What Game Is This

Raising children was hard.
It still is.
Keeping my marriage was hard
And it still is.

I can remember exactly what I was doing one late night in late February: making life difficult for a lot people. I just didn’t know it at the time.

I wasn’t thinking about it seven minutes before.
Didn’t cross my mind an hour earlier
And it sure as nothing didn’t hit me at dinner.

My wife and two daughters had departed on a flight back to see her family in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; leaving me home alone, as I had to continue working. I didn’t have a really good job at the time and to tell the truth I don’t really remember how we afforded the tickets.
Oh yes, it was from our income tax refund.
Not that it was like some major windfall. Maybe enough to pay some bills and a small treat: seeing family.

So she left the day before everything started to escalate.
But the wheels were already turning.

As I said, I had to stay home to work at a job that I was not exactly pleased to have. I had a few jobs in the past that were great, but there were always issues that kept me from staying. They were usually about how management treated my sense of well-being.
Or, it could be, to quote the great Louis Gossett Jr, “my ego was writing checks my body could not cash”.

Yeah, that would be about it.
And so I was given the ultimatum by our mortgage company to find a job. Any job.
And so I did, at Wal-Mart.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not going to say that working at Wal-Mart sucked. Sorry, for as much disdain I could have for Wally World, I have to say I had almost free reign in my department: electronics. I had control of the floor as I knew what I was selling. I knew where everything was. If you wanted to know the universal remote code for a Vestron TV? Yes, I had that list on a clipboard, ready to give out.

Just about he only thing I could not do was running the department register. I was okay with making change, bagging items and talking to customers but it wasn’t what I wanted to do and then there was that time when I ran out of change but was told to not close the register.
So, I started rounding up to the nearest dollar.
I’m pretty sure the til was off a bit, and when the department manager pressed what happened I told her that I was informed to not close my register and no one would come to cash me out for change.
I was not allowed to run the register after that. Instead, they transferred in a checker from the the front: Adrienne Lynne Warren.

I didn’t pay too much attention to her at first. I would make eye contact and place the small and expensive items that customers wanted to purchase with her so they could check out. Over the next few days we would exchange a few pleasantries: a friendly wave or a hello. A week later I felt out of place if she wasn’t working with me. Even though we seldom spoke due to customers and resetting the department at the end of our shift—we worked on different sides—I felt happier when I knew she was there.

There were a few times are eyes met.
I won’t say there were sparks or that time stopped or that some epic-sounding chorus of voices swelled the air but I knew this was going to be a problem.

So, instead of talking about it to anyone.
Instead of confiding in my wife about what was happing…
I just carried on and tried to avoid talking to her about anything other than work.

However, there was a night, while on my way to the security room to pull a few new PlayStation games out, she stepped out of the break room and walked alongside until she lopped her arm on mine.
“Just pretend with me, okay?” She whispered as we walked past a tall and muscled stock worker.
I only nodded and looked straight ahead.
“He’s been bothering me, lately and I wanted to show him I wasn’t available.”
“I understand completely,” I replied as she let go of my arm.
“Well, I’ll see you back at the department. Thanks.”
She turned the corner to go through the doors and back onto the main floor. She turned back and our eyes met again. And I allowed myself to look longer than I should have.
She turned back around walked through the doors.
I continued to the security room, opened it with the assistant manager’s keys and quickly closed it because I was afraid of what I had just thought about Adrienne.

I gabbed several cases of games and took several deep breaths but neither helped to get her face out of my head.
I thought of calling home, but since it was after ten I didn’t know if anyone would be awake.
“Just take the games, go back to the department and stock the shelves. She works with you. That’s it.”

And for the rest of that night, I felt okay.
When I woke up the next day, I said nothing to my wife. I didn’t want to cause friction
Didn’t want any problems a few days before the trip so, like before, I bottled it up and thought I could forget about it.

“What’s the difference between the PlayStation and the Nintendo?” Adrienne stood next to me as I re-organized the games came.”
“PlayStation games are on CD.”
“Like a music CD?”
“Yeah, it’s like a CD player that can read audio and video.”
“I just have a Super Nintendo at home.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I replied as I tried to keep my thoughts on organizing.”
“Do you have a PlayStation?”
“Yes. And a Saturn.”
“A What?”
“It’s like these, but it’s made by Sega and it can go online.”
“Like, the internet?”
I nodded.
“That’s cool. So, like, no computer?”
“No computer.”
“You’re going to have to show me that sometime.”

A virtual record scratch went off in my mind. She wanted to know about the internet? I almost wanted to ask her where she was six years ago.

“Sure. I mean, it’s not very pretty to look at,” I wanted to just die when I said that as I looked at her face right on cue with the words “pretty to look at.”
“We’ll have to plan something. A lady’s going to come by and ask the same question I did. Be ready. Okay?”
“Okay,” I replied as she turned the corner, possibly back to the register.

My expression could have been framed as “the dumbest look of a schmuck who thinks he’s in love, but is he?”

I admit, I had tried to compartmentalize my emotions: One feeling for this job, one for school and the other for home life. I wanted to say that I just had an issue with work—not enough hours—and no issues with home life, but then I would have deny the times at two in the morning when I was on the internet relay chat rooms talking a bout everything except how I was going to take life more seriously. I’d josh and kid around with people who’s faces I would never see and enjoy that more than talking with my family. More than taking the kids to the park or talking with my wife. I had wandered far into the wastelands and deserved to have something lob my head off.
My thoughts about Adrienne were not helping my situation.