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"1-800-divorce" by Jane Urquhart                                                                                Copyright 1998, 1999 by Jane Urquhart
1-800-DIVORCE

by Jane Urquhart

Author's Note:  I don't know why I didn't finish this one--I just lost interest. I think she was going to go to bed with her lawyer or something, but I forget.

 Just riding along, coming home this morning from the airport thinking of nothing
much, I was half-listening to the car radio when a commercial caught my attention.
“1-800-DIVORCE,”  the man said,  “because not all marriages are made in heaven.”
Clever.   But tacky.   Still.  You call that number, get voice-mail, I thought, and they start
giving you choices.  “Press One if you have a touch-tone phone.”   Click.  “If you are a
Protestant, press One;  if you are a Catholic, press Two;  if you are seriously considering
kiling your spouse, press Three.”

 My name is Gillian Franklin, and I’m forty-three years old.  Not that that’s much
of an achievement.  My youngst child, Suzanne, left for college this morning.  Her
brother, Charles, a college junior, left last week.  My husband makes $400,000 a year,
more or less.  This is handy, because he likes to buy things.  Cars, boats, sky-boxes,
Armani suits and call girls come to mind.  I’m used to this, but somehow that commercial
just caught my attention.

 Click.  “If you want only a civil divorce, press One;  if you wish to obtain an
official annulment as well as a civil divorce, press Two;  if you are undecided, press
Three.” Oh, yes--“If you have no money of your own, please hang up.”  They forgot that
one.

 I pictured myself reaching for the cellular telephone that ws lying in the
passenger seat and dialing.  The woman in the picture didn’t look like me.  She was
wearing some kind of  jump suit and she weighed at least ten pounds less than I do. Had a
nicer haircut, too--sort of shaggy and unkempt looking, but nice.  Mine, of course, is not
like that.  It’s more like something you see in those ads about smart elderly women trying
to tell their stupid husbands about medicare upgrade policies.  It’s not gray, but otherwise
it’s very like that--I  m well-groomed.  I was wearing a wool suit, with a skirt.

 Fortunately, about that time someone cut in front of me and I had to slam on the
brakes.  That brought me back to reality.  I suppose it was fortunate.  I had put Suzanne
on the airplane, left her at the gate, that is, at an ungodly hour of the morning, walked
half a mile back to the parking lot, gotten in the car and started home.  Then I heard that
commercial.  Something had been bothering me ever sinc I left the gate, but I hadn’t
been able to pinpoint what it was.  Almost as soon as I finished with my clever little
projection on “1-800-DIVORCE” it came to me.  Reality, I decided, was not terribly
pleasant.  Another thought crowded in.  I realy had to broaden my vocabulary.  So, out
loud, right there in the car with no one there to hear me, I said, “Reality Sucks.” And I
found myself smiling.

 Ordinarily if I were riding along in the car, returning from some errand, I wuold
have been thinking about the next ten items on my list of things to do.  I ran through the
list, but found it not terribly stimulating.  In fact,  I said  (to myself  that time),  “Reality
sucks big-time!”  And smiled again.  “Pick up clothes at the cleaner.”  Sucks.  “Make
plans for dinner party scheduled for three weeks from today.”  Scuks.  I didn’t even
bother to go down the rest of the list.  “It all sucks,” I thought.  “Every single thing on
that list sucks.”  Perhaps I needed a new list.

 I already had a weekly appointment with a psychologist.  I had discussed my
family of origin with her at some length.  (“It sucked,” I thought as I considered this.
And smiled.)  I’d been on Prozac for a while, but I’d decided that was a bad idea, so I
was drug free.  I should talk over with her these new thoughts I was having.  (“That
sucks,” I thought. And smiled.)

 People had told me it would be terribly painful when my last child went off to
college.  I carefully searched for the pain.  Apparently it hadn’t started yet, but I was sure
my thoughts over the past three miles would get me classified as depressed as soon as I
told the therapist about them.  (“That sucks,” I thought, thereby proving my point.
Everthing sucks.)

 One of my friends had told me, many years ago, that when she got totally fed up
she simply remembered that she could always go buy a bus pass.  A bus pass,. she
explained, allowed you to travel anywhere you cared to in the continental United States
for 30 days.  That made her calm down and realize that things weren’t quite as bad as
she’d thought.  I wondered if bus passes still  existed.  And, if they did, did I want to buy
one.

 By then I ws driving into our long, curved driveway, past a bank of  rhodendrons
that had curled themelves up against the cold a long time ago and didn’t look the least bit
interested in uncurling.  As I  braked by the back door of the house I started wondering
when I had curled up against the cold, and when I would decide to uncurl.  Or could I?
Would I just break into little pieces like a dry leaf, or would I actually uncurl?

 I went into the house and said hello to Lavitia, who was putting the breakfast
dishes into the dishwasher.  I hng my coat in the back closet, and walked  into the game
room, where my desk was.  Sitting down at the desk, I took a pen and a ruled legal pad
and started to write down what I wanted at that moment.  My therapst had told me to do
that some months ago and it hadn’t seemed to lead anywhere, but I felt like trying again.
The idea was to fill up the page as quickly as possible with things I wanted to do.  Then I
was to look it over and see what had come up mst often, thereby telling myself what I
*really* wanted to do.  The last time I had tried it the result has looked a good deal like
my “todo” list.  Which, I then thought, sucked.  I smiled, but I had no idea what to write.
I just sat there, my pen poised, nothing happening.

 I then laid the pen down and reached for the telephone book.  A few minutes later
he answered my call.  How-are-you-it’s-neem-a-long-time and such things consumed
perhaps two or three minutes, then I began the real conversation.

 “Jack,” I said, “I want to ask you something.  I was driving along this morning
and I heard a commercial that said, “Dial; 1-800-DIVORCE.”  I decided to call you
instead.”

                                        ------And that's where it stopped--------

E-mail:  janey98@hotmail.com

Read Jane Urquhart's completed stories:
http://members.tripod.com/files/Authors/jane/wwwy98
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Jane_Urquhart/www
http://annejet.pair.com/story/