As it was I wasn’t having the best day ever. My mother called to inform me that the director of my son’s school, where my mother also works, wants to talk to me about my child’s future and how to help him adjust. She mentioned some “free services” that may be helpful. I’ve been in the early childhood education business for the last three years and I’ll tell you right now that I do not look forward to a meeting about my kid’s inability to adjust. Or free services. Not fun at all.
Then the wife insisted on dragging me to the mall. Lately I’ve been declining such trips, instead trying to spend my fee time writing, but I had an agenda of my own (I needed a new desk chair) so I went.
After checking the first store for my chair and only finding bad service and no chair, we went to the main indoor mall for lunch. Looking for parking was quick, though it did highlight the fact that the mall was packed and people had opted for lighter jackets if only for a day. It was 60 degrees in NYC yesterday, which mean that those with cabin fever were taking advantage of the day, well, kind of. My wife pointed out that the beauty of the day outside seemed to correlate with a rush to go inside the mall.
We walked in through the Macy’s entrance because it was closest to the car, and after taking about two steps a t-shirt clad twenty-something took my wife by the elbow and started to lay his mack down. I was a few feet behind my lady holding Devin’s hand, when I felt my lip curl. The Mack’s friend watched on smiling, my wife said nothing, though I did.
“Don’t touch my wife, man.”
In hindsight it was a lame line, but it felt manly as hell at the time, deep and authoritative. When I realized I may have to argue or fight after my instinct to stand up to the disrespectful young men had already put me out there, I braced for what might come next. What I got surprised, and relieved me.
“Oh, my bad man,” the Mack said with a guilty/embarassed grin.
That was it. More fierce words have slipped out of my mouth in the past while I played the role of alpha male in defense of my wife. I was glad that my corny one liner was not the one to finally do me in (though I fight like a rabid squirrel and could have taken those guys). I blame it on cabin fever which takes over the hormones of men during the winter months, and the fact that my wife is hot. 5′ 9″, brown and fine. And, of course, that I’m an idiot.
Devin, in typical kid fashion, didn’t even bat an eyelash at the exchange. His focus was on chicken nuggets, and all he knew was that those guys didn’t have any.
Cute that the baby was only interested in his nuggets…
My son would have been taunting daddy saying “Mama has a boyfriend!!!” lol…
Not corny, at all, in my humble opinion.
Having an attractive mate means one has to deal with those kinds of situations more often than if one had chosen a homely mate.
At least you didn’t do like my Pops and start breakin’ jaws.
I’m not sure why you think your comment was inappropriate. Sounds to me like it was just what the situation called for. But then again, I’m “Southern Old School.” Where I’m from, the menfolk don’t tolerate a whole lot of nonsense.
I can remember driving somewhere with my son, who couldn’t have been more than three at the time and was still traveling in a carseat. At a stoplight, some joker in a hooptie rolled up on us and started talking junk. While I groaned and tried to ignore him, my young son leaned forward, pointed at dude and started shouting, “Hey, hey, don’t talk to my Mommy!”
Every now and then, those alpha genes come in handy (smile).
Well, before I comment, might I qualify that you shouldn’t take advice from a former Marine and clinically diagnosed meglomanic who has named himself after on of the most violent characters in comics lol
Seriously, I have replied in a similar fashion, or just would have forgot that I am a mere human WITHOUT the power of SHAZAM and “stole” on the brother, which may have led to me getting beat down, and since I would not have been able to accept getting beat down in from of my wife and son, I would have had to kill the perps (to avoid having to commit a Klingon dishonour suicide because of the forementioned beat down) and thus would have ended up in jail.
Soooo, in comparision to me, you did good!!
lol
60 degrees? Why didn’t that weather make it to chicago?
I know where you’re coming from. As I was reading, I definitely worried that this was going to end badly for somebody. I remember when my husband began refusing to go dancing with me. This was back in the day when we were still “just friends”. He said he didn’t want to endanger his life and he couldn’t just be still and say nothing. If I shrugged guys off, then maybe I’d get called a couple of names and that would be it. But if he said something, then folks would start trippin’ and we’d be worrying we were about to get jumped when we left the club. I could be standing there holding his hand and guys would come up and try to mack. I don’t think it really had anything to do with my looks. I really thought it was this weird power thing between black men.
All ya’ll live in a different world than me.
Absolutely nothing wrong with the way you handled that. Those young boys were probably shocked as all get out (Southern influence, obviously) that a wife AND mother could turn their heads, and felt like poop to realize they had not done the necessary reconnaisanse to know whether it was clear or not.
Did you see anything dripping from under the young man’s pant leg?