Code 1D-10T comes up a lot: folks should have some sort of training with a test at the end before they’re wed - or allowed out without their parents. Take Jimmy Lang as a case in point, that boy had it all going for him; good family, lovely wife and kids – ran off with a barmaid with big eyes. Code 1D-10T without a doubt.
Then there’s Jenny Jones. Her man worked long hours paying off her mortgage, never missed a payment; nor a birthday or anniversary either for that matter. She put him out because ‘he never found time for me’ and moved in a pothead who couldn’t hold a job five minutes past a paycheck – which she never saw. Yep, code 1D-10T.
Stella was kinda different, she didn’t make the 1D-10T’s she collected them like some folk collect stamps. Marty, her first man, beat her up on principle because ‘women are slow learners’ according to him and he sure was a patient teacher. Nary a day went by when she didn’t sport a new shiner to hide behind her sunspecs – the bruising still showed through though. I never saw him sober, even driving. When he crashed the car, I reckon she showed more relief than grief at the funeral.
When she took up with Harry it was frying pans and fires. He could talk the talk but the walking was always hard for him, so hard that he didn’t try anymore. He was a liar, a thief and a cheat and everybody knew it – even Stella, but she thought he could change. For a while he thought so too, at least he said as much – that was before he bedded their neighbour. Her man beat him so hard he landed in Jail. Harry was in Hospital for a month: the only lesson he learned was not to get caught. One day he just disappeared with Stella’s car, her cash, and said neighbour – that was a week before her man was due out. I reckon she should have seen that coming; maybe she did because she didn’t make too much fuss.
She went through a few more code 1D-10T’s over the next year or two – two drunks, a junkie and a pedo among them – before she gave up on men. I moved in a month later ‘to help with bills’ and give a bit of company in the evening. My name’s Julie and I’ve made a few errors of my own but I don’t think Stella will be one of them; I’ve loved her since we were sixteen and I plan on telling her that soon. Maybe that will make me the 1D-10T but, hey, Stella’s worth it and she does know the code.
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