Deserved Chances

Angela stood in front of me in my kitchen talking on her cell phone getting her next flight assignment, rolling her eyes. The stereotypical beautiful 40 year old off duty 5 foot 8 inch blond flight attendant with her highlighted blond hair caught up in her ball cap, everlast tank with a zippered sweatshirt and size 8 thin jeans. I stood there thinking how lucky I am to know a beautiful person like this who is so much more that what she looks like. "Amsterdam! When am I leaving?.... 9:30?..... O.K. That gives me 4 hours." She looked over to me. "Can I send my friend Eliza, instead?" She laughed hysterically telling me she didn't want to go. "Well, it was a chance anyways. Thanks Paul, I'll call back to get the rest of the details... O.K..... Bye." "What chance do I have of impersonating you?" I asked smiling Angela laughed. "Oh, I would get in so much trouble...I could just give you my uniform and you would just walk in and take over...." She hesitated laughing and I watched her while laughing wondering whether my cell phone would reach that far thinking she could just talk me through it.. "Wouldn't it be awesome? You're going to Amsterdam tonight!!" I said smiling my eyes wide open. "You know, I've been doing this for so long, it's like going to St. Paul for me... no big deal. It's awful I've gotten accustomed to the flights." Angela said rolling her eyes again. "Could we trade places?" I asked partially serious. "That's all I want to do tonight! I could do this. Not all the time though... Sometimes I wonder how you do this? Keep a clean house, all your projects, and have happy kids." I snorted, "You're kidding! The house is a mess! I need to finish washing the camping clothes, vaccum, fold and put away the mound of clothes on the couch and haven't even gotten to the pot of tomatoes and beans to wash and cook to can." I said scrubbing my face with my hands. Angela leaned close, "But those are your projects, that's a working house! The most important thing is that your kids are happy, the rest is pudding." I nodded. "Yeah, I wouldn't trade. I couldn't do a red eye and then sleep through the day to get up and do another red eye to Tokyo. But it would be nice to have a little blip once in a while. Now that Barry has his boat, he's happy since he figured he deserved it. I agree with him with his own life in context. How do you know what you deserve. If it's available and the pieces fit together that the getting is easy, then yes, it was deserved. Cause and effect. You don't know whether or not until it actually happened. If we're talking of deserving, I think squatting two kids out deserves more than what I want. Life tells you what you deserve and I have kids from a marriage. I want Italy, my dad wanted an elk farm in Colorado, but he got 50 years on a dairy farm and 3 kids. But like I said, I wouldn't change my life...I just couldn't do the dating scene again.... speaking of dating, did you ever get a call from the guy from the bar?" I said taking a breath. Angela laughed, "No, and I'm glad. Did he call you about playing softball?" "No... I don't think he would have really fit in our league. He seemed really competative." "Yeah, I think he was trying to find people to attach to since he's only been here 5 months." I nodded, "I think we're a little more laid back than Las Vegas people or at least the people going into MGM." Angela laughed as the baby monitor squawked sounding a lot similar to Ethan's screach. "Duty calls," I said motioning at the monitor with my head. As Angela walked out the door, she called back, "I'll bring you some gouda!"