We pulled into the parking lot for our counseling appointment last week and I noted that our counselor’s car wasn’t there yet.

“Ohhh, shit,” Jared and I realized in unison that we had scheduled the appointment for a half an hour earlier than usual, and that we were late rather than a few minutes early.

We stood in front of the locked door to the building that housed her office and I flipped through my phone to try to find her number.  I noticed a missed call from 40 minutes earlier.  I called and she confirmed that she had long gone and we’d have to postpone our appointment until the next week.

“Is it stupid that I feel like crying?” I asked Jared.

“No.  I mean, I kind of do too.”

We got back into my car and began to retrace the route we’d just completed.

“You wanna go do something instead?” he asked.

I sighed.  “We asked Hilly to babysit so we could go to counseling.  We can’t just leave the kids with her if we’re not where we said we’d be.”

“Damn,” he muttered.

“Want to stop and get ice cream on the way home?” I offered.

“You can’t eat ice cream,” he reminded me.

“No, but I could watch you eat it.  I mean, I guess.”

“Really?” he perked up.  “Would that make you feel better?”

“Would watching you eat ice cream that I can’t eat make me feel better?  Hell no.” His face fell.  “But I will!”

He smiled.  Apparently knowing that I would was almost as good as actually getting to eat ice cream.  We drove along in sulking silence for several minutes.

“Do you want to try to talk about some stuff on our own?” he asked, quietly, not really sure, I think, how he wanted me to answer.

“Yeah, um, no,” I chuckled.  “I don’t think we’re really ready for that.  And then we’ll have to call to tell her that the whole thing is off because I accidentally killed you the night we missed a session.”

“Or we’ll have to call and tell her that we did it on our own and we were so awesome that we fixed everything and now we don’t need her anymore,” Jared countered, “and that would just make her feel bad.”

“Exactly.  That’s probably totally what would happen.  Let’s not hurt the poor woman’s business.”

“Good idea.”

We drove along further, holding hands and silently agreeing to leave the big stuff alone for another week.

“Hey!” I piped up, “I might go to Africa in the spring!”

“What?”

“Yeah!  There is this group of writers that I kind of got invited to maybe join to go to Africa and -”

“You?  And Africa?” Jared was practically snorting from laughter.

“Listen, asshole, it’s for charity.”

“You have always said you have absolutely no interest in going to Africa.”

“Well, OK, fine,” I conceded, “but that was before I was going to go to Africa as part of a group of writers who were going to write about orphans and orphanages and help people.  Now I am totally interested in going to Africa.”

“Why would you write about orphans?”

“It’s for a Christian organization that -”

His laughter was now impossible to talk over.  “Oh that is even better.  You would be perfect for them.”

“I know!”

“You’ll be all ‘these fucking bugs!’  And ‘I am HUNGRY!  And I haven’t had anything to drink in fucking days!’ Oh, yeah,” he snorted again, “this is a great idea.”

“They would feed me, Jared.”

“Britt, you are scared of alligators.  You won’t even camp in Florida because you’re afraid of getting eaten.”

“There aren’t any alligators in Africa!”

“No, there are lions!”

I rolled my eyes in the dark.  “I’m not going to get eaten by a lion.  Now you’re just being stupid.”

“I bet you more people get eaten by lions than alligators.”

“No way.”

“I’m going to look it up,” he pulled his iPhone out of his back pocket and started to google lions vs. alligator deaths while he continued to drive my car.

“OK!  Fine!  Lions eat people!  Jeez.  Watch the road.”  He put his phone away and I continued to make my case. “It’s not like I’m going to be in a campground where lions can eat me.”

“So someone is going to pay you to go to Africa and write about orphans?”

“Um, well, no.  Not exactly.”  He raised an eyebrow.  “Technically it costs about $3300.”

“You’re going to pay $3300 to go to Africa to write about orphans?”  I was beginning to suspect he was mocking me.

“Noooo,” now was my chance to prove the how much sense this plan made, “it’s for charity.  So you raise support for the mission.”

“You’re going to ask people to give you $3300 to go to AFRICA?!”

“Well -”

“What the hell?  Why don’t you ask someone to give me $3300 to go to Spain!?”

“That is just -”

“Hey, I’ll bet you anything there are poor people in Spain!  I’ll take pictures and you can write all about it.  Poor, Poor, Poor People in Spain!”  He began crafting headlines for me.

“You suck.”

“No, you know what, never mind,” I could see the wheels turning in his head.  “Amsterdam,” he was triumphant.

“Who are you going to -”

“Hookers!  There are so many hookers in Amsterdam!  Yes!  I’m going to start a fund – here, write this down, you can do it on your blog – we’re going to raise money to help the hookers in Amsterdam!”

“Jared, you cannot have sex with prostitutes and tell them that you’re saving them.”

“Means they’re not prostitutes anymore, doesn’t it?”

“Jared, seriously.  You are -

“Genius!  Fucking genius.”  He reached over and patted my leg.  “Thanks babe, this is a great idea.  We’re going to do some real good here, I can tell.”

My marriage counselor owes some hookers in Amsterdam an apology.

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Posted in Dignity Is Overrated - Funny and Embarrassing Stories, Love and Marriage Tagged: Jared, marriage, money, sex