Chapter Two:Bathroom etiquitte

    Alex plodded home regretting her session. Now she was out a hundred bucks and had to walk home because she missed the bus and wasn't sure when the next would be along. It was only a few blocks further, but her feet had been in heels all day and were screaming for mercy.

    A glass of wine, a nice hot bath...and then I won't even remember this long walk home. A car horn blared, startling her. Some moron hung out the passenger window of an ancient little hatchback held together with nothing more than duct tape. He hollered some inane comment which she responded to with a one fingered salute.

    She wondered why there wasn't some sort of law to prohibit morons from being out in public harassing normal people. Being a lean, yet well endowed, five foot seven blonde, she had her fair share of idiots hollaring at her.

    Alex's feet were still protesting, making the walk home seem even further that normal. How could I forget my gym shoes today? Her feet were only exacerbating her frustration with her entire day. She had felt some dim hope throughout the afternoon, believing a shrink would actually help her. Instead, she was abundantly disappointed that a hundred dollars was to "get to know each other" and solve nothing.

    She brightened a bit when she reached the parking lot of the grocery store. All she had to do was cut through the parking lot to a delivery alley and she would be at the back gate of her apartments.Maybe I'll take the entire bottle of wine into the bath...

    "Jesus!"Her soothing thought was replaced with a shot of adrenaline as she dodged an old woman barreling her Buick at her. She could barely make out the curly white top of her head over the steering wheel as she raced by, explaining why she didn't notice Alex.
 
    Heart still pounding, Alex turned, determined more than ever to make it home and hide from the crazy world. Reaching the sidewalk, she heard the inevitable sound of steel crunching and shattering glass. Alex whipped around to see that the tiny senior had crushed a car backing out of a space and ping-ponged it off of the cars in adjoining spaces.

      Alex gawked at the seen, uncertain of what she should be doing.Do I go help? Should I call the police? Her brain fumbled with the right answer as she watched others filter through the parking lot towards the scene. Okay, they saw it too. Good. I should just go. Relieved that the pressure to be the good Samaritan was off, she began to head home. She certainly didn't want to be the one to tell the police the poor old woman had been at fault and had no business driving. That was some messed up karma she didn't need.

    She felt a bit shaken, not so much by the incident, but by her inability to react. Great, I'm that girl in the movies that just freezes with her mouth gaping open as the world is ending and has to be shoved out of the way before a building falls on her. She realized the world was made up of two kinds of people. Heroes and the idiots they had to save. She was depressed to find herself in the second category.

    Alex wanted to cry with relief as the back gate to her apartment complex came into sight. Her near death experience had jolted her bladder and it throbbed in rhythm with her feet. She began digging in her gargantuan purse for her keys. She could hear their jangle beneath a mountain of tampons, receipts, and granola bars she always had the best of intentions of eating but opted for powdered donuts out of the vending machine instead.

    Just as she victoriously hooked the keys with her finger, to her horror she noticed the lock of the gate had been  violently attacked in an effort to break it off. It was actually a regular occurrence and she had sent in multiple letters to the management office about it. They kept promising to resolve the problem, but at the moment, Alex decided being bureaucratic about things in the future was a fat waste of time. If she hadn't been ready to pee in her pants, some poor soul would have received a royal ass chewing.

    She debated a moment about spider-manning the wall to save the trek around to the front. However, Alex remembered she had the athletic ability of a cantaloupe.

    I can hold it, I can hold it, I can hold it. Speed walking around the complex to the front gate, Alex was certain she was moments away from her bad day catapulting to the category of mortifying and horrendously awful day. She did her best to ignore the rapidly swelling blister forming on her ankle and concentrated on the finish line.

    Cross the greenbelt, three flights of stairs and I'll be... "What the f..." The pain in her bladder was instantly numb as confusion and quickly following, rage coursed through her aching bones. The covered parking space assigned to her and Chris had a car parked in it: their very own.

    "Oh, I know I did not just suffer through the last half hour because he had to drive to work, and then decided to get a ride."

    Fury drove her up the stairs and through the front door. To her utter amazement, Chris was reclined on the couch, TV remote in hand.

    "Hey, baby! I was wondering what was taking you so long to get home." He stretched and yawned, and rose to greet her.

    Alex grasped to find words with more than four letters."Why are you home? You were supposed to work a double shift today." Perfectly acceptable reason to spend the entire day on the couch instead of at work, I'm sure.

    "Oh, well, Emma was freaking out that she wasn't going to make it to Rocky Point with all of her friends this weekend if she didn't make enough money. So, I let her close up lunch for me and gave her my night shift."

    His reason: he's a fucking idiot."Did it slip out of your thick skull that we have rent due on Monday, and due to your cell phone disaster, we are still three-hundred short and I don't get paid until next Friday? The thought must have literally plopped out of your brain while you were engaged in some ultra rigorous and important video game marathon. Otherwise, you would be a total fucking moron and there is no way I married a man who has yet to greet the adult world of responsibility!" Her teeth were only a few more pounds of pressure away from shattering into powder.

    Chris stood before her, mute with fear.

    "Nothing to say about it? Did you not think it all the way through? 'Well, I just want everyone to like me.' It's a joke! You put some little girl's trip to Mexico higher on the priority list than a place for us to live. Fantastic."  Alex stomped around him headed for the bathroom she painfully needed. "Just glad to finally know where I rank in things."

    Slamming the bathroom door, Alex frantically tore at her buttoned and zippered skirt before seeking sweet relief as she sat on the toilet. She ignored hot tears spilling over her cheeks as she peeled pumps off her swollen blistered feet. Chris had never put anyone else in the world before her, until today. Worse even still, guilt was creeping into her tightened chest over the hundred dollars she had spent on Dr Thatcher without telling Chris. She had been stashing bits of money now and again for an emergency, and now that they had one, there was a gaping hole in her safety net.

    "Shit!" she spun the empty cardboard roll on its spindle. Her biggest pet peeve with Chris. Alex was beginning to think he was genetically challenged and could physically not perform the act of replacing empty toilet paper rolls, let alone throwing the cardboard tubes away. She accused him once of saving them to build a fort around the toilet. The back-up rolls were outside the door, under the sink, and she had no desire to deal with dribble or chafing tonight. She heard the distinct sound of the front door closing and a key fumbling with the lock.

    "Chris?" Alex listened intently to the silence in the apartment. Hell no, he did not just take off! I didn't say I was done screaming at him yet. "Chris!" Nothing.

    Good job Alex. This is karma for leaving the scene of an accident. Now you're stuck on a toilet and your husband bailed out. Alex scanned the tiny room for a paper substitute. She pulled back the shower curtain, disappointed she had no further options. Then her eyes fell upon Chris' bath towel hanging on the back of the door. Fluffy and blue, and dry.

    Moments later, she emerged from the bathroom. A bit more linty than she had gone in, but at least she was dry. What he doesn't know won't kill him, and will give me a good laugh time and time again.

  She changed into yoga pants and a tank top before raiding her fridge for the largest bottle of wine possible. She had always laughed at her mother for buying boxed wine, but right now it seemed like a suitable amount to have on hand. Glass in hand she sprawled on the couch and enjoyed the serenity of her apartment. Slowly, her anger with Chris began to dissipate, and she was pretty sure she wouldn't need the rest of her rent to get bailed out of jail when she was caught trying to hide his body. Tired as she was her brain began to wander to random corners of thought.

    I wonder who I would call to bail me out? I couldn't call mom, she'd just stand outside the bars pointing and laughing. Sara would take hours getting ready to leave the house just in case she met a good looking guard, or even a convict. This was Sara after all. And if he was hot, she might even overlook the fact that he's in for homicide. How does someone reach such a sad point where standards start and stop at breathing and good-looking?

    She heard Chris climb the last few stairs and unlock the door. Instantly, she was tense again and could feel a fight on her lips. She decided the ostrich approach was the best method , and closed her eyes to ignore his presence. She could hear the distinct rustle of plastic grocery bags and used her restrained herself from a tirade about how 'they already had plenty of food in the house' and 'why would he waste more money when that was how this whole fight started.'

    He made a quiet trip into the kitchen, wisely acknowledging her irritation level was still set to high. Moments later, she could feel him hovering over her before placing something on her chest. Paralyzed with fear that she would open her eyes to something venomous, she quietly but earnestly asked,"What is it, does it bite?"

    Chris laughed heartily. "I hope not! If so, I want my money back!"

    Alex opened her eyes to a stunning set of white roses. Her romantic side cracked at her wall of disapointment and she looked at Chris. "I hope you know this doesn't make everything all better." She inhaled the rose perfumes and fought back a pleasured smile.

    "No, of course not." Chris knelt down beside her with his best puppy in the pound face. (Well, more like puppy on the euthanization table face. He knew he screwed up royally.) "But, it may cheer you up to know that I didn't get to tell you everything earlier. In exchange for my shifts today, I took doubles on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so we should have plenty to pay rent." He touched her cheek. "so it's not as bad as it first all sounded."

    Alex stared at the flowers, feeling a bit sheepish. She dug into the principle of the matter to reassert her convictions. "Still, we need money just as much as anyone, and when you give away shifts, you give away money." That sounded adult and appropriate.

    "Absolutely. I won't be making schedule changes like that without talking to you about it. It's not fair that you should feel like I'm not pulling my weight."

    Huh?Alex fiddled with one of the soft petals for a moment, not sure how to recover so quickly from her bender of rage and work ethic. "Well, as long as you understand..."

    "Do you still love me?" Chris pouted his lip and batted his eyes for extra effect.

    "Only because you'll be gone all weekend and I won't have to see you." Alex broke her first smile for the evening. She grabbed Chris' wounded face and gave him a hearty kiss. "So what's in the bags?"

  He jumped up, newly confident. "I could tell you had a rough day so I figured I'd make you dinner."

    Oh, shit."Really?" Alex asked in her best pseudo-excited tone. There were two major problems that arose when Chris cooked dinner for her, and that wasn't accounting for the fire alarm. He could somehow manage to spend seventy dollars at the grocery store to make macaroni and cheese, and it would end up tasting like ninety-nine cent frozen dinners, if she was lucky and it was even classified as edible. "It's kind of late, maybe we should just get some take out and you could cook another night." Please say yes, please say yes!

    "No way! I want to do something special for you to make amends." She watched Chris empty the mysterious bags in the kitchen spreading quite the array of groceries on the counter. Virtually every aisle of the grocery store was represented in some way.

    "Fabulous," Alex muttered and took a swig from her glass.

      Chris threw the plastic grocery bags away and returned to the living room. He kissed her on the forehead and smiled, looking relieved to be off of death row. "I'm just gonna rinse off in the shower. I'm all dirty from scaling the wall by the back gate. Did you know the lock is busted again?"

    Alex rolled her eyes and suppressed a flash back to her terrible ordeal. "Could we just not talk about it?"

    Chris gave her an inquisitive look, but he knew best not to push his luck at present and headed for the bathroom.

    Curiosity tugging at her sleeve, Alex peeled herself off the couch to examine the mini-mart on her kitchen counter. Before her frustration got the better of her, she remembered something her friends constantly told her: you could do much worse.  Alex began to warm to the idea that having someone who was overzealous when it came to keeping you happy was a much better alternative than a husband who got drunk and mistook you for a punching bag. Chris wasn't perfect, but at least he tried to be in his own way.

    Oh my God! His towel. Alex knew she would feel awful letting him use it now that he was making such tremendous leaps to make the whole day up to her.

    "Chris!" she frantically called out. She was just about to race across the apartment to replace his towel, when the receipt from the grocery store caught her eye. Eighty-three dollars!

    Chris opened the bathroom door and popped his head around. "Did you call me babe?"

    Alex smiled widely. "Sorry, never mind!" He blew her a kiss, and Alex practiced anger management. After her closed the door again, she took a second look at the receipt. "Unbelievable." The entire concept of her frustration had washed clear over his head. At the rate he's going, I'll never need toilet paper again.