You Told Your Wife What?!

Yesterday, I watched an episode of “The New Adventures of Old Christine“, in which Old Christine runs into a boy she had gone to high school with, who had ruined her reputation back then by lying about having made it to second basewith her. …Poor Old Christine. Cry me a river. The liar had grown up to be attractive and had a job. Don’t ask me to feel all that sorry for you. My experience with this kind of lying involved a man who was at least

10 years older than me, had a lazy eye, and weighed about 300lbs, and didn’t seem able to breathe from his nose, causing him to constantly have his mouth open..A mouth-breather, if you will….I kid you not.

My very first job was working for Pizza Hut in the Rio Grande Valley. I was 16 years-old, and psyched about having a real job that paid real money, and gave me an opportunity each day to get away from a stressful home. I plowed into the experience full throttle ahead. Even more wonderful was the fact that Audra got a job with Pizza Hut, too, only at a different store. I was optimistic about the future, at last. Quickly, I was being “groomed” by A to be a shift supervisor.

Let’s call him A. for appalling.

Because I’d rather be anywhere in the whole world but home, I was the “go-to” employee whenever management  needed someone to work late, or cover for someone else, do extra cleaning, etc. I was on my way up. The future was wide open….

But the shine started wearing off when A, who was a manager there, started hitting on me. At first, I didn’t pick up on his subtle hints…I mean, I was 16, and he was something like 26, so he wasn’t a “contender” to me. He was old as dirt in my book. Added to the age difference was that his physical appearance was ….unappealing. He was severely overweight, always sloppily disheveled, breathed with his mouth open, and his crowning glory was a severely lazy eye..I just wasn’t feeling the love, if you know what I mean.

Eventually, A. stepped up his game due to my lack of response to his gestures of love, and I was in the awkward position of being sexually harassed. I don’t respond well at all in these situations, and after a particularly harrowing moment in the girl’s bathroom, I threatened to tell his wife what he was doing. He backed off, but I quit the job right after that. He’d ruined it for me.

Fast forward several years. I am married to my first husband, and the mother of two kids. D., the kids, and I are walking calmly through the mall, minding our own business, when an insane woman comes up from behind me, and starts to kick my ass. She was hitting me in the head, and kicking me with her tiny, booted feet..It was surreal..People don’t generally want to beat me up. Unfamiliar territory for me. Add to the fact that I’m holding a baby while trying to fend of Psycho Bitch here, and it was an odd moment for me. I just never saw that happening to me ever…As D. is basically pulling her off of me, I am trying to understand what has just happened here…That is when I see her husband standing  there watching the whole drama play out, mouth slack, with a tiny glimmer of glee in the eye that was actually pointed in my direction…It was A.

My husband got the woman off of me, and when I could focus on what she was saying, I thought I’d just throw up. Evidently, A had “confessed” to her about our alleged “affair“…I, of course, maintained my innocence to the crazy wife, and then again to my weirded-out ex-husband, but deep down I knew…There was no way to prove my innocence. It was a “he said/she” said kind of moment. There was no way to get this man’s stinky stain off my reputation.

So, Old Christine, don’t ask me to feel sorry for you about Mr. Gorgeous lying about second base. I have Mr. Mouth-Breather in all of his glory, who was willing to endanger his marriage just so his ego would feel better if people thought he had “tapped that”. And you have to admit, people like A. shouldn’t gamble on getting a second chance at marriage…

Just a a peek into my weird life…

— Bird