Dave and Dawn's Best Fight ... Ever

 

For the many, many friends we've shared this story with previously, I should add a disclaimer: this is my BIG FISH story. Over the years, it gets bigger and bigger. If some of the details reported here seem new, they very well may be. (ABCs of me, baby.)

PS: I know this post will probably raise some eyebrows, but I'm okay with that. My favorite writers/readers are people who just give it to me straight. I appreciate real-life vs. fantasy. So for those of you who are really good at working through conflict with the people you love, I say AMEN to you. And to those of you that are like me, and sometimes completely unpredictable and inconsistent with your conflict resolution skills, this one's for you.

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"Dave and Dawn's Best Fight Ever" 

Shortly after Dave finished graduate school at BYU, we moved our family of 5 to Los Angeles, California. And for a period of time we stayed with family in order to save money and find somewhat affordable housing in the extremely inflated California economy (pre-economic downfall days). (PS: Thank you Jamie and Gabe. Big Time.)

Anyway, first point!

After several months of living with family, we made the move to a home of our own. But we were still trying to live conservatively and cut costs in order for me to stay home full-time with our kids. (I should add that we'd adopted Zu at this stage, too--bringing our family size to 6.)

As a result of our goal of living more frugally, one of the major costs we decided to cut was our transportation. We determined we could get by with one car, lowering our car payment, auto insurance, gas, repair costs, etc. And so we went from a two to one-car family. (And I know this is a First World problem, but in Los Angeles two-car living is kinda a way of life.)

So, here we were: Dave working about 15 miles from our home, but a 40 minute commute each way (traffic). And me at home full-time with our family of 4 children under age 8.

Most of the time, I would coordinate my days so that Dave could have the car and commute to work. (I look back on this time NOW with fondness. The kids and I walked a lot of places. We even used a wagon. Seems hilarious and kind of awesome to me now.)

But occasionally, I would want the car and offer to drive Dave to work I would get "cabin fever," feel sorry for myself and my lack of independence (you can only walk so far in a day), and realize I absolutely DESERVED to have that car.

So on one particularly HOT summer day I asked Dave if we could take him to work vs. him driving the car.

Now, I'd like to say that I coordinated this with him; that I was kind and soft-spoken.

But I think my 30+ something selfish self said it more like this ...

Me:
"For THE LOVE, could we have the car for just one day? After all, it just sits in your work parking lot all day--while the kids and I walk in 100 degree weather to the library with a wagon. A WAGON. Like Little House On The Prairie. I feel like it's selfish for you to keep the car all day when you barely use it." [Or something along those lines.]

To which Dave calmly and kindly replied ...

Dave:
"Why didn't you just say something? I am totally happy to take the bus to work every day or carpool. No problem. I didn't think you minded me driving the car."

To which I replied, in a fairly escalated and sarcastic tone ...

Me: 

"YOU DIDN'T THINK YOUR WIFE AND FOUR KIDS--UNDER 8--WOULD WANT TO DRIVE PLACES VS. WALK? Do you even think of us at all?"

To which Dave replied ...

Wait.

He actually never replied.

In the middle of my rant--which, I'm embarrassed to admit, was observed by all 4 kiddos--Dave left for work.

WITHOUT THE CAR.

Now like I said, Dave worked about 15 miles from our home. How would he get to work without me driving him?

I immediately assumed he would walk to the bus stop and would figure out the bus schedule from there. Victory was mine. "Mine. Mine. Mine!"

Until I heard our 8 year-old son Jay YELL to me, "Mom, Dad's riding my BMX down the street in his suit."

What the what?

I told Jay, "Oh, no problem, he's just riding it to the bus stop. His bus probably leaves soon."

To which Jay replied ...

"He's too big for it. MOM! He's riding on the rims. The tires looked flat. Mooooommmmmmm!"

But I was too late. By the time I got to the window to confirm Jay's story, Dave was gone. Out of sight.

So I did what every (il)logical person would do: I strapped the kids in their carseats and hit the streets searching for Dave at every bus stop on the way to his work.

Only, we never found him. There weren't any BMX bikes locked up near bus waiting areas.

So I phoned his work and asked if he'd made it there yet? At this point, 45-50 minutes had passed. Maybe he'd carpooled with someone?

But, "No. Dave [wasn't] at work," they told me.

So I went to my next brilliant line of thinking: Dave must have told everyone in the office, "If Dawn calls, please don't tell her I made it to work."

Yeah, that's what he did. He wants to scare me.

So I took matters into my own hands, "Okay Dave--if you don't mind the office covering for you, I'm telling the office assistant that when she does 'see you,' to please let your 8 year-old son know where his BMX bike is."

Boom! How do you like them apples?

And that's just what I did. I rang up the office and asked them for Jay's bike location.

Only, the office assistant assured me she hadn't seen Dave at all--and she even promised to call me when he did show up. She sounded worried.

Oh, okay. Maybe my thinking was off-track? Just a little. What if Dave wasn't able to find a way to work? What if he was stuck somewhere?

Well, 45 minutes of waiting turned to an hour. And and hour SLOWLY turned to 90 minutes.

And finally, after 2 hours and 36 minutes ... Dave's office assistant phoned to tell me she'd just witnessed the most insane/hilarious thing she'd ever seen:

Dave riding a child's BMX bike into the parking lot at work, on flat tires, wearing his suit, drenched in sweat, carrying a "ghetto wrapped" [paper bag wrapped] bottle of water!

She could barely catch her breath, she was laughing so hard.

As I listened on the other end of the line, I felt sick to my stomach. I realized my big fat ego (and Dave's awesome determination) had just driven us to the brink of cookoo-ville.

Yup. I was Mayor of Crazy Town. Population: 2.

How on earth could Dave ride a child's BMX bike, on flat tires, through surface streets and make it to work? Wearing a suit in 100+ degree weather, no less?

It seemed impossible.

Well, he did it: he made it to work all on his own. And he'd left his wife the car for the day.

Just like he said he would.

I felt terrible.

But we still didn't talk that day. I thought it would be better to let him cool off. Literally.

And then at about 4:30pm, I called him. He answered! And I simply said, "We are picking you up at the end of the workday. I'm a jerk. I still think you're a jerk. But I think I'm the bigger jerk. Sorry. I really am sorry. You scared me. Oh, and I think we may need to get Jay some new rims. He's pretty bummed."

So at 5:30pm we got to Dave's office, loaded the bike in the back (looked at the damage), and waved goodbye to his entire office--who were watching from a second-story window.

Yup. That's us: about as imperfect as you can/should be on any given day.

I'm not proud of that story. I see so many errors in my attitude and in my lack of respect for someone who I know cares deeply about me. I knew it then and I know it now. But sometimes I react too quickly. Too emotionally.

Fortunately, Dave's super resilient. And fortunately we love each others' guts. So we get over things pretty quickly. And more importantly, we try and learn how to improve the way we work and love each other after moments like these.

But it's process.

A pretty long one (lifelong).

I wish I could say that was our only argument which displayed our completely emotion-based reactions to each other. But that wouldn't be true. We make mistakes all of the time. Sometimes a lot of the time.

But fortunately Dave's never had to ride his--or anyone else's--bike to work since.

And that's progress. Right?

PS: My favorite part postlude to this story:

Later that night we were signed up to have our local service missionaries over for dinner. We shared with them the highlights of Dave's bike ride to work that day (focusing on what we'd learned). And the missionaries were laughing so hard. You see, they ride their bikes through city streets every day. BUT once they heard where Dave had traveled, his route, they were scared. They told him he was in a neighborhood that was "off-limits" for them to travel due to safety issues (gang violence). Dave said, "Oh, that's exactly where I stopped to get my bottle of water. It did seem a little sketchy."

The things we put each other through. Thank goodness for genuine forgiveness.