Toads On Craigslist

Yesterday, we had what might have been the shortest "sex scandal" in Congress ever. Seriously, the only way that you knew that anything had even happened is because suddenly the guy resigned. And it was only 3-1/2 hours after the whole thing came out! Then when you hear something like that, that's when you get to hear why he resigned. It's all just very odd. And I really don't think that it's much to resign about. But then again, at least we won't have to hear about it for weeks on end. I hope.

Here's the deal: There's a New York Representative named Chris Lee. Now, Mr. Lee is a married bloke and he wanted to have an affair. From what I can tell, he did not have an affair...this time. But then again, when you're caught doing something, you're rarely caught on your first time out. Whether or not he had affairs before trying to have this one is beyond me. (Translation: He's been cheating on his wife for a while now. Pig.)

See, he was trolling Craigslist looking for a hookup and ended up being enticed by "...a 34-year-old single woman of "black/Irish" descent, who had advertised online for a "financially & emotionally secure" man" according to the NY Post. (Black/Irish descent? Begorrah, M-F-ers! Yeah, that joke really works best if you use an Irish accent. It's pretty good without it, but the accent really hits it home.) She apparently had written: "Will Someone Prove To Me Not All CL [Craigslist] Men Look Like Toads". Oh. I see. So, you're too good for Craigslist, and yet you're on Craigslist. This woman is bothering me already.

Representative Einstein replied to said ad with: "Hi, Hope I'm not a toad. :)". I can only assume that is when he sent the following picture of himself. Behold!

Good Lord, sir. What is that look on your face? Were you recently anesthetized before taking that pictures? And seriously, when are people going to learn how to take pictures with their phone without actually having to point the phone IN the mirror?! What the what?! I really have no answers. He apparently also included in his reply (along with that sexy, sexy photo): "I'm a very fit fun classy guy. Live in Cap Hill area. 6ft 190 lbs blond blue. 39. Lobbyist. I promise not to disappoint." Oh. Sure. Yeah, you seem classy. Because nothing says "classy" like a married member of Congress taking a shirtless picture of himself in his bathroom. Oh, yeah. It reeks of class. Reeks. And I guess that "promise not to disappoint" means...can get an erection? I'm a little unclear on that part, so I'm really just surmising at this point. I can't think of much else, though.br>

Of course, we all know now that he is not 39 and he is not a lobbyist. He is 46 and he was a Representative for the state of New York. He was also married at the time. Whether or not that plays out for very long after this fiasco, we'll just have to wait and see. Then again, if I was his wife, it wouldn't be so much about the affairs as it would be about his way of going about them. "Here I am in my bathroom without my shirt. Am I a toad?" Ugh. What a tool.

He did send along an explanation of the photo that he sent, saying: "I just took this one . . . I'm relaxing at home." You're just relaxing at home? Who the hell relaxes at home like that? In their bathroom, still wearing their dress slacks and (probably) their loafers and completely shirtless? Apparently, he wants someone to believe that he does. The woman who had originally posted the ad had similar questions to mine, asking him: "So do you always send shirtless pics to women from cl?" Lady, you're trolling for dudes on Craigslist! You can knock off the little coy act. You're no saint yourself, you know. And while that question was pretty bad, his answer is even worse.

The dude answers her and explains: "Sorry. It's all I had." It's all you had?! You took a picture with your cell phone! What, you cell phone doesn't work any more? The days of those sort of excuses are gone. Long gone. There is NO excuse for not sending someone a current picture of yourself. There's also NO excuse for not sending someone a picture of yourself where you are be-shirted. You could have taken a picture of yourself while your shirt was still on! Does he not get this sort of logic? He apparently did not! Even if you put the cell phone part aside, why would the ONLY picture that you would have of yourself be one where you don't have on your shirt?! Maybe he's just routinely shirtless. "I don't even know where to find a shirt. It's been so long. I haven't worn a shirt in years!" What a maroon.

And that's that. Once word of him and his shirtless stupidity got out (when the chick figured out who he was because he was dumb enough to use his real name, she went running to Gawker.com and I'm guessing sold them her story just like you'd expect a gem like her to do), he resigned. It's over. But there is one little side note I'd like to leave you with. Back in 2009, "...shortly after he helped pass the Student Internet Safety Act" (you read that right), he "...wrote an op-ed piece warning kids about the dangers of the Internet." He wrote: "Responding to what may seem like a friendly e-mail . . . can have serious consequences...Private information and images can so easily be transmitted to friends and strangers alike." That's good advice, son. Good ad-vice.

The Fiery Unit

Sure, you're going to be a little bit upset when you find out that your husband is having an affair. You might even contemplate some sort of revenge upon him and, perhaps, his straying unit. But if that's going to be the case, you're really going to need to think about what you're ultimately hoping to accomplish, here. Because while you might only set out to simply burn your husband's penis out of rage, should you end up burning down the entire house and killing him in the process, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Let's go to the land down under to a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia called Unley. There we'll find a one 46-year old Rajini Narayan. We'll find her to find her husband has been having an affair. According to news.com.au, for some reason, in December of 2008, Ms. Narayan's husband was lying in the couple's bed and gave Ms. Narayan "...his email password and she found emails detailing the affair." Well. That's one way to do it. Needless to say, his wife was less than thrilled.

After learning of his affair, she allegedly said to him, "You say you loved her. I'm going to burn your penis. I'm going to tell your family what you have done." Shouldn't she have just chosen one? Tell his family OR burn the penis? And did she really say it like that? I mean, that seems rather matter-of-fact. Why would she say that? It really ruins the surprise of all of the penis burning that would take place later if you're asking me.

Now, her attorney claims that "...the words were "spoken from Narayan's heart" because of a "genuine, if wildly misguided" belief she would keep her husband." Hmm. Do you really want a husband with a burned penis? I don't know that you do. I certainly don't know why you would. Granted, it would probably stop him from having affairs, but that doesn't mean that Ms. Narayan, as the one doing all of the burning, is going to be benefiting sexually from such a deed either. But Mr. Narayan apparently didn't seem to care about his wife's plans/threats, as he allegedly "...rolled away from her, turning his back on her. He said: `No you won't, you fat, dumb bitch'." And she wants this guy...why? Burn his weenie off. That's how I feel about the situation right about now.

And that's apparently how Ms. Narayan felt as well, as she doused her husband in petrol and proceeded to have herself quite the weenie roast. However, her act of revenge wasn't just limited to the man's unit. No, she managed to burn him over 75 percent of his body at the same time she burned down the family home. The crispy cheater died a few days later. Whoops.

Ms. Narayan is, of course, on trial for killing her husband. She doesn't appear to be denying that she acted the way that she did. And while one can sympathize with someone who finds out that their spouse is cheating on them, can they really sympathize to the point where they're OK with them burning them to death? Perhaps. Perhaps if, like the prosecutor says, "Ms. Narayan had told a tarot card reader, who she had visited just days before the attack on her husband, that her husband would not let her reduce her working hours because she was paying for the other woman." No pun intended here, but what a dick.

I'm not so sure why Ms. Narayan couldn't just up and leave. There's no way in hell I'm staying with some guy who tells me that my paycheck is helping pay for some other woman that he's having an affair with. Yeah, I know that burning his penis off sounds really great and all. But the thing about fire is that it's pretty hard to contain to just one bodily organ, especially when the whole body is doused in fuel. I can't imagine that she won't be found guilty. Then again, I couldn't imagine that Lorena Bobbitt was going to get off either. Stay tuned!

Keep Your Second Wife OFF Of Facebook

There's dumb and then there's just asinine. But what is it when you've gone past dumb and past asinine? Are you just so incapable of understanding anything at all and how it works that there isn't really a name for it? Or is the word that I'm looking for as simple as "idiot" or "moron"? It probably is, but this just seems like it require just a little bit more than either one of those. It's almost like the don't do the story justice, especially when the story is how a woman found out through Facebook that her husband had another wife. Wait. What now?

Correct. According to WKYC in Cleveland, the woman, "Megan" as she preferred to be called for the story because she didn't want her real name used (nor did she want her humiliation to be spread far and wide and directly attributed to her), married her husband in 2005 in a ceremony in Italy. (I have no idea why WKYC thought that was relevant to the story, but they included it and so I did the same. If only they had questioned the relevance as I had, they might not have felt the need to include it at all.) After that "She knew her husband took a lot of business trips. Now she knows why." And while that's not entirely accurate (it's not like he was really on business trips, WKYC. Try to pay attention, would you?), his being gone a lot was explained when "Her relatives pointed her to the other woman's Facebook page where Megan discovered multiple photos of her husband and the woman together." Oh. Whoops.

Yeah. Whoops. Now, it's not like "Megan" didn't have some questions about what was going on in their marriage. "Megan said she first became suspicious when her husband claimed to have been in China and even brought back gifts for the kids yet his passport had been at home the entire time." It's unfortunate that the story doesn't delve more into how that was deal with in Megan's household. It seems a little difficult to explain, as that passport for international travel is pretty necessary. (Unless you're going to the United States, in which case just come on in like millions of other folks do every year.) But the media is crap these days, so what did I really expect?

I'll tell you what I expected. I expected people to be a little more discerning about what goes on their freaking Facebook page. But I guess this sort of thing happens all the time. What a weak act you people are. Seriously. You don't have the guts to just leave someone or to tell them that you're leaving? Instead, you leave it up to them to "accidentally" find out through pictures that were posted on Facebook? Seriously. Would you not know that there are people on your Facebook who are relatives or friends with the one of the other people involved in this and who will be seeing what is on your Facebook page? Or that of the whore that you're sleeping with? What is wrong with you people?

And it's not like just having the affair and having those pictures posted was enough for this guy and his extramarital bimbo. No, "A few weeks later, dozens of wedding photos also showed up on Facebook showing Megan's husband and his new bride." Dude. You're already married. You think that isn't going to come out at some point? Let me rephrase that, you moron. You think that this isn't going to come out at some point AFTER pictures of your SECOND wedding are posted on Facebook while you're still MARRIED? How can one be so dense and yet somehow manage to keep themselves alive through adulthood? It's a mystery.

Naturally, Megan wants a divorce. Her husband, not being all that bright to begin with, says "he doesn't believe he needs a divorce because he learned after the fact that the marriage paperwork was never filed correctly in Italy and therefor they were never married." Tell you what. How about if you don't get a divorce, but you let Megan go all Lorena Bobbit on you? That seems fair.

Look, I don't know about you, but I cannot imagine having an affair if I was in a relationship, let alone if I were married. It sounds simply awful to me. Not because of the deceit that is obviously present when something like that is going on, but because of the effort. It sounds positively exhausting. Trying to keep stories straight, trying to keep lies straight, trying not to get caught, trying to keep everyone happy, etc. Good Lord, why on earth would anyone voluntarily enter into such a mess? And this guy got MARRIED. TWO wives! Isn't one wife enough?! Isn't one wife plenty?! Isn't one wife more than enough on some days?

Sorry, Sorry Tiger Woods

Rumor has it that Tiger Woods is set to come out of his self imposed exile from the world (and from all cocktail waitresses, apparently) and issue a "public apology". This won't be a statement read by someone else, though I have to believe that it will be a statement which has been crafted by someone else. My assumption is that Tiger wants to return to playing golf and there is no way that he is going to be able to do so without saying something more about his "transgressions" (ie, screwing everything in a Waffle House with two legs and a skirt, though the two legs didn't seem like a requirement that was set in stone or anything).

There are very few things that I like about the public apology. First of all, we all know that you didn't write it. We all know that you're just reading words that someone else crafted. Expecting us to believe that those are real words from deep within whatever amount of a heart that you actually possess is rather insulting. We're not idiots. Granted, overall, there aren't a whole lot of shining bulbs on the tree. But we're far from dim.

Second, I don't like how these public apologies are always one way. The wrongdoer comes out, blathers on about something, doesn't take questions, and then departs, usually through some large curtain. (Where do they get those apology curtains anyway? I'm guessing the same place they get the apology podiums and the apology lecterns.) I don't know that public apologies, if they're intended to be sincere, should be any different than private apologies.

Let's really use our imaginations here and assume that I am married to some guy. (I realize that is quite a stretch, but making crap up is half of the fun here, so stick with me!) And let's say that I find out that the guy I married has a seemingly insatiable thirst for dalliances with cocktail waitresses and porn stars (Internet or otherwise). After I crack him in the face with a 9-iron and cause him to attempt to flee from our Florida compound in his SUV, we separate to let things cool off for a while. Then he wants to apologize. Now, I realize that any sane person would tell this guy to go do to himself what he has been doing to all of those bimbos. But, let's say that I decide I'll listen to his apology. He apologizes and then right as I'm getting ready to ask him some questions about what he's just said, he stands up and says, "Sorry, babe. No questions." And then he walks off.

Um, no. That's not how it works. And that is why I hate the public apology. I am a firm believer that an apology is not on the terms of the one who is apologizing. The apology is on the terms of the one who has been screwed over. And for this particular sort of apology, the one who has been screwed over is the public. Granted, the public was rather gullible and allowed itself to be screwed over, but that doesn't really give someone else the go ahead to start the screwing.

See, this whole thing wouldn't be that big of a deal if Tiger hadn't promoted himself as being someone completely different than he was. That's why the Charlie Sheen ordeal isn't getting a lot of press like this Tiger thing is. I mean, seriously, Charlie Sheen gets arrested on Christmas Day for allegedly holding a knife to his wife's throat and then she subsequently checks herself into a rehab clinic for a crack addiction. Holy crap. That makes the fracas over at Tiger Woods's place seem like Thanksgiving at my place (during which no one was arrested, on drugs, holding others at knifepoint or cracked over the head with a 3-wood). But Charlie Sheen has never (to my knowledge) promoted himself as a squeaky clean guy with a squeaky clean image. That's why there is the uproar (pardon the pun) with Tiger. He made us all believe that he was squeaky clean. And now we're supposed to accept his apology, no questions asked? Screw you. Oh, wait. Someone already did. Never mind. Poor choice of words. You know what I meant.

I'd really like it if one of these public apologies would be on the same terms as private apologies are. You know, with all of the questions by the apolgizee for the apologizer at the end of said apology, because I'd really appreciate someone being asked "Why are you apologizing?" Frankly, I'd rather have someone be sorry than say sorry. I also wouldn't mind hearing the answer to "Why did you lie to us? Couldn't you have just done the right thing instead?" But I'd also really like to have them be asked, "Why should we believe that you're sorry?" Because I'm guessing that the majority of the time, if not every time, they're not sorry for what they did. They're sorry that they got caught. They're sorry that their carefully crafted life which they had previously enjoyed so much is no more. They're sorry that they have to deal with stuff. But I think that they're rarely sorry they did what they did.

If someone comes out on their own before being outed by a tabloid or a newspaper (that is, provided that there's a newspaper out there that still does reporting and stuff like that) and admits their own screwups before anyone had ever found out about them, that might indicate sorry. Then again, I don't foresee that happening because why admit something that no one knows about? Well, if you're sorry about what you've done, you do. I guess.

If Tiger doesn't like the public scrutiny, you know what? He doesn't have to deal with it. There is not one thing in this entire world that is making him be a pro golfer. I'd hazard a guess that he has more money than he can spend in this lifetime. (And he's going to have a heck of a lot more money now that he isn't paying off Perkins waitresses to keep quiet about their torrid affairs.) If he doesn't like it, if any of these public figures don't like it, there's a very simple solution. Stop being a public figure. Then you'll have all of the privacy you want and you can be as big of a pig and as big of an a-hole as you want. Enjoy.