Assume The Position!
Gary stepped into his house in a bad mood. He'd been driving around town all morning, working for a start-up competitor to Uber. That was his job now; basically he'd become a taxi driver instead of a financial consultant. He hated what he was doing, but he didn't have much choice in the matter. It was either drive, drive, drive these ungrateful chumps all over the place, or start selling off his furniture and crossing his fingers that he wouldn't lose his house later.
It wasn't going well for him. He calculated how much debt he was in and how much money he was making from driving, and he still ended up in the red. Part of the problem was that he'd believed the forecasts saying the financial downturn was temporary. He had trusted those people! The other part was his wife. Being a man who played with numbers for a living, Gary had known when and how severely to cut down on his expenses. There was nothing else for him to reduce in expenditures, unless he went on weeklong fasts and didn't eat! His wife, on the other hand, had cut down on her spending a little, then a little more.
Gary couldn't completely blame his wife for her spending habits. She wanted to buy nice things for him, for her and for their daughter Amy. His wife was one of those people that believed nice things equaled more love, and was ever hopeful that everything would very soon go back to how it was before. Gary studied the past trends, and at first he'd agreed with his wife's philosophy. Downturns always rebounded and became upturns. A good analyst like him could put himself in a spot where he was ready to spring back up like a happy Jack in the box. This time, however, what the news media was calling a minor slowdown was really a deep, deep recession.
Enough of that shit, Gary closed his mind up. He didn't want to think about it anymore. His last passenger was a chain-smoker who lit up one cigarette after another while Gary had taken that bitch to the airport. Maybe Gary should have refused the ride, as the woman hadn't bothered to mention she was a smoker in her profile. Still, the fare to the airport was the best one he'd had all day. He smelled like smoke and so did his car, but at least he was getting paid good money for it.
"I'm taking a shower and changing my clothes." Gary decided. His wife had told him to use The Power Of Attraction, whatever that was. It wasn't working, but neither was anything else, so Gary kept on hoping and wishing things in his life would get better through whatever mainstream magic that was. "All right. I'll feel fresh and happy when I get out of the shower. I'll have a lot of fares this afternoon, and they're all going to be big ones. This is going to be a good day. No, no, this is going to be a great day! Like my wife says, every gray cloud has a silver lining. That's right, when I walk out of this shower good things are going to happen to me! This is going to be the best shower ever!"
Gary strode into the bathroom full of purpose. After tossing his smelly clothes into the hamper, he turned the shower on and set the water to warm and comfortable. The stream of water felt good as it fell on his face and chest. For the next few minutes, Gary didn't think about anything negative. In fact, the way his brain went from tight to loose gave him the inspiration on how he could cut a couple of corners and save money. He was working out the kinks in his new plan when he heard a knocking on the bathroom door.
Gary was surprised that anyone else was in the house. His wife was at her six-hour a day job at the grocery store, while his daughter had classes at the junior college.
"Yeah?" He called out.
Some kind of reply came back at him, but he couldn't make it out clearly because of the closed door and the rush of water in his face. He leaned away from the stream. "I can't hear you! You're going to have to speak up!"
His wife said something about scratching up the car.
"Son of a bitch!" Gary snapped, instantly irritated. "Didn't I tell you about driving carefully? How bad is it?"
The voice was garbled, but he did hear that the new damage went all across one side. Apparently, his wife decided to find out what was tougher: the side of her car or a fire hydrant. That was enough to sent Gary into hysterics.
"Fuck!" The man cursed. "What I meant to say was fuck! I can't believe you did this! You know how tight our finances are right now! How the hell am I supposed to pay for that? Do you want me to chop my arm off and sell it to science? Is that it? What the hell am I supposed to do now? How about this? We sell your goddamned car and buy you a goddamned bicycle! We'll put a little bell on it so people can know you're coming!"
Gary heard his wife whining about how it wasn't her fault, but he cut her off before she got too far into her spiel.
"I don't want to hear it!" Gary shouted. "I don't want to hear it! This is what you're going to do! You march your happy ass into the bedroom and take off your clothes! You're going to make me a happy man in the bedroom, because you sure haven't made me a happy man while I'm taking my shower! Do you really expect me to go back to work feeling like I want to drive off a cliff?"
His wife started apologizing and saying she had to get back.
"Shut up!" Gary bellowed out, hoping his anger was coming across loud and clear. He'd really had it with her this time. "For once in your life, you shut your trap and listen up! I want you in the bed naked! If you don't do what I tell you, I'm taking your keys away from you and then you're taking the fucking bus! Get in the bed and assume the fucking position!"
His wife said she didn't know if she could do that. She sounded frantic out there.
"Assume the fucking position!" Gary repeated. "I'm sick and tired of paying for all of your bullshit. You hear me? Either you do that or you hand over your keys and you can forget about that stupid car of yours! If I have to fix it again and all I get is an oh, I'm really, really sorry, then I'm going to own that stupid car!"
Gary waited for more griping from behind the bathroom door, but it didn't come. His wife had better follow his orders, he thought, because she sure didn't listen to him any other time. The man stayed in the shower a little longer than usual, just to cool his steam off a little more. Then he remembered how he was always in and out of the shower in five minutes, while his wife and daughter would take over half an hour and drive up the water bill. That was enough to push his buttons again. Why was he the only one that had to suffer when times were bad?
As he opened the shower door to grab the nearest towel, Gary wondered how happy his woman would be if they did end up losing the house. He tried to change his wrecked attitude as he was drying his body. Just give her fat ass a good pounding, Gary thought, forget about the damage to the car, and get back on the road so the bills would get paid. That was the plan, he decided.
Gary wrapped the towel around his waist and left the bathroom. He strode down the short hall and into the master bedroom. Because he wasn't paying attention, he only caught a glimpse of his wife sitting on the bed. He saw her small head, her dark hair and her bare arm, as he stepped over to the closet to pick out the set of clothes he would wear later. His wife was focused on her phone as usual, which he hated, but then again so was every other woman these days.
"How bad is the damage?" Gary asked, as he pulled out a comfortable pair of khakis. He set them on the backrest of his desk chair.
"I don't know, dad." The woman on the bed replied. "I can't open the door anymore. I think it's stuck now."