Curse Of The Redhead Riter: Part 1

For the first two years after Paul left, I did not sleep through the night.  I’d go to sleep only to awake several hours later with murderous thoughts rushing through my mind about how I could murder Paul and get away with it.

In my head I was convinced that no jury of twelve women, whose husbands had also betrayed them would ever convict me and send me to jail for murdering Paul.  Convict me?  They would applaud me and say, “You poor thing, what you went through with that man – and now you’re going to write a memoir called A Bad Marriage Is Fattening.  Isn’t that the truth!  We just love the title.”  In my fantasy, my ideal twelve female jurors were all fat like me.  Not one of them weighed under two hundred pounds.  And they all idolized me.  I was their hero for doing my husband in.

“Ohhh, Joan, when your book comes out will you remember that we let you get away with murder – and will you give us autograph copies of your book?”

“I certainly will.”

What a beautiful fantasy this was and what a small price to pay for murdering Paul – twelve autograph copies of A Bad Marriage Is Fattening.

But then there was the other fantasy.  And it wasn’t quite as beautiful as my twelve overweight women jurors.  What if fate dealt me the unkindest blow of all and gave me a jury of twelve men who had cheated on their wives and then left them for another woman?  I wouldn’t even let my head go there.

And there was another thing I knew as I laid awake all those sleepless nights plotting Paul’s demise.  I knew that someday Paul would get what he deserved — for I believed in karma.  What goes around comes around.  And I wondered what his karma would be for so coldly casting me out of his life like I was yesterday’s garbage.

In time I came to realize that my fantasies were not that unusual.   Many women fantasized about murdering their husbands who betrayed them.  The key was not to act upon those fantasies.  Like Betty Broderick did when she shot to death her ex-husband and his new wife.

After awhile I started sleeping through the nights and my thoughts about killing Paul subsided.  I can’t remember exactly when I came to my senses and had what I can only describe as an epiphany.  I realized Paul was more valuable to me alive than dead.  What had I been thinking to want to murder Paul?  He had been ordered by the court to pay me alimony.  I was getting enough money that I did not have work.  I could stay home and write – that is every writers dream.

I quickly began to pray for Paul’s good health and that no catastrophe would befall him.  I did not want to lose my golden goose – at least not until my memoir came out and was a bestseller.

Eight more years passed and never once did I wish Paul physical harm.

This past October I joined an online community of bloggers — The Redhead Riter – Witty, Intelligent & Addictive Community.

It’s a strange thing about karma and the way it plays itself out.  Long ago I had prayed that Paul would get what he deserved.  But then I forgot completely about it.  However, karma always has a way to even the score.  It came quite unexpectedly in the form of a comment on my blog, or rather shall I say curse.  The leader of our community, Redhead Riter, left a comment on a post I had written called The Proverbial Question.  It read in part, “Sending LOVE to Joan and PESTILENCE to Paul.”  Then she went on to write, “Guess he is going to find lots of locusts and frogs crawling around his house soon.”

And Paul did.

(To be continued. . .)