Cellophane Belly Button

Join me back in time to September 2000. I was working in sales, had a 13 month old child and living in the city. Four months prior I had moved out of my 2 bedroom apartment and moved in with Jack (in his 1 bedroom loft). We had decided to “trial run” the “family” thing until his lease was up in late November. I had had a great year in sales and had a rather large commission check in the bank. I had decided to start looking for a house in the suburbs. I was tired of the inconvenience of finding a parking spot, bringing my son up to the loft only to have him sit there by himself while I went back down to the street to get the groceries. I hated worrying if I was going to get mugged while carrying the groceries down the street and my heart would race because my baby was left alone, albeit just for a few minutes I have enough common sense to know that things can happen in a split second.

Like clockwork Jack would not be home when I got home from the grocery store to help with the groceries or our son for that matter. I learned rather quickly that counting on him for anything that resembled commonsense or help would only cause me aggravation. A prime example of this would be the weekend I moved into his loft. We had been planning this move for a month and a half. An ex-girlfriend of his had been using his place as kind of a home base and all her clothes were in the closet that was to be mine, which I was told would be cleared out prior to moving day. When we unloaded the moving truck and I opened the closet to start unpacking my boxes and put my clothes away, it was still full…I felt the familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It felt like a sucker punch, followed by nausea. I was so pissed off that I wished that for just 30 seconds god would bless me with the ability to spit needles with intelligence venom in them so I could ambush him. “Umm, how long have we been planning this move?” His reply “since early April”. (FYI this was Mother’s Day weekend.) I said “OK”, picked up my purse and my keys and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” he asked. “This was your Fuck up and this is your mess to fix, I am going to Almosts place”. “I will be home in the morning and I expect that closet to be empty”. I made a bee line to Almosts place as I knew her company, a bottle of wine and chain smoking would make me feel better.

In late August I contacted a realtor and wanted to start looking at homes. The first day didn’t go well. I was amazed at how many people leave their home a pig sty while it’s being shown. I wasn’t in a hurry to buy a house, I had in my head that when I walked into the right house I would know. My realtor kept in touch over the next several weeks.
One night in late September Jack had said he was going to meet up with his old roommate for dinner. I had put the baby to bed, watched some TV and went to bed at about 9:30. I woke up at midnight and went to check the couch to see if Jack was home. He wasn’t. I called his cell phone and he didn’t answer. I actually called his cell phone every 15 minutes for the next 3 hours. Then I got worried, was he hurt? I just had a feeling that something was very wrong. It wasn’t like him to not answer the phone when I called…after all we did have a small child and if there is 1 phone call he should be answering it would be mine.

The next morning I got in the shower, got ready for work and got the baby up. The babysitter arrived at 7:00. She asked “Where’s Jack?” (You see Jack worked from home so he was always there unless he was running appointments). I told her he didn’t come home last night, handed her a piece of paper with my work number on it and told her if the police or any hospitals call looking for me to give the number to them and off to work I went. Anka looked at me like I was crazy, even a little heartless for not being an emotional mess that my son’s father was missing. I can honestly admit that it was that moment in time that I experienced one too many of his idiot decisions and the inevitable process of a heart hardening when you realize that the person you are involved with really isn’t capable of caring the way the now hardening heart can.

At about 11:00 I received a call from Tami.

“Hey girl, how are ya?”

“I am doing ok, how are you?”

“Good how are Jack and the baby?”

“The baby is good; Jack didn’t come home last night”

“What? Is he ok?”

“I don’t know. I called his cell phone until about 3:30 this morning and he wasn’t answering. I tried again this morning and it went straight to voicemail. I haven’t been contacted by any hospitals or police. My gut tells me he is fine. Although we are going to have to schedule a surgery for him."

“Surgery??? Oh my god, what’s wrong?”

“He is in serious need of a Cellophane Belly Button”

“Huh? What does that treat?"

“Well if he plans on going through life with his head up his ass, I think it might be a good idea to give the jerk a peep hole.”

Just then, my other line rang. I told Tami I had to take it in case it was him or someone with news about him. When I switched lines it was my realtor. She said she had 2 houses she wanted me to see and they were on the same street. Was it possible to meet her that afternoon? I scheduled to meet her at 2:00 in the suburbs. The first house was nice and I really liked the street. I took 3 steps into the second house and looked at her….”This is it”. I got really excited and she said “Would you like to see the rest of your house?” Within an hour I was sitting in her office signing papers and putting in an offer. She asked if Jack and I were going to buy the house together. I told her I didn’t think so but wanted to show it to him. Could we come out and see it together tomorrow? I never let on to her that he was potentially missing. I became very good at hiding what was actually going on inside me when there was work to be done or responsibilities to be handled.

I headed back to the office at about 4:00 and my cell phone rang. It was Jack.

“Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I went out with Brian and we had too much to drink so I went back to Brian’s and fell asleep. My phone died so I couldn’t call you back when I woke up.”

Does anyone else see the hole in this story? If he fell asleep and the battery on his phone died, how did he know I had called?

He continued with “I am really sorry if I worried you.”

My response was “Glad to hear you are ok, I wasn’t worried at all. Oh and I bought a house.”

I could hear his nose getting out of joint in the silence over the phone line. I told him I had a few things I needed to finish at the office but would talk to him when I got home.

When I got home, his lazy ass was on the couch sleeping and Anka was still there. I paid her, took the baby from her and asked her what time he decided to show up? She said at about 3:30. I could only surmise whatever he and his buddy from the night before smoked, swallowed and snorted was haunting him but good and that made me happy. I was hoping he was suffering the worst day after known to man. When he heard Anka leave he sat up on the couch and wanted to attempt to dig himself out of the dog hole (he pretty much burned down the dog house and destroyed the foundation by this time in the relationship so a hole was all that was left). I remember cutting him off and telling him that we had an appointment the next day to go and see the house. He said “Aren’t we going to discuss this?” I said “What? The decisions you make without any concern for me and the baby or the ones I make in the best interest of me and the baby?”

The next morning we met the realtor at her office and she asked him if he was excited to see the house. His nose was still out of joint because I was showing strength. When he saw the house, he did like it and got on board with the idea of moving. Although little to my knowledge he had a trick up his sleeve. You see Jack is 3 different people. Jack #1 is who he portrays himself to be to his friends Jack #2 is who he portrays himself to be to his family and Jack #3 is who he actually is (if you are lucky you never get to meet #3). We headed back to the realtors office and he signed off on the documents that I had signed off on the day before. The realtor told us that she had a mortgage broker that she works with a lot and if we wanted to fill out the information page she could help get the ball rolling with the financing.

On Tuesday the realtor called me and said I have to talk to you. I said ok. She said she heard back from the mortgage broker and he told her Jack could not be on the mortgage. I asked her why? She explained that he had not filed taxes in 3 years. My jaw just about hit the floor. I said “OK, can it be done with just me on the mortgage?” I felt her smile and she said you bet it can, call the mortgage broker right now. I had my pre-approval letter and the sellers accepted my offer.

I told Jack that we got the house. They accepted the offer! He looked really confused, he was well aware that his lack of filing taxes should have stood in the way. I let him hang for a few minutes and then told him “I can do it all by myself so the fact that YOU didn’t file you taxes, didn’t affect ME one bit”. To date that is my Most Favorite FU** YOU I have ever delivered.