The Ideal Couple

David S. Wollard
Written English online
Professor Brock
08/19/2014
The Ideal Couple Being the perfect couple or the ideal couple is what everyone in a relationship dreams about. A couple that has reached their 60th wedding anniversary is considered to be the ideal couple because they have been together for a long time and shows no intention of breaking up because they are so happy with each other. My relationship is a little different than most couples an here is the reason why. I belong to a classification of people known as the “Stay at home fathers”. Several years ago my wife and I divorced, but we remained friends over the years. Some people say that because we are still friends we still would make the ideal couple. Six years after our divorce I inherited my family home due to my mother’s death and I soon decided to move from Florida to West Virginia, and take over my old home place. Knowing that I couldn’t make this move by myself, and that my ex-wife Kenna has family in West Virginia, I asked her if she wanted to move to the mountain state, and if she said yes, I could see my daughter Leila, on a regular basis instead of every other weekend. Kenna jumped at the chance to move, and my daughter Leila, and my two sons Michael and Matthew, were also excited too, but upset because she would miss her friends in Florida.
We rented a U-Haul and began packing our belongings and our four cats and dog (Snickers, Shamus, Gypsy, Rapunzel and Bella the dog.) After packing for two days, we finally left on a Thursday morning and drove until 8:00 pm that first night. We made it all the way to Columbia, South Carolina, where we stayed at A Clarion Hotel. We awoke at 6:00 AM and were back on the road by 7:00 AM and made it to Fairmont, West Virginia by 5:30 PM Friday evening. We were so exhausted from the drive that we decided to wait until, Sat. to start unloading the truck. After unloading and returning the truck, we decided take our time on arranging the house. We concentrated on finding work, and since my ex-wife was a Laboratory Technician in Florida, she decided to try and find work at the hospitals in the area.
Kenna has over 30 years of experience in her field, so she soon found out that no one wanted to hire her because she has more experience than most supervisors. She decided to go out of her field and she found work right away at Aegis communications in Fairmont. I decided to keep looking for work and try my hand at going back to school, so I enrolled a Pierpont Community and Technical College. While attending school I still applied for jobs in my field of expertise, which is security. I hold a class D License from Florida. (In Florida a person must go through 40 hours of classroom training and background checks to obtain a class D License.) Sense finding work in my field was grim, my ex-wife and I decided that I would stay home and do the housework and go to school. After we made this decision I told Kenna we sound like the ideal couple .My day starts at 6:30 AM, with making breakfast. When making breakfast, the first thing I do is make the morning coffee. Then I make scramble eggs with toast, oatmeal and a big glass of cold milk. The after we eat, my ex-wife packs her lunch for work. Then because we a one care family I, drive her to work. When I get back home, it is time for me to get my daughter Leila, up and ready for school, so I knock on her bed room door and told her to get up that it was a school day and I was making her breakfast. Leila, got up dressed, ate breakfast and soon we were on the road to school. After taking Leila, to school and returning home my day officially begins. The first thing I do is wash dishes from breakfast and maybe a little from the night before. After I wash the dishes, I start a load of laundry by going from room to room collecting all the dirty clothes and putting them into washing machine. When the laundry is started, I make a pot of coffee to help me make it through the day I usually walk out dog Bella. We don’t take a long walk but, far enough that it allows her to use the bathroom. After walking Bella, I come back in and start on picking up the house and vacuuming. By this time the laundry is done and I changed it from the washer to the dryer. At about 2:00 pm I can sit down and start any home work that has to be done. I am taking English, Communication’s, Psychology and Math. One of these classes is online and my other classes are on MWF of every week where I spend at least 4 hours a day there. On Tues and Thursdays I try to spend the same amount of time doing homework as I spend in school.
At three o’clock I go in town to pick up Leila, from school, as Leila, gets in the car she tells me my truck should be called David’s bus because I am always going places. The she makes the comment that Mom and I are the ideal couple. I told Leila we are going to McDonald’s, for an after school snack, which usually consist of a Big mac and Fries and an Ice coffee for her and a quarter pounder and fries and an unsweetened ice tea for me.
Then after our trip to McDonald’s, it’s off to home where I continue daily routine and Leila, continues her quest for the title of “I want everyone in the world on my friends list on Facebook” where she spends pretty much 18 hours a day chatting with people from all over the world. Then there is Skype, which that is a subject for another time.
At 4:00 pm I usually start doing another doing another sink full of dishes before Kenna, comes home from work and wants to start dinner or sit down and which an hour of the chew, which is her favorite show or we go out to a Mexican restaurant called El-Chaos. At dinner we usually have tortillas which are a round griddlecakes made from cornmeal. This Mexican specialty it’s very good. I never had this kind of food growing up. My oldest some Michael likes this kind of food because he is allergic to tomatoes and anything really spicy.
After dinner, I again start with doing the dishes only this time I have help from the kids. My daughter usually washes the dishes and I dry, which gives me a break of doing them all myself. If we went out for dinner then we come home and start to settle down for the evening. If it happens to be Monday or Friday then my daughter and I have two favorite TV shows, and that is “Monday night Raw” or “Friday night Smack down.” Either show is good but, Raw is longer by and hour. Leila, dreams of become a WWE Diva or just to get into wrestling period. At my age I am too old to become a wrestler but, I wouldn’t mind becoming a manager but, even that takes experience which neither of us has. I keep telling Leila, all we want is our fifteen minutes of fame, which in my case would be 15 seconds of fame.
My too sons Michael and Matthew, which I think of as my little ones but, they are far from being little. Michael, my oldest is pushing 30 and Matthew (goes by Matt) is going to be 29 on December 23. Now these guys can be a hand full even at this age. They basically have their own lives but, use my home as a weigh station sometimes which is why hardly ever see them.
As the evening begins to wind down I feed Shamus, Snick, Gypsy and Rapunzel and Bella one more time before bed. All the cats get a big hand full of food and Bella (actually my daughter’s dog.) gets a plate of her caned dog food plus whatever we had for dinner, now she usually does eat this and yes sometimes she does become finicky and won’t eat it but, then she will sneak out ant eat the cats food when they are not looking, so either way she gets feed.
At 11:00 pm Kenna slowly makes her way back to our bed room and gets ready for bed. Now this is a procedure in itself because Snick out oldest cat of the group (14) will sometimes leave us little messages that tell us she is unhappy about something and we have to clean them up and get clean sheets for the bed before we can actually go to bed. After we have remade the bed, Kenna, lies down and reads a book or works on crossword puzzles. I ask her if she felt we were the ideal couple.
Somewhere between 11:15 and 11:30 PM I do what I call my lock down faze for the night. (I do this every night. Old security habit.) I go outside and make sure all the trucks are locked plus the garage then I come back in and lock the porch door kitchen door, basement door, check all windows, place portable phones on chargers. This situation has worked for us for years. (I do this every day and have for 5 years.) Now my day is complete and it is time for the ideal couple to go to bed.