Normal

My wife often says to me "Why can't we just be normal", I reply "You know I am not normal and you knew I wasn't when you married me". After she says that I always get really depressed. I wish I could give her normal. I have tried, I'm not even sure what normal is. I do know what her normal is. Her normal is tough. Atleast in my opinion. It is a really nice house in a cute, exclusive city. I would have a 9-5 job and make about 180k per year and have perfect benefits. She would stay home and go shopping or out to lunch with friends or family. She would keep the house perfectly clean and cook great meals and do the laundry once or twice and week and on Sunday she would make a roast. I would maintain the yard and the cars, her SUV and my European sedan. I would be 2" taller and 30 lbs. thinner and I would cook a big breakfast every Sunday morning, and we would all be happy all the time.


When she says that, I think that is what she means, atleast that's how she acts. One time when I was really struggling our bishop said "Don't compare your private lives to other people's public lives". It's true, you never know what is going on behind closed doors, but I just find it hard to believe that anyone else has problems like mine. I am not sure what our public life looks like to others but I kind of doubt that anyone is pointing at us and saying "I wish we could live like them". I know that everyone has problems and everyone thinks their problems are insurmountable until they open their eyes and look around. You can always find someone who has it worse than you. It is easy, if I set my sights low, than I am doing alright. If I set my sights high than I am a complete failure. Is it better to associate with people with lower expectations so you feel better about yourself? Or are you better off setting your sights higher and hanging with people who expect more or want more out of life? Who knows. It's like in the movie "Sixteen Candles", the nerdy guy was "King of the Nerds". So when he was with them, he was cool. But, when he went to the party at Jake Ryan's house, he was in another league. All of a sudden he wasn't cool at all. He was a loser, or a dork, actually, I guess he would be a nerd.

There are basically three different types of guys. First, there is the basic college graduate. He is the guy who get's through college, maybe gets a masters degree and then get's a job. He works hard and gets a nice pension. Every job he takes he is sure to get great benefits and he is always stable as can be. It is a nice life this guy has, he is probably a good dad and has a good solid life. Second, is the entrepenuer (sp?). He may or may not have a college degree. Usually he has a degree, but his career has absolutely nothing to do with his education. He finished college because that was next. This guy always appears to be rich. He probably is rich. He is really nice and extremely smart and very motivated. The entrep is always talking about money or some new venture or investment. Always looking for the next big thing. He takes awesome vacations and drives killer cars, even if he isn't doing well financially at the time. It's all about appearance to this guy. He really isn't too worried about his retirement because he is sure that he will be filthy rich by then, and he probably will. The third guy is the blue collar guy. All it takes to make him happy is a new camp trailer and a good spot at the campground. He is a simple guy and very well could the most happy of all of them. Sometimes I wish I could be happy being just like the simple guy. but I seem to want more out of life. I want my kids to want more out of life. I am not sure what effect all my struggles will have on my kids. They have seen it all, probably more than most kids should be allowed to see. I just hope that they learn from my problems and don't repeat them. Oh, I had quite an episode at scouts this past Tuesday.
We meet on Tuesdays, before I left for scouts at six o'clock my wife tells me that her car has a flat tire. I knew this was coming because the tires are really bald but I haven't had the cash to replace them. The problem was that is was our only operating car besides my work truck. So I decided I would go down to Costco after scouts and get two new tires on the front of the car. I went to scouts and only two kids showed up and the other leader. He wanted to go over all the requirements for the year and get the two kids up to date which meant we would have had to stay later than the normal seven p.m. I said "I don't know if that will work for me, I have to go to Costco and get some tires on a car". Brandon, the other leader, "No problem, we'll follow you down there and just have our meeting at one of the tables and have a Churro while we do our work and wait for your car". I couldn't think of an excuse or a reason why this wouldn't work, I just wanted him to say, "go ahead, no problem, we'll see you next week". So I hurried and borrowed an air compressor and pumped the flat tire up and we hurried down to the Costco's. Unfortunately, some stupid company was having their Christmas party there. So every stupid table and then some were taken. So Brandon was standing right next to me while I was talking to the tire guy. The Costco guy, who happened to be a dwarf who thinks he's tough, "Well, you have a 4-wheel drive vehicle here sir, as company policy we cannot just replace two tires, we have to replace all 4 at the same time, and from looking at your tires, they look like they all need it real bad". Thanks buddy. Of couse they didn't have the cheapest ones in stock and those weren't that cheap. I tried to talk him into just doing the two front tires and moving them to the back of the car, but he wasn't budging on the policy. So finally, going on the dwarf and the scout leader's recomendation I went with the next cheapest set of four. So with Brandon standing directly next to me, Mr. Dwarf ran my Debit card, surprise, surprise it was rejected. At that point he wasnt that excited about taking a check either. Brandon offered to lend me some money, I didn't know what to do. I was really embarrased. The whole Ward knew that I had been layed off and was out of work so Brandon was probably feeling really bad for me. How freaking pitiful. So I asked midget man if he could just patch the leak if the tire? Of course they were too bald, they just couldn't be salvaged. So I said "Brandon, how about those Churro's? The boys are probably going crazy", which they weren't. They were loving it, Running wild in the Costco. So he mercifully went out and bought some Churro's, he even bought me one and wouldn't let me pay him back, brutal. I went out and looked at my car and said, "well it looks like it is actually holding air, I think it will be okay until my wife get's home and then I will get some tires and pay with her account, that's the one we normally use". Brandon didn't buy it, the dwarf didn't buy it, I didnt' buy it, even the two eleven year old scouts didn't buy it. It was the best I could come up with at the time. Oh well. So every night I take the car down to the gas station and fill it up with air, no problem. Then on Sunday the Elder's quorum president came up to me and had some questions. You can imagine what those were, I can't go over them or I will start to cry and I don't want to cry right now, so I am going to go.
Peace.