10 Commandments of Love

10 Commandments Of Love

Eve Alexander

Copyright 2011 Eve Alexander

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook my not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Lazy Love Don’t Live Here Anymore

Tame That Pink Tornado

Forgive and Forget

Never Trust your Baby With Your Neighbor

You Never Miss Your Water Until Your Well Runs Dry

Be Careful What You Ask For

Sittin’ On a Goldmine I

Sittin’ On a Goldmine II

Perfection Is In The Eyes of a Fool

What Goes Around Comes Back Around

About the Author

Acknowledgements

First, and foremost, I thank my Heavenly Father who makes all things possible through his son, Jesus Christ. To my parents, Hayward and Katie Shaw Sr., for loving me. Dad, even though you left me in February of 2009, I still love and miss you so much! To my lovely daughters, Khandra and Destiny Woodard, for encouraging me through listening, reading my stories and laughing with me at the turmoil these characters got themselves into. Special thanks to an extraordinary woman, Lida Kennon for being with me every step of the way in the creation of this book—listening to me read stories over the phone and critiquing emailed stories; had it not been for Lida this book would not exist. She pushed me into writing in Mother’s wit/dry comedy genre. I didn’t think I could do it. Lida said, Just write, you’re a natural with it. I thank my nephew, Karim Shaw, for the logo design and thank Ralph Williams and Tessa Zich for editing. Ralph, I know it was hard for you to leave all of the misused and abused grammar alone. Smile!

I would also like to thank my girls, Angie Anderson-Binion, Erin Dickerson, Cheryl Minnis, Betty Halbert, Janice Earls, Totsie Wesley, Ria Donee, Katie Johnson, Merlene Moore, Shelia Lipsey, and the Mid-South Writers Group for listening, asking questions and encouraging me.

To all readers who cherish the sayings of grandparents, parents, family members, friends or anyone who has made a positive impact in your life through their wise words of wisdom. Enjoy!

Author’s Note

10 Commandments of Love are sayings that some of us have heard all our lives but never really paid attention to. Those wise words that our mothers, fathers, and grandparents told us sounded so out of date when we first heard them. Later on in life, after all those trials and tribulations whipped us, those wise words brought us back to our senses.

Most of us never think of all the things that go into a relationship. Good relationships aren’t automatic. They take time, patience, and a whole lot of love. Nurturing a relationship, forgiving and reaching out to help others along the way make us stronger. It equips us with the fire resistant materials that we will need to stand firm as we weather the storms in life. Enjoy!

Lazy Love Don’t Live Here Anymore

Why do you think some men can’t act right when they find a woman who wants something out of life? Some of those jokers quit their jobs when they find out she has a good one or just lay back and stop working overtime. And to top that off, if they’re unemployed, they stop looking altogether. They start doing things like making a hustle or trying to start a business that they don’t know anything about, knowing doggone well it’s going to fail. But they do it anyway. Yes they do.

My grandmother used to always tell my mama, and I think she was talking about my daddy when she said it, that a lazy man works harder than a working man any day of the week. At the time, that didn’t make sense to me, but lately it makes all the sense in the world. It takes more energy to dodge work than it does to do it.

I still can’t believe how trifling some men are! Their woman is out there working like a Hebrew slave, and these sorry excuses for a man want to take it easy. What’s wrong with them? I’ll tell you what it is; they want to do the role reversal thing—be the woman and stay at home and keep the house. To be honest with you, I’ve never seen a house that needed babysitting. Have you? Places that have huge investments like museums and jewelry stores have alarms and plenty of insurance. Now, that’s the babysitter right there.

I can count my husband, Mike Ramsey, among those trifling men. His daddy ran off with another woman when he was little, and his mama didn’t have enough sense to run behind him and make him take care of his responsibilities. Talked about if he didn’t want to do it, she wasn’t going to make him. Now, isn’t that the dumbest thing you ever heard? How many men want responsibility anyway? None that I know of. My mama said when they see it coming, they lace up those shiny Stacy Adams shoes and run like hell, faster than a scalded dog. So, his silly mama worked and took care of him with no help. I believe hard work along with a hard-headed child killed her. Mike was twelve when his mama died.

My husband, Mike, told me, Hard work killed my mama, but it ain’t gonna kill me.

Now he wasn’t lying about that. How could something kill you, if you didn’t ever do it? Well, to be honest with you, I don’t know what killed his mama, but I know I’m sick and tired of taking care of a grown man. My mama told me that love was a good thing, but I couldn’t live off love alone. Now that’s the truth. You see house rent, light, gas, water, and food won’t wait. It takes dead presidents like Grant, Franklin, Jackson and McKinley to keep bill collectors happy, and they weren’t coming threw my door often enough.

If Mike stayed on a job one month, it was a miracle. He would pick a fight with his supervisor and get fired or half do the work and get laid off. It was always one or the other. That man didn’t have enough sense to stay in one place long enough to get unemployment. And he had the nerve to tell me that there weren’t any jobs out there, and he wasn’t working for pennies. What a joke. There were plenty of jobs out there, but not the kind of jobs that paid top dollar to a high school dropout.

Every day I came home from work, Mike was sitting in front of the TV with his feet propped up on the coffee table looking at Jerry Springer.

Those people are stupid to get on national television and tell all their business and act a fool fighting. Mike laughed.

Well, I figured like this, if you’re going to act a fool, I told him, you may as well get paid for it. Besides, somebody knows your business anyway. I don’t care how you try to hide it, somebody knows.

Mike didn’t say another word about that; he got off the sofa, went in the kitchen, and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator.

Listen baby, I gotta go and see if I can make a hustle. It’s getting harder and harder with all them young cats trying to hog everything, but I feel mighty lucky right about now. Let me feel my lucky charm.

Mike squeezed my butt. Whew wee baby, Don’t turn a honest man into a sinner. He pecked me on the cheek and left.

Mike always had to go make a hustle, but I never see a dime from that suppose to be hustle. His buddy Tyrone comes by every evening at dinnertime. They’d eat and leave, and then ride all night into the wee hours of the morning, then sleep all day. And to top that off, he comes in tired, broke, and with too many excuses. You know iron wears out, and these pieces on me are getting real thin.

My cousin Sonja always said a man wasn’t nothing but jailbait. Mess with them, and they’ll get your head bad, and the next thing you know, Pow! You got six months in jail or three years in the pen, depending on how deep you cut that dirty dog. I was beginning to see what Sonja meant.

I went to work that morning wondering why I always picked demons. I wasn’t a bad girl, so why did I keep picking trifling, smooth-talking, gigolos? Sex wasn’t that great, or at least I’d had better. I was getting tired of trying to put a man out every time I got sick of him.

Listening to my two best friends, Phyllis and Sugar, I married Mike. I should have known better. Mike had red flags waving over his head so fast, you’d think a tornado was coming behind him. But listening to them, I ignored the signs. Why did I listen to someone who couldn’t even make a decent decision about their own lives? I graduated college, and Phyllis and Sugar barely got out of high school with a baby each. Now tell me, who’s the fool? And to top it off, they both came straight out the hood. Ghetto fabulous if you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, I stayed in the hood for some years after my mama left my daddy, but my mama wouldn’t let me or my sister play with anybody she didn’t approve of or couldn’t watch.

For some reason, Sugar and Phyllis both seemed to be doing better than me. They both lived in Enchanted Forest, a nice subdivision on the outskirts of town, and I was still stuck in town not far from the low-income housing project.

One thing I can say about my mama, Sandy Landry, she didn't discriminate when it came to men. She gave them a chance to prove themselves, and if they didn’t show a promising sign in the time she gave them, she closed the door on that relationship and didn’t look back. I think she put up with my daddy longer because of my sister and me. But that soon got old. When she finally got sick of my daddy playing sick and never going to work, she left and moved in the projects for a couple of years.

Two years later, Mama met my good-looking stepfather, Tommy Landry, married him and we moved on the hill in a big fancy white house. We were rich! Mama quit her job at the daycare and stayed at home with my little sister, Dana and me. Daddy called every day lying about he had changed and wanted his family back. Now I know it’s bad to call your father a liar, but that’s all he was doing, and my mama knew it. Mama would yawn when he talked to her. I heard her tell my Aunt Lisa after she hung up from talking to him one day that my daddy was a fool who thought she was a fool.

Ain’t no way, I’m leaving all of this for what might be. Mama crossed her legs at the thigh and sipped her ice tea. Alvin can forget it and move on. Those days are long gone. That man took me through pure hell and heaven wasn't nowhere in sight for me until Tommy come along. It took a fool to learn, and believe me, I’ve learned.

She got an apple out of the fruit bowl on the coffee table and bit into it. Tommy is the best thing that ever happened to me, she said between chews. And a sweet thing don’t come around everyday, but a sour grape will be there every second of the day.

I guess something rubbed off on me before Mama left my daddy. It seems like I was trying to make something work that didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever working. I knew my mama was disappointed in me, because she stopped trying to tell me to leave Mike a long time ago. But what she did say at our last talk made me know that she was still as serious as a heart attack. She kept saying high blood pressure, strokes, and heart attacks ran in her family.

I may have those traits. Mama stressed each word slowly looking me in the eye. And I ain’t about to let nobody stir them up, not even you! If I had wanted them, I would’ve stayed with your daddy, and I would’ve had them all in no time. When you get tired, you’ll do something.

I am tired of it. I whined.

No, you’re not! Mama pointed a finger at me. When you get tired, you’ll do something, and no one will have to tell you to do it. Mama moved from the sofa over to the kitchen counter and poured hot water from the whistling teakettle over her Earl Grey tea bag. I’ll tell you one thing though, love is a good thing, but you can’t live off of love alone. Lazy love don’t pay bills, but working love do.

How many times was she going to say that?

Later on that evening after I got home, Mike was still in the bed asleep and the television was roaring full blast. I turned the TV down and sat staring out the window. I wanted a better life, but I just couldn’t see how.

Mike finally came in the living room about forty minutes later, and I was still in the same spot looking out the window thinking.

You been over your mama house ain’t you? He threw a pot in the sink and I jumped."

I can tell. he went on. Every time you go over there and come back, you sit in front that window staring off into space. Why ain’t you cooked? I’m hungry! You didn’t give me no breakfast either and it’s almost five o’clock. Nona you falling down on your job! He went on. You ain’t taking care of your man!

Something inside of me broke. When is my man gonna be a man and start taking care of me! I shot back at him. Mike’s eyes got larger than a saucer. He looked at me like I had cursed him out.

Don’t start that stuff again. Your mammy been filling you head with a bunch of junk. Stay away from over there! Mike yelled. We ain’t gonna never get along if you don’t.

My mama didn’t have a doggone thing to do with our bad relationship, and he knew it.

He went on. Just because you step-daddy is a sissy made heifer, who lets his wife work the heck out of him while she stays home, playing with her fingernails, don’t think everybody is gonna do that.

The phone rang before I could say another word. He snatched it up and yelled into the receiver. His voice softened and a smile stretched a mile wide across his face. He said a few more words before putting it back on the cradle and going to the bedroom and getting dressed.

When I come back, I want my dinner in order and my woman too! He shut the door and cranked up my car and left.

Thirty minutes later, Sugar and Phyllis walked through the door. We sat in my living room, and I can’t remember half of what they said. All I could think about was Mama. "Lazy love don’t pay bills, but working love do."

Everybody got problems girl. Sugar laughed and