I hope you noticed I didn’t publish last week. I apologize. I was on my way to the coffee shop to write after my 7:30 am Toastmasters’ meeting when I learned a friend’s wife was undergoing surgery. I decided to drop by the hospital to keep him company while he held vigil. Next thing I knew it was 4:00 pm and I had to hustle to get home to grab a bite to eat if I was to get to rehearsal on time. Good news, her surgery went well and she is home recovering.
A couple of weeks ago, one of our readers submitted a story I’d heard her tell at a Toastmasters event. With All Hallowed Eve aka Halloween just around the corner it’s time for scary stories. And this is a scary story, although she tells it with a great deal of humor.
This Saturday I’m telling a segment of the Exodus story at Crossing Borders: Stories about faith, courage and hope along with Noa Baum, Danita Green, Sarah Snyder, and Sufian Zhemukhov at The Church of the Covenant in Fairfax, VA. The event is a fund raiser for The Alliance for Housing Solutions as well as a book launch for Sarah’s new book, Plant Trees Carry Sheep.
Noa will be conducting a workshop after the performance and there will be food.
If you’re anywhere near Northern Virginia this Saturday, it’ll be worth your time to come join us.
I was back in the studio this past Sunday recording King Pest and I’ll be there this Sunday recording Loss of Breath. One more week and we’ll be releasing the audio and ebook for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Dark Humor.
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Remember: You Matter. Your Stories Matter. Tell Them Well!
Gayle Turner
The Storytellers Channel
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned
Today, I’m gonna share a true story. It’s one that honestly I really should not be proud of… but I’m gonna tell it anyway.
Let me start by telling you that I’m a single lady. Matter of fact, I’m so single, that if I ever win a trip for two, I’m gonna go twice. I also just had my 50th birthday.
I’m sure that dating when you’re single and in your 50s isn’t easy. I personally wouldn’t know. I have no desire whatsoever to date. And even if I did, I don’t think a dating profile online that reads “scorned, angry woman seeking revenge against her ex husband” would get much traction on eharmony or OkCupid. I’m sure you’re wanting to know the backstory to that, so here it is.
My husband came home nine years ago on his 50th birthday and announced he was not in love anymore and wanted a divorce. At the time, I was devastated. Now I’m in a much better place and can see it for what it was, a midlife crisis. But back then, my emotions were all over the place… ranging from profound sadness and loss to extreme shock and disbelief. But somewhere in the midst of that came the anger. Not just anger, but crazy anger. I would probably call it insane anger.
I found myself sitting around weeks after this happened, wringing my hands, asking myself, what is he doing right now? How is he handling all this? So I decided to do something I had been putting off, and I creeped onto his Facebook page. I put his name in, anxiously anticipating what I’m going to see. The sucker has unfriended me. My husband of 21 years has unfriended me on Facebook. I couldn’t see anything except his relationship status. He had already changed it from “married” to “it’s complicated” I was furious. My blood was boiling, and you probably could have seen steam coming out of my ears. And all of a sudden it occurs to me in the midst of this anger, wait a minute, we shared the same email address for a very brief period of time before this had all happened, and I wonder if that’s not the same email address that he used to create that Facebook account. Now mind you, this was nine years ago, social media was in its infancy. But so was cyber security.
It took some detective work, but eventually I hacked into his, no, I hacked into our email. That’s right. I hacked into our email. And then I used that email to get into his Facebook account and change his password. Once I had his password changed, I get his Facebook account open, and I proceed to look through it for evidence. I go through his pictures… no evidence. Status updates… no evidence. Instant messages… Ah ha! I found evidence. Messages from other women. I said, you know what, I’m having no part of this and neither is he. So I go into the settings on his Facebook account and I deactivated it. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s Gone. Poof! But I wasn’t finished. There was still work to do.
So I go back to the email looking for more evidence. In the email, I come across multiple emails from dating websites. We hadn’t even been separated a month. He had profiles set up on match.com, Plenty of Fish, one called Zoosk. Of course being the scorned woman than I am or that I was, I Zoosked right into every one of those dating profiles, and I shut them down. Into the settings, deactivate, deactivate. Oh wait a minute. I think I’m gonna leave one of these up and running, but I’m gonna change it up just a bit. Just for fun. I started with his age, I changed him from 50 to 75. Then I took his location and I said, hmmm? where’s the craziest place I can put him? I took him from Hampton, Virginia and I put him in Oslo, Norway. And then I discovered that you can actually change your sexual preferences on these dating sights. So yup, you guessed it! He is now a 75 year old gay Norwegian.
Okay, but there was one thing left to do. Profile picture. You know, you can find a lot of things on Google images these days. It gives me so much satisfaction to tell this story. I go into Google images, and I typed “crazy looking old man” just to see what would come up. And I’ve actually saved that picture even after all these years, and I get quite a hoot every time I look at it.
This is now his profile picture…
Since this incident occurred I’ve learned that living well is the best revenge. After all these years later, I’m happy with my life. However every once in a while, when no one is looking, I peek at his NEW online Facebook profile to see if he’s any closer to living into his face.
DOWNLOAD
Tales of Deadly Matrimony
by
Edgar Allan Poe
Audio Book E-Book
I Want to Hear from You
We’re moving into the holiday season where we celebrate the good things in our lives. I’d love to hear your stories of things you’re thankful for in your lives.
Til next time,
Gayle Turner
Executive Producer.