The Threshold Of Divorce and Taxes 

MyUnwife has a decompression chamber. How cool is that? Not a real one. I'd be totally jealous then. No, she's got a security screen mounted to the edge of her porch, then this porch void, a secondary inspection space, and finally, if you're cool enough, the entry door.

This was the first time I'd seen her new place. She's renting it. It's on a nice little cul de sac with friendly little houses, all clambering towards the street to greet me. Climbing out of the car, I was taken aback by all the clambering houses. My neighborhood houses don't do that. Our houses are a little more laid back and foundational.

MyUnwife's lot had a line of tall thin trees marking the yard's corner too. They screen the busy street beyond from MyUnwife's guests. Not real successfully, I can still see and hear the traffic. The trees work the same as throwing up a bead curtain to hide lions gorging on a gazelle feast. I note this and smile.

Not as nice as my place…

Then I enter her decompression chamber, and my world changed. I don't have one, but she does. How is that fair? It blows! Or I suppose as a chamber it sucks...anyway, so did the reason I waited at her threshold, box of Turbo Tax in one hand, bag of receipts in the other. It's an evening of catching up.

"The box wants to know if we moved during 2007"

"I didn't."

"Oh…well I'll just put 'no' then. Would you like another beer?"

See, we'd both heard that it's better to file jointly. If we're getting along well enough for a friendly divorce, how bad can paying taxes be? Yeah, I know, if we were Laverne and Shirley, this is where our front door would open, "Hello!" Our studio audience would laugh, and I'd be jonsing for the comfort of Boo-Boo Kitty. We're not Laverne and Shirley. This is real. I'm still jonsing for stuffed comfort of any kind. I need my batting fix.

So, I'm in her place. I'm checking things ou--Ok, fine, critiquing. It's what we exes do. I need to make sure she's not doing better. It has nothing to do with me. This is all about her life in collapse without the ray of light that she's closed her blinds to!

"Hello! It's me! Little Robby Sunshine!"

"Oh thank God! My world has be a desolate void since I left you."

"Sucks to be you. Grovel, and I might share my mirth to brighten your world."

"OH THANK YOU LORD ROB! YOU TRULY ARE THE GREATEST…"

The world blurs and shifts. MyUnwife is staring at me. She's just put down a phone call, "What are you staring at?"

I did take time from my delusion to mark that the phone call was a friend from work. It's not some guy. Excellent. "Oh, you know, just checking out your carpet."

Her carpet is mauve. Mauve is a funny color. It's funny because the carpet of mauve has always been a joke with us. The last place we rented before we bought the house had mauve carpet. We'll no, it didn't. The carpet was what mauve would look like if mauve were a rusty caramel. It's not. The only way that carpet would ever have been mauve is if somebody removed the house's roof for 3 years, letting the sun bleach and burn the dye. Then, maybe. The owner insisted "mauve," and as a stipulation of tenancy, we agreed.

Her new carpet was mauve. Her new coffee table was chocolate. Her old sofa was mine. It's not anymore, but I remember it sitting in my living room. In her house, I barely recognized it. Half of the things I see within the first ten minutes in her house once belonged in my space (no, it's not virtual furnishings. You really need to get offline more often...), and yet, they were virtually new to me now. She'd made these items distinctly her own and they belonged uniquely in her space.

She'd made the house an extension of her, and I was kinda jealous. I haven't really done that yet. I have a very distinct Rob presence, but my house doesn't reflect it. It says "Hi, I'm a non-descript model home. Welcome." Oh, I've my office very me, but I keep that hidden. Ok…maybe my house says more about me than I thought.

So we sat down, ate some pizza and did our taxes. We had as much fun as is allowed doing government work. I like her place. I like her new life. It suits her. I think it takes a decompression chamber. A space between "married" and "divorced" to clear out all the contaminants and bring equilibrium. She has one on her house. It's so cool, even the pizza boy thought so.

If I could get one like the one in Alien, that would so top hers! Who needs wall art when I can greet houseguests in a decompression threshold? I'd so pay extra to get it to suck the air from the lungs of every solicitor who stopped by. How much would that rock?

Yeah, I'm totally jealous.