The unthinkable has happened. I am on my way to Texas.
I've met the most interesting woman. Interesting in the slightly crazy sense anyway. She's headed to Florida for a wedding. Her 30 something year old cousin is getting married for the first time and she's the "Matron of Honor". I found out a little later on in the conversation that she writes some sort of bridal column, so I suppose she's a natural choice.
The wedding is to be huge, four hundred guests! Apparently the man marrying into the family is some sort of relatively famous DJ in the area where they live, so it sounds like he bartered a lot of the wedding. "Yes, I'll do a function for you if you let me use your tents..." She didn't sound overly excited about it, from that I gather that the 400 guests were likely going to piss her off in some manner.
While we were sitting waiting for the plane in Buffalo she started talking, and didn't stop till it was time for her to board the plane. Don't you just love people like that, who can't stop talking about themselves long enough to take a breath? Sarah, joined the military when it came time for college so that she wouldn't have to pay. While she was doing her little tour of duty in Europe she'd go away to Amsterdam, to partake in all of the legal drugs there. (This likely accounts for everything) Her ex-husband was also in the military, I'm sure she told me how they met, but I forget.
The husband went off to the Gulf War for a year, two months and five days, and returned with another woman whom he loved more than his wife and daughter. Sarah took offense to that, as you can imagine and the feminist demon emerged. She worked two full time jobs for a year to make enough money, and then hired a lawyer. One who was an army reservist so that he'd know military law. For some reason, Sarah had video tapes of conversations she and her husband had had before he went off to the war, upon which they discussed all the things they were going to do for their daughter as she grew up. Piano lessons, horseback riding lessons, swimming lessons so she wouldn't drown in the pool they were going to install, etc...
Those tapes were enough for the judge to award her custody of the child as well as $1000 tax free each month in child support.
Sarah and her new husband now have a pool in their backyard, they have taken the trip to Germany to ski in the alps like she and her ex had planned to do. She even wrote her bridal column for free for a year because she could afford not to get paid for it.
She now has plans within 5 years to retire from the bridal column business and become An advocate for women. She plans to be invited to congressional meetings, she plans to have a judge in her back pocket that will say to men that they have no right to divorce their wives unless their wives get 'what they deserve'. She sounds extremely energetic, and for some reason, I don't doubt for a moment that she'll succeed.
It's just a shame that she hasn't placed all of that ambition into something that is....well....worthwhile.
Posted by Michelle at May 15, 2002 02:42 PM