I'm Not A Hero

Five.

The first thing you need to know is that I'm not a hero.

People will say that I am, and those people are either lying or don't really know me.

Probably both.

But you'll know the truth.

And that truth is that I'm not a hero.

Not even close.

By most standards, I'm not even a very good human being.

You know all those nice people who put their pocket change in the Salvation Army cans around December? I'm not one of those. I won't even let the cashier round up my bill for Cancer research, and it's not because I don't have the money.

I have plenty of money.

I just don't care.

People have a hard time understanding that. The not caring thing. They think I'm just lazy or glib or somehow incapable of noticing the wretched waste of a world we live in. They figure that I did notice, I – like them – would do my part and dump by change in the tin like a good citizen.

I wouldn't.

Not because I don't notice.

Not because I don't "get it."

But because, I don't care...

That's what that means.

Four.

I cheat on my wife, and I have for years.

The woman I cheat with isn't even all that pretty.

I'd love to give you some reasonable sounding justification for why I decided to do it – something she did or something I needed or something the woman it grosses me out to call my mistress made me feel, but I don't have one.

I was out on the town one night, and it was her or the strip club, and unfortunately – I didn't have any cash on me.

The reason we've kept it going for so many years is that I was too stupid not to give out my cell phone number post-coitus, and I'm too spineless to break it off with her now and take the consequences.

Divorces are expensive.

If I could do it all over again, I would have just brought the fifty from my sock drawer that night.