Divorce in the making.

Tonight I watched a divorce in the making. They walked into a nice restaurant together, for a Christmas outing. Her in the lead, he dragging behind. She was nicely dressed, neat and clean. Not beautiful, but trying to look nice and attractive. He took off his coat and showed a too small dirty tee shirt, hairy arms and belly showing and a ripped hole under the arm. He looked homeless. To his credit, he’d left his ball cap in the car.

This was a nice restaurant, good steak about $25. She looked at the menu, while he put both elbows on the table, face in his plate and attacked the bread and guzzled his beer straight out of the long neck.

She was there for a nice holiday evening out. He was there to eat.
After they ordered, he pulled out his i-phone and spent the rest of the evening playing with his phone. If they talked it was only a little. He ate with his face in the plate.

After a short quiet dinner they paid and left.

In about 3 years he will be on here or on face book, whining that some low down snake at the office who showers 3 times a week and wears a clean shirt has been doing it to his wife, and now she wants a divorce and half of all his stuff.

Maybe the judge will let him keep his favorite dirty tee shirt and i-phone?

My mother taught me that cleaning up and dressing appropriately was to show self respect, respect for others (and to God when in Church). I still think she was right

Who knows? Maybe it was sis taking n'er-do-well brother out for Christmas?

I think you're right. How many times do you see a family in a restaurant, or wherever, and all of them texting or surfing the net. Whatever happened to talking?

Me and the old lady did not go out tonight Ed..

well said

At one time in my life I briefly thought I could get rich selling Prudential life insurance. I was in training with the sales manager, and we went to call on what he thought was a sales lead. We went back into the sticks and pulled up in front of a run-down mobile home. Outside there was an expensive bass boat, a nice truck, a four-wheeler and a motorcycle.

We were invited in and with strong misgivings sat down in tattered, dingy chairs. What little furniture there was was old, worn and wobbly. No curtains, just blinds. Linoleum floor. No decorative items except a nice gun rack with a couple of thousand dollars worth of guns. The house was unexpectedly reasonably clean and uncluttered, however.

The 'prospect' was a doofus in his early 30s, and he matched the description of Edd's guy. The wife was a sad-looking little waif in a worn-out dress, and there were two or three small half-naked kids milling around.

The sales manager dutifully made his sales pitch. The wife listened intently, but Bubba couldn't care less. The sales manager explained how with this plan if Bubba died the wife and kids would have X number of dollars to survive on.

Bubba said, "Hell, man, I'd be worth more dead than alive!" The sales manager looked at him for a few seconds, then closed his rate book, stood up and said, "Yeah, you're probably right."

For some reason a lot of women seem to like guys like that. The nice guys can't get a second look.

I agree Edd, if they were married. Most don't bother anymore.

Usually about once a week, the wife and I will meet up somewhere for dinner while we're on our way home. I farm, work for a general contractor (estimator/project supervisor), and I'm working on another college degree. You're apt to catch me in anything from muddy bibs to a 3 piece suit. My wife is in quality control in manufacturing. She's apt to be covered with oil from being around raw steel and such. When we show up to eat, it's NOT to impress someone sitting in the restaurant. We're there to spend a few minutes together. We're used to seeing each other dirty and tired. When we have time, and we're out celebrating something significant, we'll usually be dressed nice. In either case, we have the ultimate in respect for each other, and do NOT look at what we're wearing as an indication of our commitment to each other.

I give people the benefit of the doubt. If they were standing up throwing plates at each other, I'd assume they're not quite "together". Sitting quietly, eating dinner, and possibly trying to take care of a few details (on the phone) I'm not ready to send 'em on the Dr Phil OR the great analytical minds of YT.

There's always that chance they're just happy AND comfortable and secure with who they are.

Not QUITE the same,but we all went out last night for my son's girlfriend's birthday,then he kept her out for about 20 minutes while we all went to their house to wait and surprise her with a party when they got home. When they pulled up and we all got quiet,I said geez,I hope they ain't fighting when they come in.

I hate to say it but its true, guys are foolish, they figure they can slack off, once "I got ya" via marriage or some other serious arrangement, then proceed to let themselves go, resting on ones laurels is never a good idea anytime.

My out was to always play some kind of sport, mostly for the exercise/fitness and overall health, not so much competition. Common sense to be sharp on date night regardless of age, years of marriage. Military will teach you about personal appearance, should be a right of passage to serve in the U.S. might be less divorces LOL !

You might be right or it could be a dozen other situations and relations that they have to each other.I've been in places with a woman that was dressed very nice while I was dressed poorly and dirty sometimes from working for various reasons.

There is a difference in being just dirty from working and being a slob. And then if you are dirty from working not paying any attention to the person that you are with is the problem, even if you are dressed like he was the big thing is getting on that thing and playing with it all evening instead of paying attention to the person he was with, then there is the issue of table maners. And that has nothing to do with how you look, it is how you act.

Bob, I was thinking the same thing. Jim

Thats a good point and I agree its rude or worse to play with some electronic gadget or talk on the phone while one is in that situation no matter who the other person is for sure.

Maybe it was easy for me to imagine because I have a couple of siblings who could fit this picture.

There for a minute I thought he caught me but I never leave my hat in the car.lol

My grandmother came from old Yankee stock out of Vermont, my grandfather from French Canadian Quebecois. I learned from early on to sit up straight at the table, no elbows on the table, chew with your mouth closed, cut your food to bite size, open doors for ladies and your elders, please and thank you. I've tried to pass that on to my kids. It's nice to have older folks come up to us in a restaurant and compliment us on our kids behavior. If I had a dollar for every well dressed dope I've seen sitting at a table chewing with his mouth open, talking with food in his mouth, wearing his hat at the table or inside at all, I could pay my mortgage off.

I'm not a flashy dresser or clothes horse, but when I'm with my wife I do try not to embarrass her by dressing like a slob.

As long as I'm mentioning hats, what is it with men these days? I was watching an indoor presentation on TV and all the men had either ball caps or cowboy hats on. It was obvious none of them could see past the guy in front of them so it ended up looking like a bunch of gophers popping up and around to try and see the screen up front. If just one of the dummies had taken his hat off the rest might have caught on and been able to see. Maybe it's the USMC training, but I usually take my hat off entering a building.

Because of time restraints Dixie and I some times stop into a restaurant to eat after work while in town to pick up needed things. I am not always as clean as most others in the restaurant on warm days when coveralls are not needed. I am in my bibs as always and do not remove my Oliver cap. I do try to keep a clean Oliver cap in the truck for those occasions. When we go out for a special occasion I ware a newer pair of pin stripe Round House bibs and a clean Oliver cap. Dixie would expect no less of me. I don't think divorce is in the cards.
I have never found a stranger and strike up conversations with the people I find with their noses highest in the air. After eating in the same restaurant several times the waiters and waitresses will say hi to me when walking by the table. I don't think they notice how dirty I am after work. I don't worry much about the people at the other tables
I am sure glad I do not have to live by other peoples standards.

(quoted from post at 07:58:31 12/23/12) I hate to say it but its true, guys are foolish, they figure they can slack off, once "I got ya" via marriage or some other serious arrangement, then proceed to let themselves go, resting on ones laurels is never a good idea anytime.

My out was to always play some kind of sport, mostly for the exercise/fitness and overall health, not so much competition. Common sense to be sharp on date night regardless of age, years of marriage. Military will teach you about personal appearance, should be a right of passage to serve in the U.S. might be less divorces LOL !

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Make no mistake, this works both ways. How many times have you seen a guy with his wife, and he still looks good but she has gone sumo. She has a ring and kid - and she knows the guy is going nowhere.

I don't have a problem with "work" clothes. It the fat lazy pigs of ladies that go around in their pajamas. All wet and muddy from th cuffs dragging. And you know they waddle home and plop on their futon with those same dirty pajamas and watch tv or go to bed. Oink oink