Profunksticated

Profunksticated, where it comes to his younger brother, is believing that “it” is starting to happen.

“It” is the unofficial, unspoken competition among women of our age cohort for the affections of my 46-year-old brother now that his wife is deceased. Right now, it appears that the sole early contestant is a woman in her late 30s who is a childhood friend of our sister. She is the granddaughter of a now-deceased neighbor, and the woman’s mother is a close friend of my parents.

This chick also has a 13-year-old son. She even served as a hostess in mine and The Spouse’s wedding 21 years ago.

She’s been at my brother’s house every night this week, performing various tasks such as uncluttering his house and even helping to write the obituary.

Another male friend who visited my brother also noticed her presence, and we talked about it. I told him I was somewhat suspicious of her motives partly because I had heard that after a professional athlete friend of ours died some years back, said woman was apparently too obvious in her efforts to get herself noticed by teammates attending the funeral.

My friend said, “Damn, I never heard that. Now I can see why you would think that (she might be trying lay the groundwork for my brother’s attention).”

We agreed that she has the advantage in that she’s got history with my family. But we also agreed my brother is going to have way too much on his plate in the coming weeks to even think about dating seriously. Not the least of which is adjusting to life as a single parent dealing with two sons — a soon-to-be 19-year-old and one that’s 13 who seems to have a little too much swagger for his own good.

Now I could be wrong about this woman. But I cannot help but wonder how many other chicks are gonna try to get up in my brother’s grill once he’s alone.

I remember once posting a comment on Hostess’ blog asking the hypothetical question of what would happen if a 40-something male became a widower. As I recall, Hostess replied in part that women, especially the church women, would be offering to clean the late wife’s stuff out of his house with the quickness.

(Hostess, if you’re reading this, I looked for that exchange in your blog but couldn’t find it. Did you delete it?)

At the time I posted the query, I had no idea my sister-in-law was turning for the worse. Turns out my question was sadly prophetic. Take care, y’all.

Peace.