Scandal

Today I let myself get sucked into the Ashley Madison hacking scandal. I clicked on a link that led me straight to a list of people in my area who were subscribers of the cheating site for married people. I tried to stop reading, but I couldn't make myself.

I really didn't know how I'd feel if I ran across someone I knew on the list.

It didn't take long to find out, for I saw name after name that was familiar to me.

How did I feel?

• I felt sick that cheating on one's spouse is as simple as signing up on a website. 

• I felt sick about the sheer number of people on the list, and the pain and betrayal represented.

• I felt sick that I was potentially seeing this highly personal information before the spouses and children did.

• And I felt sick that I had let my curiosity lead me down a path where I didn't belong. 

It's easy to say that those on the site literally SIGNED UP FOR this kind of scrutiny and judgment by giving their names, emails, and credit card numbers to a website with the tagline is "Life is Short. Have an Affair," but instead of focusing on their behavior, I felt convicted by mine.

I felt complicit in the pain that unsuspecting spouses are experiencing right now, or will be in the next few days. There is much discussion of karma, and about those who stray getting what they deserve. I understand that. As a straight-laced rule follower, the thought appeals to me. I am a seeker of LIGHT and TRUTH and believe that secrets that remain hidden do nothing but fester and rot. Because of this, I think good will come out of the scandal.

What doesn't appeal to me is the pain of the wronged spouses being compounded by the fact that this has aired in a public forum where friends and neighbors whom you bump into in the produce aisle can peer inside your marriage. Gracious. Life is hard enough as it is.

Here's a blog post that touched me today as I thought of the families who are or will be dealing with fall-out from the Ashley Madison scandal. There is not a one-size-fits-all response to infidelity, and I don't claim to have any advice, but I wanted to say if today has been a particularly, epically, publicly, brutal one for you, I am so sorry.

And as for my need to scour the list for names I knew, THIS is what was playing on a loop in my mind as I did it. I just wish I'd listened more closely:

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."

I'm a Fixer, Just Like Olivia Pope

...for those of you who don't watch Scandal, see you on the next post!

Although I don't look as good as she does in white and off-white, and my mom really died when I was a teenager--  not fake-died, spent decades in prison and then came back to terrorize the world-- I still think I have a heck of a lot in common with Olivia Pope, the main character in Scandal.

Take the vintage oak table.

"Vintage oak table? That does not sound like Olivia Pope," you might be saying. Olivia is all modern and sleek, with walls an icy gray and wine glasses the size of gourds. Oak and Olivia don't mix! True, but here's the thing: there was a vintage oak table in my life, and it was a problem that needed fixing, Olivia Pope-style.

In attempt to earn some money in dribs and drabs to try to shore up our hemorrhaging bank account, I decided to start hitting the thrift store again. On one recent trip I found a beautiful vintage table in perfect condition. I wanted to take it home, paint it, and re-sell if for a handsome profit.

But when I got it into my garage, I felt my motivation ebb. There was no one there to look me in the eye and say, "Get out your paintbrushes, Anna. You are a gladiator! Do what you must to earn the $100 OBO that will surely save your family from ruin!"

So it sat. My husband was not thrilled to see a table occupying his parking spot in the garage. Day after day, when he came home from work he'd push the button on the garage opener, and as the door made its slow ascent, he'd look with fear and dread to see if there were four oak legs waiting for him, and there were.

I suggested that perhaps we could move it to the basement until my painting mojo returned. He said a dismissive yet definitive, "It won't fit down the stairs," and that was that.  Now, as a fixer, I probably would have said, "Let's just try it" especially based on the knowledge that this is the same man who told me this curbside sideboard/cabinet would never fit in my minivan. Amateur.



Eventually, I decided to sell the table on Craigslist As-Is, and let its new owner paint or not paint at his or her choosing. Tim suggested we move it into my office area until it sold, but I prefer to keep active Craigslist items a little farther outside the heart of the home so that my neighbors can hear me scream if something goes down. Good Olivia Pope-thinking, right?

This makes me wonder how no outsiders ever seem to notice the murder and mayhem in Olivia's sphere of influence. Hmmm.

I was actually grateful Tim was out of town last week so the table could stay put while his car was at the airport. That gave me time to deal with two Craiglist no-shows. And by deal with them, I mean write pleasant emails back and forth for several days about the joy of owning this table, truly bonding with my new Craigslist friends until pick-up time when...nothing. It made me think that when I die and someone sends out a mass email to report the fact, there will be a lot of Craiglisters in my contacts who will say, "Who the hell is this Anna person they're talking about, and should I be sad?"

Anyway, with the prospect of Tim's return looming, my inner Olivia Pope sprung into action. Using my already advanced powers of estimation (see: Sideboard, Minivan), I was able to deduce that a solution had been right under my nose the entire time and that Tim's angst over the table could be alleviated rather quickly.

I know this is almost as complicated as some of Huck's computer hacking codes, but stay with me here. If I rearranged some of the crap in the garage and turned the table SIDEWAYS, I would be able to gingerly wedge it against the wall and Tim would still be able to pull into his spot safely. Oh yes.

Tim hasn't mentioned the change yet, but I went ahead and rewarded myself with a glass of wine and a bowl of popcorn for dinner.

Gladiator, indeed.