Quick Thinking: The Lying King

I crossed paths with my ex-wife at Capron Park Zoo last week for the first time since our divorce hearing a few years back and, listen, it affected me far differently than I would have expected. 

This is a woman who took advantage of me emotionally, economically...you name it. She had very unkind things to say about the people in my family toward the end of our relationship. Those same people, by the way, showed her nothing but love and support  -- even after she confessed to physically abusing me in front of them. 

[SIDE NOTE: START]

My ex-wife punched me in the face three times one night when I approached her with questions of infidelity. While packing my bag to leave, she continued her tirade, challenging me to "be a man" peppered with motivational gems like "stand up for yourself!" and "you're going to let a little girl hit you like that?!"

Good times.

Her tactics after the incident were as predictable as she was -- she tried to control the narrative by going to my parent's home, waking them, putting on the tears and explaining how she was "concerned" about me. Of course, she conveniently forgot to tell them about punching me in the face while I stood there with my hands in my pockets. (literally) 

After finding respite at my cousin's house, I had him drop me off at the end of my folk's street because I figured she'd go there. (Like I said, she was predictable.) I walked to the front door and sat on the steps listening to their conversation. After about 30 minutes, I walked in and confronted her with one simple statement, "Have the courage to tell them the truth before I do." She broke down and admitted the truth before running into some back bedroom crying.

I was proven right about the infidelity sometime after, by the way. But that's another story for another time. 

You wouldn't believe the circumstances if I told you anyway.

[SIDE NOTE: END]

Anger. I expected to feel anger. I mean, I'm entirely justified to feel it. But I didn't really feel anger. I didn't really feel anything. I felt pity, kind of, because she looked tired. Like really, really tired. Not "bad" or "ugly" or anything. (I mean, pretty has always been easy for her. Botox is good like that.) She just looked really tired. She looked a little sad, too, but she always looked like that. Knowing zero about her life now, I felt bad for her in that moment and found myself wishing for her to be happy.  

Sure, I also had a quick daydream about throwing her in the lion's den directly behind her at the zoo, but that felt more like comic relief than anything else. 

Besides, lion's are smart enough not to eat spoiled meat.

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Quick Thinking
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-- 3 weeks into Season 7 of Game of Thrones and it's evident that at least one dragon will die and fall victim to the Night King, Dany and John will sex it up, Arya will kill Littlefinger and Cersei will, well, continue to be Cersei.

-- Yup. Game of Thrones is getting predictable. 

-- There, I said it.

-- But "set-up" stories typically are.

-- The Season 8 payoff for all these story lines should be absolute madness, though.

-- Can't.

-- Wait.

-- The best song you don't know about right now is Memory Of by De La Soul. 

-- Quote of the Week goes to yours truly for saying the following to my colleagues after we watched Ramses the Lion pee and poop on one of the 2 lionesses he's caged with at Capron Park Zoo, "The king of beasts certainly is majestic."

-- In his defense, wet wipes are tough to come by in the animal kingdom.

-- Thank god us humans have them, though. My hairpants make post-poop wiping an adventure without them.

-- Even with them it can still be a bit tricky.

-- Yup, I said that, too. 

-- Shopping for houses the past few months has taught me one very valuable lesson: HGTV is full of shit.

-- It feels way too early for football season to be 4 weeks away.

-- Reps in peace Summer 2017.

-- It's like you're ending before you've even started.

-- Kinda like my high school sex life.