The following is a work of fiction. It’s for entertainment purposes only.  Bear with me.  I’m trying it out. 

Jake was tired of it. Tired of being married, tired of being a parent and tired of his wife always telling where to go and what to do. The rain coming down for the past two days solid wasn’t helping his mood at all either. The dingy little motel room was closing in on him with it’s dingy walls and stuffy air, and even the droning TV was irritating. The baby was screaming.  His teenage wife, Amanda, was whining again. The sound was drilling into his already throbbing head the way that only his wife could manage to do. “We need more diapers and formula. We also need ointment, her butt’s tore up again.” Yeah, so was his. Jake’s minimum wage job came a long way from paying for what they needed, and the money was long gone. Amanda continued as she bounced the baby, “If we can get to Mom’s, she promised me fifteen dollars. I also don’t think we have nothing to eat.” Fifteen dollars. Diapers, formula, ointment, and food. Amanda thought fifteen dollars was going to get them what they needed. Amanda’s Mom lived almost ten miles away, they didn’t have a car and neither did she. This was Amanda’s Mom’s way of getting them to come to her, so she didn’t have to go to any trouble, in the pouring rain, with the baby. Jake sat down in the one chair the motel room boasted and put his head in his hands. He was trying not to cry. He tried to get angry. It wasn’t hard. In his meanest voice he said “Why does she do that when she knows we don’t have a car or any way over there? Is she stupid or just a bitch?” Amanda’s voice rose shrilly, “You know as well as I do Mom has to work a split shift. She has to get up at six to be to work by seven, she has four hours off in the middle of her day, and then she has to work another four hours. She doesn’t have a car! We have to go to her! Why do you always have to be such an asshole?” Jake felt a popping sensation in his head. The next thing he knew was that Amanda was in his hands, being held by her arms and shaken violently. The baby, who had been in Amanda’s arms was lying on the floor, pale and silent. Amanda was screaming wordlessly.

Jake ran away as far as he could run, out of the motel room and at full speed until his guts twisted and he puked everything out. When the police found him, he was curled in a ball by the side of a grocery store, crying like a baby.