my Wifes affair with another woman, and she left with her. |
I am not a writer, I oversee a Tire Center in Missoula Montana and am working my way through college for my bachelors of Aviation Sciences and doing my flight training in my very limited spare time. I have always said I had the very best, God built relationship with my wife, no matter how the ending to this story goes. I was born March 18, 1983 in Missoula, the Big Sky, God's country. My parents were hard working common people who provided with everything we needed, and sometimes when finances allowed, more. We lived to the East of Missoula in a trailer house on my Grandma and Grandpa's property, until my parents could afford our own house. My Father was a hard worker and at the time with the economy on the rise, buying a house and turning for a profit was a great way to go. The first house they bought was still in the general area, a trailer, with a little property and a giant field for us to play all day in. We loved living there, we were fairly well mannered children but as all children do, we caused some mischief. I remember one time me and a friend were standing up at the side of the road watching cars travel by and one of us, can't remember who, thought it would be fun to start pitching rocks at them. No real reason, at the time we were so young I don't think we really gave it any thought. We realized our mistake when one of us pitched a rather large stone at a car, and it shattered the windshield. The car stopped, and deathly afraid of the repercussions of our actions, we hid in a small bush by the fence. Obviously the bush was too small to hide us and the driver knew exactly where we were, and of course we got in big trouble for that. The nice thing is we learned a thing about taking responsibility for what we do that day, and being as I'm telling this story over twenty years after it happened, I learned. Soon after the place got sold and we bought a three level Victorian home and after a lot of work, it was livable. In this home we spent many happy years. We were within a mile of our grand parents so we had an awesome relationship with them. Being kids we still caused some mischief, fights in the alley behind our house with the neighbors, accidentally lighting a fire under our neighbors oil leaking car with fireworks, pretty standard affair I'm sure. Let me tell you though I personally have never been in a fight. I like to think I despise fights, but it's probably more because I'm afraid of pain. Me, and my three brothers would meet our neighbors in the alley, and we would pit our brothers against each other to prove our own superiority. Strange I know, but I think there are a lot of popular children's cartoons that depict the same scenario. We lived in that house until I was just finished with sixth grade, and moved to Frenchtown area, to the West of Missoula. Our parents purchased a parcel of five acres from my uncle that he was storing a bull on. That bulls name was T-bone, or beefsteak as our mother continued to mistakenly call him. While our parents were making the plans for the property and getting ready to break ground, we kept ourselves busy by pestering him. We would get him to chase us, one at a time mind you, and then run around and up trees to get away from him. Our father got joy out of this too, and it brought happiness to us all. I can't help but wonder however how safe it was, but being as none of us got hurt, it's a fun time that I wouldn't recommend others doing. The entire summer was spent building the house. My father who worked full time driving concrete truck, my brother who was one year my senior, my Mother who worked full time for a members only warehouse, and myself built the house in one summer. We lived in a camper in the back of my Fathers 1982 Chevy Scottsdale, though since there was minimum amounts of beds, and and my older brother slept in a tent next to the camper. I won't go into too many of the adventures that happened during this time period because there were far too many. There was an incident one time while our parents were at work, and we were relaxing in the basement. The upper level flooring had been installed, along with a lot of the walls however the roof was yet to be in existence. It began to rain, hard. Water poured from the upstairs floor like a waterfall. A lot of our things had to be stored in the basement so me and my elder brother sprang into action. We used garbage bags, as many as we could find to try and cover things. The water started rising as water continued to pour in the basement. Our youngest brother who always sucked his middle and pointer finger got really scared when the water level hit his knees, however he couldn't go outside because of the wind, rain, and lightning. In a valiant effort of self preservation he reached into one of our storage boxes and put on his life vest. My parents said it was quite a site to see our youngest brother sucking his fingers at the base of the stairs, knee high water in a life preserver, Me and my brother scampering about trying to keep things dry, and our other brother assisting where he could. At the end of the summer we had everything in the house except for the bathroom in the basement, and the carpets in the basement bedrooms complete. In true home owner fashion that didn't get finished until we were selling the house. Speaking of no carpet in the basement there was a time after going swimming in the pond, I changed, did what any second year high school student would do and threw my trunks on the floor, and left. Time passed and we wanted to go swimming so, I grabbed the still slightly wet on the underside trunks off the floor and I can't lie when I tell you a lizard scampered off from under them. While I was in high school I played football, wrestled, played trumpet in band, being the visually dramatic person I am I spent most of my lunch hours in the art room working on animation. I did enjoy auto shop as well, and since I had purchased my own pickup with money from my jobs, and since episode I of star wars was only weeks away from being released in theaters, I spent that time turning my pickup into the very first 1985 Chevy S-10 star fighter. I built blaster cannons on the side that stretched from my tool box all the way to about 1 inch past the hood. I modified two oil drums and outfitted them with 6 feet tall vertical stabilizers and mounted them in the bed of the truck. For finishing touches I made custom rogue squadron badges for the hood, and doors, as well as to plaster on the side of the stabilizers. I assembled the beast in the auto shop. She was beautiful. I got a lot of compliments on my work, and a few jokes about Star Wars nerds and such but hey, I like what I like. The day of the midnight showing I was allowed by the principal, and my parents to leave school early to get in line. My shop teacher hit the automatic garage door opener and they slowly opened. It was a dramatic scene as light began slowly illuminating the fighter, the twin blaster tips glistened in the light. I'm ready. I slowly walk over to the drivers door, reach for the handle, and in all my excitement I overlooked a small detail. Thud, was the sound the door made as it struck up against the blaster cannons that I had mounted on the side of the truck. Reality set in when I realized my window was rolled up, neither door will open, and my rear slider was locked. Fortunately a screw driver and about 15 got my slider unlocked and I climbed inside. I quickly rolled the windows down and used them to get into, and out of the fighter. Driving the beast was a different matter. The stabilizers were rolling a lot in the crosswind, causing the truck to be very hard, and more than likely dangerous to drive. I took the back roads slowly and made the 20 mile trip to the theater in not so record timing. Long story short, made the movie, made the paper, took pictures with a disposable camera because digital imaging hadn't really started yet, and lost the camera so I don't have the pictures, just the memories. I graduated high school and began my employment at my first real job, and since I had a steady job, I of course needed a new truck to impress the ladies. I bought a 1998 Chevy Silverado, It was really nice and since I paid my own money for every vehicle I have owned, I took very good care of it. Not long after I purchased the truck, our house got finished, which means it also got sold. We moved a few miles away into one of the most unlivable, run down 3 story Victorian houses I had ever seen. Livable? No, so we made it that way. Lots of work. Tearing down old cracked lathe and plaster, removing vermiculite insulation, carefully of course. We painted the house, repainted, painted half the house a different color, which my mom said didn't look right in the morning light, so we repainted it again, and I can't recall if it's just me exaggerating the story, or if we painted one more time. Luckily for us, a kid my age from our church had just moved into town, and he came to live with us, and this is where the story really begins. The basement in this house, was our apartment. We each had a room, and helped finish the house to pay our rent. I was a huge player of a massive multi player online RPG, and I was addicted. I was the quintessential loser. I worked my 30 hours a week at my job, payed my truck, my insurance, and my online subscription to the game. When not at work, I was in my room playing this game. I didn't drink, tried it once at a kager with my big brother, got sick, missed a hunting trip, and decided it wasn't for me. My mom was starting to worry about my social life, and even got to the point of telling me that I needed to get out, go to parties and bars, meet people and girls. I didn't listen, I told her that I didn't want that type of girl, to which she retorted that you don't find girls playing video games. Oh well, God has a plan right? God of course was telling me to play video games and watch movies all night, so eventually he'd have to drop a girl in my lap. The only places my lack luster adventures had taken me so far was Washington and Idaho, I'm not a traveler, I like settling in and comfort. So I thought anyways. My friend and 'apartment' room mate had a brother that was getting married in Southern California, and asked me if I wanted to tag along. Shoot I hadn't taken a vacation since I started the job, never been very far from Montana, and since my truck was the only thing between the two of us that would make it I said sure, why not. The day of our departure for this week long road trip came, and of course I had to work. As fortune would have it, even though I was scheduled to work until 6:00 P.M. it was slow so I was able to leave by 2:00 P.M. We left straight from work and began our 28 hour straight drive from Missoula, to Sunny San Burnadino California. Sun, that's what California is known for right? Sun, babes, bikinis, sipping margaritas under a palm tree as the tides change, that's just what I needed. After our drive which was exhausting, and spending an additional 2 hours trying to find his brothers house, I tried to take a drink of tap water because I was dehydrated from the mountain dew binge we went on, however, I can't drink water that tastes like a combination of fluoride and chlorine, I'll wait till we get to the restaurant for dinner. Because of the area selected for the wedding, we were unable to set up for the wedding the day before. It was an outside wedding close to the ocean, and as we began setup a bitter cold breeze started blowing. I'm from Montana and we have cold winters, but this was a cold I couldn't handle and my teeth started to chatter. As the setup neared completion, the breeze continued to make me realize that I should have packed warmer clothes for sunny, warm California. The sun quickly tucked itself behind a dark layer of clouds, then came heavy winds and rain. It goes without saying that we had to re set up the wedding inside the chapel in a hurry. The ceremony ran through perfect, and my friend and I bid farewell to his family, and started moving again. Since we had five more days to kill we figured we would go to Disneyland and cut back through Oregon. I hadn't been there before, so lets make the most of things. Disneyland was awesome, minus the fact that the entire time we were in California it rained, but at least we didn't need to wait in line for rides. Disneylad was a long day, and I get motion sickness really easily so I had taken a few Dramamine. They say it's the non drowsy formula, however that comes at a cost. It's non drowsy only until you slow down, then you crash hard. We jumped in the truck and headed for Oregon. After driving for less than an hour I began to hallucinate. We tried to push forward but after I locked my brakes up on the Interstate because I thought the road ended in a brick wall I decided we should pull over and take a nap. I didn't sleep that well at the rest stop, and being as I am not used to being away from home for so long I asked that we cut our trip three days short and just push straight through to Missoula. God works in mysterious ways. My stay in California the first three nights was spent at the churches living quarters. While I was there I spent most of my time reading my bible, which had taken a back seat to video games a lot in the past. I changed a lot on that trip, and feel like I hadn't been that close to God in a long time. Lets continue with the story and see how when we search God out, instead of our own desires, he doesn't reward us however, he does allow more of his blessings to fall on you. We arrived home at three o'clock in the morning, both exhausted from the drive and crashed on our respective beds. I was awoke around ten to my phone ringing. I answered with a very groggy "hello". It was the tire center, apparently they were busy and just wanted to see if I had happened to come home early from my trip and could come in and help out. Ironic I thought to myself, and figured what the heck I'll do it. I arrived as soon as I could and slipped into my uniform, immediately going to work. Roughly two hours later the tire shop phone rang. It was the gas station. They needed one of us Tire Center employees to cover the gas station employees lunch hour. I hate the gas station, it is boring. Stand there pretending to sweet until some member calls for help because they can't follow the instructions and are inserting there card in upside down and backwards. I volunteered? Why did I do that I thought to myself. Oh well, I'm tired it might be nice to have a break anyhow. The gas station was very uneventful. I had swept the same lane five times before I spotted a young gal appearing to have some problems. I rolled my eyes and walked over to offer my assistance. She was pretty, her eyes glistened and sparkled in the sun as she blamed the machine for her inability to read the posted 'insert card like this' sign. Now I am by nature a very shy person around girls, especially if they are cute. However, since I was at work I was as smooth as silk. We talked while her car filled up, when it clicked off, I pulled out the handle, installed her gas cap, gave her a receipt and reluctantly said goodbye. Yes, as you may have guessed the rest of the day sucked, and since they knew I was back my vacation was over. Roughly one week after my vacation ended I had a particularly annoying vehicle and kicking at the tire and rim assembly to dislodge it from the hub. The phone rang "Phone for you, it's some girl". I told him it was my mom and to tell her I'd be with her as soon as I got this done. It took roughly ten minutes to accomplish this task. I grabbed the phone and answered plainly because I knew who it was, and it was personal. She told me she had met me last week at the gas station, and was hoping we could get together. What? Is this for real? She told me she was the girl in the red car and that I helped her pump gas. I meet a lot of people and while I did remember the situation, it was escaping me what she looked like. Was she pretty? Heavy? I couldn't remember but knew I couldn't pass up this opportunity. I said sure and she gave me her number. Isn't God amazing? By searching for God instead of searching for girls I found what I wanted. Strength in numbers I've always been told, and since I was feeling nervous and week, I brought a few of my friends along. Maybe this sounds bad but if things didn't go right, I could use them as my escape plan. My friends and I peered in through the window of the movie theater. She told me she would be wearing a brown leather jacket, with a pink flower pin. "Is that her" one of my friends asked me and I peered in the direction of his pointer finger. No way, she is like sixteen max, can't be her. I know what I'll do. So I grab my phone and call her. The sixteen year old reached in her pocket and grabbed her phone. Yes I see you, be right in. Crap, I can't leave her there, but I gotta be careful with a girl this young, I believe the proper term is jailbait. Once I talked to her however in person, she seemed very mature. I found out almost right away she was the same age as me, she was just cute, short, and young looking. We watched the movie, and went our separate ways, reluctantly, because she was awesome and made me feel very comfortable. Instead of going into detail about how absolutely wonderful we were together, because I could go on for years, let me tell you two things. First; despite what my mom said, she was a drop dead gorgeous girl that loved video games, horses, and basically everything I did. The second thing I will tell you is some key dates, they speak for themselves. I met her at Costco on 10/16/04, and I received her call on 11/1/04. Our first date was 11/13 with our first alone time date on 11/19. I asked her to be my girlfriend on 12/9, and asked for her hand in marriage on 2/7/05 and 02/20/05. Wait say again? Why two dates you ask? We talked about it on a late night walk and mutually decided it was what we wanted, however, both us being traditional I knew I had to ask his permission before I asked for her hand. I received his blessing, and knew I had to make my move. On a midnight walk up on the hill I turned to her and said "Will you be my wife" she smirked cutely and said "Of course", however I don't think it sank in right away because she quickly turned to me and asked "Did you just ask me to marry you?!" to which of course I replied yes I did, then, in the darkness of night, we shared a very passionate kiss. April first came extremely fast, before I knew it we were at the rehearsal. It went alright, though there was a lot of stress putting the finishing touches on a large wedding with such short notice. Soon after rehearsal we went for pizza, then it was back to my house so that I could try to sleep for the big day tomorrow. I couldn't sleep, stress, expectations, desires, all coming at me tomorrow. We both saved ourselves for marriage so needless to say, I was excited. That is, until I got a rather unsettling phone call. It was Trina, she had come down with the flu, and wasn't sure if she was going to be able to go through with the wedding. She told me she would call me in the morning and let me know. Wow, you have got to be kidding, think I'm getting sleep? Morning did eventually come and she said she had to go through with it, despite being sick. She made it through the service like a champ, and it wasn't until twenty minutes into the reception she announced the wedding party was going to have to leave. I do have to stop the story for a moment and backtrack. In my haste to give you the dates, I failed to include one major detail. It was in december, I was cooking a roast on the bbq. Sometimes I get carried away rough housing with the dogs, and long story short, I fell off the retaining wall, completely dislocated my ankle, and was to be on crutches and a caste till after the wedding date. Of course as the wedding date came close, I informed my doctor that he needed to give me a walking caste or I'd cut the other cast off the day of the wedding. Needless to say I won and got the walking cast, but I didn't wear it the day of the wedding either. Ok enough about that, back to the story. As we walked out to the truck, which had been decorated with such care, I reached for the keys to unlock my brides door. Damn, didn't have them. Trina is sick, I lost the keys, I panicked and bolted towards the bathroom to get my real pants. I took a pretty good tumble as my ankle gave out, and when I dusted myself off, her father got frustrated and gave me keys to a different car and told me to get her home before her dry heaving turns into something worse. So I drove her home, only having to make two stops. One to get her a ginger ale, the other so she could get rid of that and the little piece of cake she ate. What happened to the just married truck? Well as fate would have it, her father and another young man drove it home. I'm pretty sure there was a lot of confusion passing a 'just married' vehicle with two guys in it. I don't blame her, I don't blame myself but my first day as a married man didn't go as planned. Instead of carrying her across the threshold and into the bed, I steadied her and opened doors for her and put her to bed for a nap. You can imagine as I layed there next to her I was really wishing she wasn't sick, I waited a long time for this. While she was sleeping I called and canceled all our reservations for the Honeymoon, given the circumstances, everybody was really kind about not charging us late cancellation fees. Once she was better, we spent our honeymoon just, living life together. We rarely left the house, did a little shopping, and just hung out. We lived in a rental house for roughly five years, our emotional connection was without equal. We were truly and completely in love, and emotional perfect for each other. Can there be problems in a situation like this? If everything was perfect I wouldn't be writing my story. Even though we were emotionally connected so well, our sex life left something to be desired. I quickly realized that she quite frankly, didn't like sex at all. For a man, this is a form of showing and sharing love, and if she isn't enjoying it, then obviously something is wrong. This thought haunted me every time we slept together. Which naturally put excess stress on me, and I couldn't focus on anything other than the fact that she wasn't enjoying it. What do I do? What am I doing wrong? Am I no good? My wife and I didn't exactly hang out a lot with people, we stayed to ourselves, and focused on our life. When she did invite some people up, they happened to be guys. Now don't get me wrong, I normally wouldn't have a problem with this. She is inviting them up to our house to hang out with both of us. However, given that I felt a lack of sexual desire, jealousy started to try and creep into my brain. I tried to control it, however it is a strong emotion. The more we slept together, the more I felt a lack of desire, and the more jealous I became. This was not my fault, nor was it hers, it just was. Through this however, our emotional connection became stronger than ever. Lets fast forward a little, to the more recent. I am a full time supervisor at Costco, in college, and guess what? I got my pilots license! Great, I'm tired, but we decided to get some food, grab some drinks and celebrate a little. One of Trina's girl friends came out with us, and we had a good time. This was the first time I had ever met, she was, different, but nice. Trina hung out a lot with her, most of the time I was there, and they planned me a nice celebration party the following wednesday with my family and hers. Her friend came, and we had a great time, then went home. The next day Trina and her friend wanted to know if we could go out again. I'm not huge on late nights, however I decided I'd go. After some drinking, some walking around and talking, her friend decided to go skinny dip in the river. Trina joined her, however she is modest, so she left on her extra long cami to keep herself covered up. By the time we got back to her friends house, I was beat and even though I hadn't drank that night, we decided it wasn't a good idea, especially cause they wanted to watch a movie. After I slept through the first movie, I got up, stretched, and she told me I could crash in her bed while they watched another movie. I thought they were crazy, cause it was already three a.m. I went to bed, got up a seven thirty, and they were still up watching the sun rise. Man, that is insane. They fell asleep so I took a walk down to get coffee and breakfast. When I got back, my wife and I got in the car, and left her friend asleep on the coach. On the ride home, I explained to my wife that she needed to be understanding with me, because her actions with her friend were making me a little jealous. She would do nothing like that with me, not a chance, and she is always too tired when I want to do something. She said she understood and was sorry, then she asked me if I thought we were drifting apart. I explained to her that we were not, and she agreed. The rest of the day went well, we hung out, talked, took a few walks. The following day her friend called, and asked if we wanted to go the the Harley Davidson shop to look at gear. We were going to, however we found out the shop was only open until six, and it was six thirty. Oh well, I had to work the next day anyways, so we went home. My wife went to work as did I, she was scheduled off at Seven, and I was stuck until eight thirty. My wife called me, told me that her and her friend were gonna run down to the Harley store after she got off, and that her friend would drop her off at my work when I got off. Fine I thought no big... wait a minute, the shop closes at six. My jealousy started to come upon me again. Sometimes things just don't feel right, and this was one of them. However, my wife has never once lied to me, so maybe she forgot that it closed at six, but I didn't want to say anything, I wanted to see what happened. My wife called me around seven thirty, told me they were done at the Harley Shop, and were going to go for a motorcycle ride with another friend, and then she would just bring her home. I said alright, I mean hey, I'm still at work, and I need to be able to read peoples facial features. I got home, and an hour or so later so did my wife, and her friend. Trina announced that she needed to go check on her rabbits, so I volunteered to go out with her. I questioned her about her lie, and she confessed, apologized, and told me what happened. It goes without saying that her friend left really quick despite my being very nice. When I got back inside from feeding the horses, my wife said she wanted to go to bed. I was a little tired myself so I agreed, and we both walked hand in hand into the bedroom. She tried to get frisky, but something wasn't right, I had never seen such a display of being mentaly not there. Finally I stopped her, and asked her what was wrong. Now I'm sorry if this last part isn't written very well, it was very emotional for me. My wife told me she had started having an affair with her girlfriend. She told me it hadn't gotten past making out, and that I wasn't supposed to find out about it, it was just supposed to see how far it would go. My mind went black. How could this be? Anger, confusion, and disbelief lead to my next action. Now as I said earlier, we don't drink very much, but I knew I needed something, and I needed to go out to my shop and be alone, I did not want to be in the room with her. I can't remember every detail of what happened, my mind and body were working purely off of some unknown instinct. I went to the liqueur store, and bought the first bottle of 100 prof I could find. When I got home I slammed the door to my shop and took a big pull. Then I grabbed some sand paper, and started sanding on the 1975 pontiac firebird I was restoring for her anniversary present, she always told me she wanted a muscle car, and that one is hot. I didn't get too far, and my tears were clogging up my sanding block. I remember calling my boss at around midnight crying and telling him I wasn't going to be into work tomorrow. The next thing I remember are faint and foggy. Splashes of memories of tubes, hospitals, and random people. I woke up in the emergency room. Turns out drinking and extreme emotion don't mix. I had drunk 3/4 of a bottle of 100 prof, I only remember the first drink. After I was discharged from the ER, my wife took me home, it was a very, very silent car ride. We talked a lot about the situation, fortunately for me I had used up all my emotion the previous night, so I was pretty monotone. She explained to me that after I was admitted to the hospital, she had called her friend over, and she consoled her with hugs and kisses. Then she also told me that they had been planning on leaving me at the hospital after I was admitted but, Trina said she just couldn't do it. Oh boy, I felt a lot of love on that one. I don't want to lose my wife, I can't lose my wife, she is my life. I told her we can work through this. I am a very forgiving person, and no matter how long it takes, we can make it, our love is too great to lose over this. She told me how much she loved me, cried a lot, and then I told her she needed to call her friend, and tell her that she could never see, or speak to her again. That is not asking much, from what I've read in order to heal a marriage after an affair, especially because it was an emotional affair, the lover has to be completely out of her life. Easy enough right? Sounds fair right? I forgive, we move on. She told me she couldn't, she loved her too much. We talked about this for another few hours, and I finally got through to her. The phone call started out as it should, but didn't end like it should have. It was twenty five minutes of how they loved each other, and wanted to be together. I will say this though, Trina regained her composure, then went to her house, and face to face broke up with her. She deleted her number from her phonebook, and showed me the proof, then we talked and tried to get some sleep. I was so glad the initial phase was over. I couldn't imagine being left by my wife for another man, and this was a girl! Trina had to go to work, but I was so emotionally drained that I called and told them I wouldn't be in for a few days, needed personal time. I tinkered around the house, mowed the lawn, took forever because I kept stopping and laying down to cry and try to take a nap. I'm sad, by myself, and have slight trust issues, so I load up a webpage and check our cell phone call logs so I can memorize her number in case I ever see it again, even though I know Trina promised never to talk to her again. Wait, why is her number popping up today on the texting plan? I was a little mad at this, but it was one transaction from her, and then two replies from my wife. Perhaps she just texted a goodbye, I'll ask her when she gets home. What? Another lie? She says she didn't text her or call her? I showed proof and she came clean. I wanted answers, why was she still talking to her? She said she wanted to leave but had to stay. She told me she wanted to be with me forever, but couldn't stop loving her. I can't hear this, I demand answers, I want her to stay, but her friend can't be in her life period. What? She wants me to compromise and let her continue her friendship? I can't have that. I told her how much I loved her, told her what I loved about her, told her how everything was going to be alright. Want to know how much I love my wife? She left me, and even though she told me not too, I'm taking the wrap for this. I can't tell our families that she left me for another women, it would kill our families because of our beliefs. I told her I would do this because she is making a mistake. I would rather be thought of as cheating on my wife so that when she realizes how big of a mistake this was and comes back to me, our families will welcome her with open arms. Now I sit at this computer, telling you the good times, down to the bad. This is how I spent my first day, crying and typing, it took a long time. I wonder what tomorrow will bring? My wife has called me four times since she left, to tell me how much she misses me, and that she loves me, the last question I asked her tonight was if she was still at work, and she said no... I'm at home, to which I told her that I would always be here, when she comes back. I don't care how long it takes, I will never have room in my heart for another. Thanks for giving me an eternity of love, in our seven years. That brings me to now, I don't know what my future holds anymore, but I hope it isn't anything like this. |