The (Almost) Smartest Man I Know.

James O is one of the smartest people I have ever met. He can rattle off to you every aspect of electrical engineering, and dozens of other topics wide and varied. Simply an amazing guy. He has come up with several inventions in the field, can engage in a conversation on almost any subject and sound like he knows what he is talking about.
He has been homeless. For a time he lived in a pallet house, a ramshackle structure made with wooden shipping pallets. No place for someone of James’s advanced years. He is all of 23 years old.
Part of James’s problem is that, although he is brilliant, and a good looking guy, responsible, polite, helpful and generous, he is lacking good sense in one very critical area: his wife is a bitch. On WHEELS.
I know. I saw her in action.
His troubles all began a couple of years ago, after they got married. She lost her job and had a baby boy. James had the good fortune to get a walk on job working for the city of Lodi, California. It is a temporary job until they can determine how well you are doing and then they make it permanent. It is a good job, with good pay and benefits. The kind of job that people wish they had and can ride to retirement on the back of.
James was doing, by his own account, very well. And then came his undoing: a girl with Daisy Duke shorts and a desire to show off her legs to the group of workers who were on a break sitting outside. James, along with every other worker who was not blind or dead, looked at the girl with admiring glances. While James and the others were watching her, who should be watching James but his wife. She had pulled into the parking lot of the Public Works building and saw James looking at the girl in the short shorts, and she short-circuited. Now James’s life is hell. Because of the girl in the shorts, and the fact that James dared LOOK at her, his wife began coming to his job almost every day. This did not please the supervisors, who took James aside and told him that they were very pleased his work but that his wife needed to stay home. Well, you know what happened…she kept coming, he lost the job and now he works at a gas station in Wallace, California.
That was where I met him. He was very kind to me and inpressed that I was walking across the country. We got to talk for a few minutes before IT started.
His wife. Started calling. And calling. He even sheepishly asked me if he could put me on the phone with her to tell her who I was. I agreed, spoke to her for 30 seconds, and gave the phone back to a grateful James.
He closed at 9 pm. He has to stay later to do paperwork. While he did his paperwork, we sat and talked. And she kept calling. At least 40 calls by my estimation . Most of them he didn’t answer, but on the ones he did he took on a conciliatory tone and tried to make nice with her. Folks, I am here to tell you that it didnt work. Shortly after the calls stopped, she wheeled into the parking lot. She barreled out of the car, and at 5’3, 240 pounds, barreled is the correct phrase. He got up and walked around to the front to talk to her. For 10 minutes , all I heard was her voice, yelling at him.
Then she left, spinning her tires and generally giving me the impression that she is a total ass and not worthy of a fine young man like James.
When James finally leaves her, he will then be the smartest man I know. But he is young, and the young make mistakes. And they learn from them. Time for James to learn.