The ferret boy

I figure I should get a person or two up ta speed on the turn of events that took place in my life somewhere after the age of thirty, when things got interesting.  Prior to that milestone my life was rather normal, if not somewhat boring.  I'd gone to school a few times and ended up with a good career.  I owned my very own place and was no longer moving annually, which was very relieving to my annual movers.  I had several somewhat successful relationships behind me, some more meaningful than others.  My friends rocked.  Other than the 'rents deeee-vorce, my family was stable.  It was all lovely.  I even shared my life with a 7 year old ferret named Jimmy, whom I acquired after a ferret-sitting gig turned permanent.  This ferret would later prove my fate after a friend of mine set me up with a contractor that was hangin' up hammer time for happy hour at her residence each night to socialize with her husband and other contractors.  One evening around 5pm I too joined this happy hour with Pabst and company to check out my possible suitor which eventually led to this conversation:

Him: "Did you say you live in a condo in South Minnepolis?"
Me:  "Ya, by lake Nokomis".
Him: "I just renovated some laundry rooms in some condo's by lake Nokomis".
Me: "Those must have been my laundry rooms cause those are the only condo's over there and we just had ours updated".
Him: "Ya, one day I found someone's ferret in the laundry rooms"
Me interrupting "You found my ferret?!"

And the rest was history.  How could I not go out with the man who rescued Jimmy?  The man I now referred to as The Ferret Boy.  Jimmy got out one day as I stood with the door propped giving the UPS man my sig for a new coffee pot.  I didn't know he got out.  Jimmy was old and slept 23 hours or more a day and  it wasn't abnormal for me to not see him since I worked evenings overnight.  However, two days later when I noticed he wasn't eating his rice cakes or seedless cukes, I panicked.  I called a good friend of mine to come over asap to help me turn my place upside down to find my dead Jimmy.  I was certain that woud be the end results.  And we exhausted every search possibility in my 650 square feet (or less depending on what appraisal you look at) and came up empty.  My friend then suggested maybe there was a sign in the entry way.  I hadn't seen one but I'd check.  Turns out someone had found Jimmy and "stored" him in the second floor laundry room storage closet.  We jolted airborne to that storage closet only to find another scavenger-hunt-type letter informing us and instructing us on how to find and retrieve Jimmy.  So we called the number listed and left a message.  Soon after I got a call back and within minutes Jimmy was back in my arms thanks to a lovely woman in my building who had a soft spot for adventurous rodents. 

The story on the other end wasn't as pleasant.  Apparently when Jimmy waddled sideways into the laundry room some of the nosey residents thought he should be killed, but The Ferret Boy knew this was someone's pet and saved Jimmy.  We continued to date and fall in love with giddiness and hormones and a lot of drinking.  Mostly we would stay up til around three am in his kitchen drinking, smoking cigs and listening to his eclectic music collection.  I told him that in the beginning I called him Ferret Boy and he confessed the same, having called me the Ferret Girl.  Hearts afloat above thy heads.

For nearly two years things went great.  We had a few conflicts, nothing big.  We spent weekends fishing on water, sleeping on land, then fishing on ice and sleeping on the ice.  We saw a few shows of his choice.  We had bonfires in his backyard.  We grilled a lot and drank more and had conversations about life and his sordid past and my...stuff.  But there was this one thing.  He was a career bachelor.  He didn't want marriage or children.  Once again, I was with that type of man.  The type I always fell for.  WHY-eee?  Yet I stuck with him.  I guess I was calling his bluff.  Maybe I could change his mind.  Well I didn't and he only got more distant as my desire increased with age.  I was getting old, afterall.

In September of '06  I made a dumb decision to get adult braces.  Apparently my overbite was wearing away at my top teeth..etc.etc.etc.  I was told in highschool I should have braces but my parents were already in the poor house from my other two siblings having them and since my teeth weren't visibly messed up they saw no reason.  I opted in on the "back to school special" and the very same month my man sat me down to dump me.  It wasn't really out of nowhere.  Things were not so great anymore.  Sex was feeling desperate by this point and he was treating me like an outsider.  Gone was the giddy.  Time to Giddy UP.  It felt almost like a divorce but I'm not one to sulk.  I've always handled gettin' kicked to the curb fairly well and this was no different.  Easy really.  You just go on.  You move forward.  You discuss it with friends and family and shed tears and those who are your best friends rip him to shreds and tell you how much better off you are without him.  For over a month I refrained from trying to contact my ex man so that I could remain sane, unscathed and to be quite honest with you...I had a little fun being single again.  Isn't that how us women move forward?  By revisiting our past and seducing the present?  How else would we rebound and gain back our confidence after being told we aren't the one.  Anyway, at 33 years old I had a little bit-o experience in the rebound department and wasn't gonna change that this time around.  C'mon.  I was hot!  HAHA.  Oh, and just for the record and to clear any speculation, although I had fun I didn't have that much fun.

That was most of October.  I can't remember exactly but I know it had been a month or more since the breakup.  It was still slightly warm out because I remember getting the call from my ex man who was sitting outside by a bonfire when he spoke the words "Do you know why we broke up?"  Silence.  "Because I don't."  Silence.  I'm sure I must have said something.  But in that moment I knew what was going to happen.  I had moved on.  I didn't crawl back or beg or booty and he missed me.  We got together.  It was weird.  We talked.  It was careful.  We had sex.  It was sad.  I was soooo confused now.  Anyone that knows me might say I hate not knowing and I hate surprises.  I hated this.

We didn't exactly fall back into place.  It wasn't even gonna happen fo sho.  I think this is what made me even wilder in not really my rebounding, but my partying.  At the end of November I was home for Thanksgiving and although I was a self-proclaimed master drunk driver (okay, my friends thought I was too) I got pulled over after slamming several Vodka Red Bull's and not using the turning lane.  I was so smashed I handed the policeman my credit card.  I surrendered.  I remember thinking FINALLY you got me.  It's about time.  The streets will be safer now.  The cop was very green behind the knees and immediately gave me a breath test which should have come after the field sobriety test but who was I to correct him at this point.  I blew a .22.  I remember thinking it matched my birthdate!  Then two more squads pulled up and insisted I now take the field sobriety test.  "I am obviously drunk" I slurred.  I refused repeatedly until they agreed to just get my ass off the street and into the cell.  At the station I blew a .26 because of the way the stomache thing works, ya know?  Come to think of it maybe it was the other way around.  Who cares.  I was smashed and still surprisingly together.  Over the coarse of the night I spoke with a friend who was a local attorney.  I cried and cried.  I gave pee in front of a really cranky female cop who kept yelling at me to hurry up and pee already.  Once in my cell I tried relentlessly to dim the place a tad so I could sleep it all off but you can't.  There are no corners so the blanket would not hang on this obnoxious flourescent light that took up one wall of my cell.  Eventually I laid on the floor with my feet up on the concrete bench..happy to be by myself no doubt..and fell asleep with a blanket draped over my face.  I had chewed a hole in the blanket with my teeth, breaking my braces but allowing my nose to get fresh air, and I fell asleep thanking GOD I did not injure or kill anyone in my drinking and driving career.

I'd rather not focus on this event in my life but I must say it was way overdue and taught me the greatest lesson thus far.  I got out of jail the following day and went home to hug my mom and apologize up and down and around and around.  We bawled.  She was glad I was okay.  I was glad no one was hurt but was sorry for hurting and disappointing her.  My car had been impounded on a weekend when the lot was closed so I couldn't get back to Minneapolis for a couple of days.  By now my ferret had been dead awhile (he died from pancreatic pseudocysts) and I had acquired a cat that I figured would starve if I couldn't get home to feed her.  I called my ex man to tell him what happened.  He'd been there.  He empathized and offered to help however he could.  I just wanted it all behind me.  The last couple of months 'n all.

Our friendly talks and encounters became more frequent as I went down the probate path for DUI punishment.  I waited for paperwork.  Waited for my license to be revoked.  Waited for a court date.  Then waited for my period.  And waited.  I was never late.  Never.  I knew we'd been careless one evening when I thought my cycle allowed for it.  But I still didn't think..you know.  Prego?  No.  Can't be.  I felt like I was getting my period soon.  We went ice fishing that weekend and I kept going to shore with tampon in hand convinced I'd see that tinge of blood on the wipe.  Nope.  I gave it a few more days and when finally I had that feeling, I made the dreaded call to Ferret Boy.

Me:  we need to talk.
FB: okay.
Me: come over?
FB: yup.

Not much was said really.  I giggled nervously. More nervous for him really, being he was the career bachelor-never a father-guy.  He went to Walgreens and bought of all things a GENERIC brand home prego test.  You got two in a pack for a lot cheaper.  Oh...here we go.  I was positive.  It was positive.  I don't remember if I cried.  I think I was still in disbelief.  I remember giggling and wondering and worrying and hoping he wouldn't hate me.  He did.  I'm sure of it.  He validated his concern about abortion; I didn't think I could do that.  He'd done it twice before.  You what?  He what?  All of the sudden I felt it was his fault.  You didn't learn by now?  How?  Why?  And this never came up in two years of sitting in your kitchen talking about life.  Twice?  Really?  Again...here we go.  Then he got kinda mean.  Sharp.  Said I'd have to move in with him because he wouldn't feel right with him having a big house and all, to let me live in my little 630 square feet (according to one appraisal) with baby.  Okay.  But I don't have to.  You can go.  You don't have to be here for any of it.  Go. Do you want me to go?  No, but I don't want you to have to stay.  And so on.  He told me I have him by the balls.  I was not flattered.  I was a good catch.  An awesome chick and a damn fine score.  He scored me and now he knocked up his third victim but this victim isn't gonna fall victim to him or his.  I was self sufficient and I could do this.  The last thing I wanted was a miserable partner that felt his balls were in my vice grip.  No way no how.

Fast forward a rollercoaster of emotions.  Could I have it?  Should I give it away?  What if it's my only chance to be a mother?  My family was sooo excited for me and that's how it should be, but it was misery.  This is NOT how it was supposed to happen.  I made it this far.  I was now 34 and up until the last few months I had a good, clean record.  And now I have a "baby daddy".  I'm an ultrasound tech by trade and see several "baby mommas" and never did I think I'd be one.  Catholic guilt, perhaps?  Values?  Morals?  Dreams?  Barbie had higher hopes for me.  Ferret boy didn't get much nicer through the entire pregancy.  He would say hurtfull things that I tried to stowe away in the "temporary insanity" box.  Comments were made about stretch marks and weight gain.  He'd say he needed more girl friends to hang out with.  His life, as he knew it was over.  What life? I wondered.  Drinking and partying and staying up late.  Being self employeed and not having to kick ass cause you aren't resposible for anything but a Beagle. (RIP Bailey Beagle)  Man up Ferret Boy!  Your Dick played with my Jane. 

We spent most of my pregnancy remodling our places.  Mine needed freshening up so I could rent it out and his needed a lot of love in the kitchen and so we kicked holy ass to make it work.  I didn't have a license and althoug my baby daddy helped a lot in getting me to and fro work, he was less helpful in getting me from my place to his and back.  He figured I needed the exercise and biking from my house to his in ninety degree heat would keep me from gettin' fat.  So would carrying fifty pound bags of concrete.  As would chipping and digging up cement blocks from the old garage foundation.  And standing on the countertops to paint the kitchen walls.  I did not have one of those pampered pregnancies.  I think once I asked for a blizzard from the DQ.  I didn't get it.  He was an ass through and though.  I was being punished.  Everyone assured me he'd change once he met the little Ferret girl.  And he did.  I moved in a month before she was born and was induced October 11th.  She was precious.  Still, I couldn't help but feel I had to be less happy than I was.  Afterall, she was here by accident.  I didn't get to experience the joy of getting the furniture and clothes and although I had a couple of babyshowers they were somewhat bittersweet.  I'm sure I gloated more when my man wasn't around.  Then he came around.  He was in love.  Still is.  She's awesome.  We struggle as a couple with the ebb and the tide but we are makin' it.  I don't doubt we'll make it.  I hope so anyway.