised Catholic, unless Protestants also yell “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” at key intervals.) I mean, there are ways around that, but…

Also, we might both fall asleep afterwards, and there are some discussions you don’t want to have with your kids at six AM when they have decided it’s time to get up, and “Why Miss Ursula is in the bed, stark naked, snoring like a drunken wildebeest,” is definitely near the top of the list.

There was, however, an alternate solution. Sort of.

“We can try the backseat of my car…” I said.

Let me tell you now, O Best Beloved, that they do not make car backseats the way they did when I was seventeen. Possibly Nissan never made them that way, I don’t know. Possibly Detroit is the undisputed king of backseat technology. Possibly I am neither as slim nor as limber as I was back then, either. Regardless, even two very horny people who are five minutes and a good excuse from just screwing like bunnies on the lawn, and neighbors be damned,**** might find the Altima’s backseat a little cramped.

Still, we tried. I have a new appreciation for those poor bastards who had sex in the CAT scan machine for scientific purposes. I’d read they were former acrobats. You’d almost have to be. Mind you, they probably didn’t have to deal with a sex-crazed seatbelt trying to cop a feel, either. I found myself longing for my grandmother’s old car, an LTD Crown Victoria that was basically a couch on wheels. You could havehad an orgy in the backseat of that monster, full-on Caligula-style with equipment and horses and half the Senate, and still had room for live music to accompany it.

The end experience was not entirely satisfactory, but at least it was funny as hell, and I can safely say that my shocks are in excellent condition. We eventually threw in the towel and got re-dressed. Kevin leaned on the back of the car while I attempted to get my fingers through the sweaty birdsnest of my hair. “You must love me,” he said dryly. “How many other women would put up with this?”

“I think my underwear’s on backwards!” I said brightly, thereby demonstrating exactly what Kevin is putting up with in return for me putting up with him.

Not entirely satisfied, but thoroughly exhausted, and still snickering at random intervals, we took our leave of one another. It took about five minutes before I got the car windows unfogged, but that’s another matter.

No deer jumped out on me on the way home. I’ll take what victories I can.

*…that’s another story.

**Just in case some of my readers never heard this one, there’s a longstanding urban legend that the army puts saltpeter in the coffee to dampen libido.

***It’s actually a little disturbing how much of it I retain from watching the cartoon, which came on years ago, right about the time I would get home from work. Jigglypuff is still my favorite.

****Had it not been pouring rain, and a bumper tick-season this year…