“No!” The word exploded from her mouth as she stepped on a mine they both vowed to avoid. “You explain it to me now! Why’d you have to sleep with her? Why?”

“Are we still together?” he challenged. “Are we baby?”

“That’s not the point!” she bellowed. She smacked her cigarette between her lips and slapped him with the billowed smoke. “You know she’s my friend!”

“Are we still together?” he advanced. “Are we?”

“No!” She spat the word as she smashed her cigarette into her ashtray.

“Then don’t ask me who I fuck. It’s not your business. Your opinion ceased to matter to me when you said you wouldn’t marry me. So, that’s the end of that.” He leaned into the back of her chair, raised his arms, and entwined his fingers across the cool cloth of his baseball cap. “And don’t call me and ask me over here just so you can scream at me. I don’t appreciate your manner or your tone.”

“You didn’t have to sleep with one of my friends!” she hissed.

“She’s one of my friends too.” He stood up to leave.

“She was my friend first!” She stood up and pushed her chair into the table. “Besides, if you’re so moral, why are you having sex at all? How does that work Mark? Explain that one to me! How are you sleeping with my friend when you claim to be so religious?” She tapped the nearly extinguished butt into the base of the ashtray and waited for him to respond.

“Ok, why should I have to justify my life to someone who claims to be so tolerant.?” He put his palms on the crown on the chair. “Aren’t you going to tolerate my behavior? Or does tolerance only work for you when you require it from others?”

“What?” she asked.

“Look. If you don’t give a shit about morality, why are you expecting me to maintain mine? I would think it shouldn’t matter to you whether I keep my morals or not. So let’s trade answers. Ok?” He leaned into his elbows and stuck his neck above the table. “You tell me why you hold me to a higher standard than you keep and I’ll tell you why I fucked her. Agreed?”

“What?” His rapidity stunned her. “No! I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t sleep with one of your friends! You’re the one who claims to be so ethical but you don’t act very ethically!” She reached on the table and picked up her pack. “Sleeping with my friend was hardly ethical.” She pulled a cigarette out and lit it. “What‘s the word you love so much?” She searched the smoke filled air for his word. “Duplicity!” she exclaimed. “It’s duplicitous! No,” she lowered her voice, “actually it’s just goddamned low!”

“Let me give you a little clue Sweetpea,” he said as he pulled his keys from his cargo pouch in his pants. “Whether or not I had sex with one of my friends would be a loyalty issue or a boundary issue or a jealousy issue or something. Although it doesn’t really matter because it all comes down to morals anyway. Whether or not I keep the Ten Commandments is between me and my God. That you care about whether or not I keep my standards would be between you and your therapist.”

“I don’t need therapy!” She spat through her smoke.

“And I don’t need to be interrogated by some bitch who doesn’t want to be in my life yet wants to control it.” He tapped his saddle pocket to guarantee he had his phone. “Look kid, I suck at chastity and you suck at selflessness. At least my sin involves another person. I’m surprised you’ve got a spare stone to throw with that fucking wall you’ve built around yourself.”

“Don’t do this to me Trost! Don’t turn this around like I’ve done something wrong!” She steadied herself against the back of her chair.

“I’m not asking you who you fuck. I’m not quizzing you. I’m not sitting here judging whether or not you keep your standards. I don’t give a shit whether you keep any standards. I don’t owe you any goddamn explanations or justifications. I didn’t ask you for any.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.

“You can’t ask me! I haven’t done anything!” she slammed. He saw her smugness through the smog of her smoke.

The audacity of her statement struck him with a slap. “Look instead of pushing me about my morals, why don’t you explain to me why you don’t believe in moral standards? There’s my question! Explain to me how the Ten Commandments are too much to ask a society? Tell me how you have the right to belittle a human being who tries to do things right? Come on. And while you‘re at it, explain to me this hierarchy of yours that demands that you’re at the top of the pyramid. I mean at least in Catholicism we put God first and the Holy Family and the Angels and Saints and then the Pope. Hell by the time it gets down to a living human being we see ourselves as one of many. We’re one of a group. We recognize that other people exist! But, I mean shit, you put yourself first and justify your selfishness by denying the existence of something that states you’re one of and not the only one. God forbid you‘d consider anyone or anything before yourself!”

“Fuck you!” she shouted. “Get out of my house! All this bullshit just to cover up the fact that you fucked her!”

He walked to her door. “And just for the record, because she is my friend and I don’t want a lie to exist, I didn’t have sex with her. You see baby – you and I are the ones who are fucked. She didn’t do a goddamned thing but listen to me lament about you.” He reached for the doorknob and turned it and pulled. He turned around. “Jesus I’m a fool! Look. Don’t call me anymore. We’ve got nothing left. It’s over. I’m so fucking tired of you people who sit on your asses and criticize anyone who takes a moral stand or falls on his knees. Christ, how the hell did I ever think I was in love with you?”

“Well I’m not in love with you anymore!” she started to cry.

“How could you be?” he steadied his voice. “You weren’t even aware of the fact I was here.” His words joined her smoke as he walked out onto her sidewalk and into the blistering sun.

Mark R Trost has made a major decision in his life: I will never again explain my actions to anyone who does not have a collar around his throat and the Sacrament of Holy Orders on his immortal soul. And even then all explanations will begin with “Bless me Father for I have sinned.” I’m drawing the line.

If your fellow workers smoke and take simultaneous smoking breaks yet never include you, don’t take it personally. It isn’t about you – it’s about the activity. It’s not a social club. If they all rode bicycles during their breaks and you didn’t … would you feel hurt they didn’t ask you if you wanted to run alongside the road? Now I can understand if you feel you are missing out on team building opportunities. They are bonding during the shared activity and you aren’t included in those chats. Ok, well slap a smile on your face and go stand outside and join in. You don’t have to smoke. Life isn’t by invitation only. The word initiative is similar to the word invitation but is really quite different. It is unrealistic and unreasonable to expect them to invite you everyday or alter a group behavior for one person.

Oh and as an aside: I’m a nonsmoker.

Ok I’m practically revealing my only recipe but … I have been known to stash a potato chip or two within the slices of a wheat bread bound sandwich.   But, I don’t eat mayonnaise anymore.  And the only aspect of Miracle Whip that’s miraculous is that someone actually eats it.   Am I the only one who remembers Spin Blend?  It tasted like celery.   It was awful and apparently the creation of a marketing team hired to push a mistake.

Oral histories are incredibly valuable. It is certainly more valuable to hear an eyewitness account instead of reading a historical document filled with “and then he said that she did …” History is written by gossips. I think that’s one of the most invaluable benefits of caring for our aged. We not only hear what happened, we learn the consequences of the actions by observing the actions and reactions of the storytellers.

I don’t believe that human beings can find true love with each other simply by corresponding over the internet. Without physically proximity, one can’t know the inflections or the intentions of another. So all reactions are based on presumption. And that’s fallacious because it’s based on an assumption and not an actuality.

Love is real – not a fantasy.

I think often in life we stop ourselves from doing the right thing or the necessary thing that would benefit our fellow man because we make the situation about ourselves.  And it isn’t.  All situations aren’t about us.  I think it would be kinder to guide people toward a solution than to take the path that offers us the least resistance.

My sister was recently chosen for Grand Jury duty. It reminded me of serving on a jury in the past. I enjoyed jury duty – although it added validity to the pronouncements of women in my past. “You’re too judgmental” they’d declared. And now I can retort, “but they asked me to be!”

1. If you and your kid are checking the mail to see whose social security check comes first? It’s time he moved.

2. I’m turned off by a woman who only sees life from a feminist point of view. I like women who see the world above the waist.

3. “Get therapy” is a condescending and insulting way to say that one disapproves and is disinterested.

Ok … there was a time when I actually was considered “cute” …yeah, you can’t tell by my picture. Now I settle for “well-groomed.” Although, I was recently told by a woman that I was “adorable.” Yeah, well my ego is ignoring the fact that she was in her 80s.

However – when I was younger I had a female boss who rubbed my back & touched my knee & placed her hand on my chest while she spoke to me. I said nothing – I was too determined not to foul up my career. I mentioned it to a few buddies who smirked up their positions as “Yeah, so, what’s the problem?” Years later I had a male boss who rubbed my back once while I sat in a chair. By that time I had found my voice and realized my dignity weighed more than a full wallet. I readily spoke up and said “get your goddamned hands off of me.” It worked. He did.

It’s odd that sexual stereotypes still exist. Sure, some men are perverts. Yet some women are sexual predators as well. Neither should be allowed in the workplace.

A woman asked this question on an online networking site:

“I am happily married but yet like to have fun by flirting. I say I am married not dead. Is it ok to flirt?”

And I replied:

Ok there’s a difference between having a good personality and flirting. If you flash your personality at both sexes without editing it to a situation, I say go for it.

However, flirting is testing the waters – and if you limit your flirtations to intimate times when only one other person is present, you’re fishing. And if that’s the case, I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with you.

Ok … here’s what I don’t get. Why the pretense? Bottom line – sex is funnest. (Yeah it is a word.) Anyone with a head knows that. That’s why we want it. That’s why we pursue it. That’s why we consider it almost exclusively. It’s the single most fun activity.

Flirting is the way we get that fun. And I think anyone wearing a ring who seeks that fun from someone who isn’t wearing the matching ring is wrong and self-centered. And I can’t fathom a spouse who wants to be thought of as unfun. Or not funny enough.

And I don’t understand why someone gets married to a person who is attracted enough to them to publicly declare it on an altar … and then seeks more people to attract. How many people do they need? Why not just stand on a stage and beg the world to clap?

I want to see the look on all these spouses’ faces – when they find out they aren’t fun enough. And those who justify this behavior – did you ever consider that maybe you’re not receiving enough attention because your spouse thinks you’re not fun enough?

Men can sleep anywhere. We usually do. But – being in a close space the next morning when a man has to share in the light of day without the pretense of courtship or the protection of atmosphere – is an intimacy that can be daunting. It’s uncomfortable. And that’s why we usually try to avoid that moment.