Sunday, February 28, 2010

English Supermodels, Klingons, and other Potential Beauties

I was on the phone with my sister the other night during the witching hour, more commonly known as bedtime.

My sister interrupted our conversation to say to one of her twins, “I told you to go get your pajamas on.”

I heard my niece reply, “But I haven’t had a bath yet.”

My sister said, “You don’t need a bath tonight. It's already late. Just go put your pajamas on.”

The response cracked me up. The child answered back, “But we haven’t had a bath in 2 ½ weeks!”

My sister won, of course, and the kid went to bed without a bath. The story is funny because what parent in the history of the world hasn’t fought with a child over taking a bath? And the parent/child bath fights always evolve over time, going from the child hating baths to using a bath to delay bedtime to becoming a teenager who takes 45-minute showers, leaving the rest of the family with no hot water. I distinctly remember the last shower war I had with my children because it was completely different from any I'd ever encountered.

During the summer of 2007, I took my three children to London for ten days. I booked us at the Enterprise (hotel, not spaceship, although the bellman could have passed for Spock). That particular hotel was appealing because it had a room with a private bath and four single beds. That way, my son didn’t have to sleep with a girl, and I could still get us all into one $400-per-night room.

Turns out, that’s where the Enterprise’s appeal ended.

The hotel had no air conditioning. The four single beds had exactly six inches between them and were jammed against the walls. We had to open our suitcases on our beds to get clothes out of them, and then slide them under the beds when we slept. The window opened exactly 3 inches and was covered with a net to keep the pigeons out while still affording the luxury of being able to hear them coo throughout the night. Luckily, England was experiencing a cold snap in July, because if it hadn’t been fifty degrees outside at night, I would have had to sleep naked on the linoleum bathroom floor to keep from sweating, and one of my children might not be alive today.

Not that I got much sleep anyway. All three of my kids experienced serious jet lag, so the first night, they were up until nearly four o’clock trying to figure out why the television only had three channels – the BBC, CNN, and one with 24-hour Wimbledon coverage.

The next morning, we almost missed our tour bus because I couldn’t wake my kids up, and then none of us could figure out how to use the shower, which was basically a garden hose duct-taped to the bathtub spigot. There was no shower curtain, and a sign threatened that flooding the “loo” could get your arse kicked out of the Enterprise (or at least land you in the brig with Scottie, the Irish bartender). The spigot itself was downright confounding; water came out either Baltic-sea cold or hot enough to boil a lobster in. Warm was not an option.

The ensuing fight was over whether or not to ditch the Enterprise and its shower for the $700-per-night Marriott down the street. The kids insisted on moving. Since airfare had already cost me $4,000, I voted to stick with the Enterprise.

I won.

After about four days in the Enterprise, my older daughter, who was completely fed up with the shower and the four-inch square mirror over the bathroom sink and operating on approximately three hours of sleep, was debating whether to use our electrical outlet adapter to charge her cellphone or dry her hair. I overheard her say in frustration, “I hate this place. I can’t achieve my full potential for beauty here. A guy who would be all over me at home wouldn’t look twice at me here.”

I wanted to laugh. Instead, I said, "We're in England, not exactly the biggest breeding ground for supermodels. Diana was a freak of nature. You half beautiful is good enough. Now throw some clothes on, and let's go."

I’ve thought about her words -– "full potential for beauty" -- several times since a reader informed me earlier this week that my attitude makes me unattractive and unlovable.

I guess perhaps I have a different beauty barometer.

The most attractive people I know are those who have given up on the need to impress others. Simply put, they’re real. And since they have no need to fixate on their own flaws, they’re not particularly interested in pointing out the flaws in others.

And some of my favorite people in the entire universe are cynical, sarcastic, snarky, and hysterically funny. They're lovable because they've suffered and have survived with their humor intact. Their cynicism and sarcasm are the tough outer shells protecting their exquisitely tender and compassionate hearts.

You know what I think keeps us from reaching our true potential for beauty? Trying to be anything other than what we are. And trying to force our opinion of how others ought to be on them. It’s called perfectionism, and it’s as ugly as a Klingon and as stinky as a second grader who’s gone 2 ½ weeks without a bath.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Combatting Assholiness

Dear Anonymous:

Thank you for your comment regarding Tiger Woods' apology. Obviously, you think you know me. You know I graduated from a Christian school, so I’m assuming you’ve known me for a long time, at least since I was in high school.

Here are the words you use to describe me: sad, bitter, unattractive, pathetic, and rebellious. Oh, and I need to grow up. Apparently, you think my behavior is much like that of a defiant and disobedient teenager.

I can’t argue with your opinion of me.

But you're not terribly familiar with me, because you’ve also written, “You have a hope of a beach house and the hope of finding someone who will love you now.”

I already have the beach house. It’s fabulous.

And I have someone who loves me. That, too, is fabulous.

My lover does not find me unattractive. In fact, my lover finds my bad attitude quite hilarious. My lover loves my humor and understands that without it, I’d be the sad, bitter, and pathetic person you believe me to be. As my friend Grant (aka Sister Louisa) says, “Humor is God’s lubrication when life screws you.”

My lover knows that I am grateful for everything I’ve experienced. Because if my husband had never left me, I might have never met my lover.

My lover believes I should tell the stories I tell. Because in the past, back when I was the grown up, buttoned up, perfect model of a great attitude you say I should be, I was afraid for anyone to know the truth of what a wreck my life was. What people saw wasn't me. It was what I believed I should be based on what people told me I should be -- straight from the Bible what I “should” be.

Here’s the deal: stop shoulding on me. You’re right when you say that bitter is unattractive. But inauthentic is more unattractive; it’s actually just chocolate-covered shit.

God and my lover want me to be me, to tell the truth, to laugh, and to be happy. Trying to be what I think people expect of me doesn’t work for me. Taking care of myself does. That’s the kind of positive model I hope to be, the model for simply being myself.

The lover I’ve found, by the way, is me. And I’m a happy girl.

Hugs and kisses,

Sandi Grace Adams Hutcheson, who is not afraid to be who I am.

Oh, and one more thing: you might feel better in the long road if you have a little nip of the “recipe” every now and then. Getting laid might not be a bad idea, either.

Year of the Prom Dress


For her seventeenth birthday, my younger daughter asked me for a prom gown. She’d had it picked out for a long time, this dress of her dreams. But no store in the Atlanta area had the dress in stock, so we were forced to order it online.

I know that ordering a dress online when she hasn’t even tried it on is, well, crazy. But about this time two years ago, a smallish package addressed to her big sister arrived on our doorstep. Big sister called home from work to ask if a package had come.

“Yes, what did you order?” I said.

“It’s my prom dress!” she happily shouted into the phone.

I looked at the box. It was exactly six inches square and two inches thick. Obviously, she wasn’t going to be wearing much to the prom.

But when she got home and opened the box and held that dress up, a long white Grecian style made of silky-sheer organza, it was so breathtakingly beautiful that I wanted to cry. That's her, above.

Ordering a prom dress online worked out in the past, so I confidently took younger sister’s measurements and compared them to the chart before placing the order. I paid for the dress with my American Express card, knowing full well that my pals at Amex really, really like me and that if the dress isn’t delivered to my satisfaction, they will take my word over thepromdress.com’s. Plus, we had just over two months until the prom. What could go wrong?

That was January 23. One month ago. We still haven’t received the dress. And now I’m nervous about canceling this order because what if it takes a month to get a replacement dress? I would have already filed a complaint with Amex and told thepromdress.com people what they can do with their dress, but my girl has her heart set on this dress. So I called the company last Friday and asked what the problem is.

The problem, it seems, is the Chinese New Year. I swear to God, they actually said that Chinese New Year has delayed the dress.

2010, it seems, is the Year of the Bad Customer Service.

Now, I haven’t thought about Chinese New Year in years, not since I decided that I like Thai food and sushi better than Chinese and stopped going to the restaurants with the Chinese calendars for placemats.

I remember looking at those placemats when I was a kid and thinking, Wow! 1993 is twenty years from now. I wonder where I’ll be in 1993, if the world hasn’t ended by then.

In 1993, I thought, Wow! The new millennium is almost here, and I wonder if Y2K is really something to worry about. Will the world as we know it end because of a computer glitch?

In 2002, I thought my world had actually ended. I was a sad, sad girl, having found out about my husband’s affair. I remember wondering if we would still be together ten years down the road, and I wondered if I would still hurt so badly in ten years.

I don’t wonder -- or even worry -- so much about the future any longer. I’ve learned that while details are highly unpredictable, I pretty much can set my clock (and calendar) by the fact that I’m in for a great ride. Or, as the Jimmy Buffett/Martina McBride song so poetically puts it:

I’m just hangin’ on while this old world keeps spinning
And it’s good to know it’s out of my control

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all this livin’

Is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go


I do wonder, however, if I will live to see April if a prom dress doesn’t arrive in March. And 2010, incidentally, is the Year of the Tiger. Maybe he can figure out a way to use the Chinese New Year excuse.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Tiger's Apology: Par for the Course?

I sat down to watch the Tiger Woods news conference with a massive dose of both skepticism and contempt. I’d already made up my mind that his apology was going to be a ridiculous horse and pony show timed to sneer at Accenture for dropping his endorsement deal and designed to be the venue for the proclamation that he is returning to golf. Integrity, you see, is sort of like virginity: once you've lost it, it's gone for good, even though you keep the package it came in.

I laughed at Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last evening. He said, “Tiger won’t be taking questions from the press at the news conference. I think it would be fun, though, to watch him take questions from his wife.”

You see, I’ve been in Elin Woods’ shoes. I’ve been to Family Week in rehab, where the patient makes amends for the bad behavior and the family expresses its support for the recovering addict. So I was watching very closely for clues as to whether or not I believe Tiger is sincere and is going about the recovery process in the right way. After what I’ve been through, believe me, I can smell a rat.

I have to say, I was impressed by his apology for several reasons.

First, he’s returning to rehab, although I suspect he won’t be going back to the facility in Mississippi where he spent those 45 days. After my husband completed his initial stay in rehab (at the place where, incidentally, the expert at Tiger’s Mississippi center used to be on staff), they strongly advised him to check into another place in Los Angeles for two more weeks. It was, I suppose, a sort-of halfway house. He went, unwillingly, but he got kicked out within a few days. The fact that Tiger is continuing therapy and is willing to say that he’s putting his career on hold to focus on his recovery, to me, is a very positive sign.

Secondly, he took full responsibility for his actions and refused to blame anyone else. He stuck up for his wife and made it clear that it is his bad behavior that has caused all the problems in their marriage. That’s huge. In contrast, my husband blamed me. He had a list of things I had done wrong that caused him to seek out the arms (and other parts) of other women. Now, I’m not for one second saying that I was or am blameless. In fact, I wasn’t and still am not. But I know this for goddamn sure – if you’re in rehab and can come up with even a smidgen of blame for any other person as the reason you’re an addict, then the dollars you’re spending on that expensive rehab are doing you as much good as the “mom” jeans did for Jessica Simpson’s figure. We can only change when we stop giving other people the power in our lives. If Tiger truly does blame no one but himself, he’s on the right track.

Next, he doesn’t know when he’ll return to golf. The fact that Tiger Woods has no plans to play the Master’s or Pebble Beach means he’s not trying to hurry though rehab and recovery to check them off his list and placate his wife, sponsors, and fans before getting back to his career. To me, it means the therapists are getting through to him. He’s willing to submit to the process rather than arrogantly and defiantly saying he’s been through rehab and everything’s fine now.

The final thing that made me think this apology might be genuine was his mention of getting back to his spiritual foundation. I realize that most of my readers are not Buddhists and might scoff at its teachings on sin and redemption. But when it comes to dealing with addiction, I don’t believe it matters which spiritual practice you follow – it’s following a spiritual practice that makes the difference. And as Tiger pointed out, “Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint.” Learning to control his impulses is the whole point of his rehab, right?

Addiction has been wisely defined for me as a lack of intimacy with one’s soul. I don’t know if Tiger has reconnected with his soul. And I don’t know if the tears in his eyes were genuine. His wife said it best, that his apology will ultimately not be in words but in how he lives. So we’ll have to wait and see if it’s real. What impresses me is the simple fact that he seems to be acting so very differently than my husband acted during and after rehab.

For the first time in my life, I actually find myself betting on and rooting for Tiger Woods.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

A Lot of Huffing and Puffing (and Blowing)

A common urban legend has it that men think about sex every seven seconds. And if that statistic were actually true, one might reasonably argue that all men are sex addicts. Although that myth has been debunked, it brought to mind a college literature professor I once had.

A friend had warned me about this particular professor, saying, “The man makes everything about sex.”

Given that much of literature does actually have sexual overtones (and undertones, highlights, lowlights, and the occasional weave), I assumed that the professor was merely pointing out the obvious sexual references in modern literature and that my friend, a biology major, simply didn’t understand how prevalent it was.

I was wrong.

The professor really did make everything about sex. I mean, in the space of two minutes, the man could turn “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into graphic porn. His lectures made it sound like sex makes the world go ‘round. Sadly, from the looks of him, it was a slow rotation.

One day, we were reading T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in class. Not surprisingly, he began by talking about the sensuality of the poem, quoting the line, “Do I dare to eat a peach?” This is what he said: “Can you just see and feel and taste the sensuousness of the peach? The juice dripping down your chin and running down your arm after you bite into the flesh of the peach?”

There was a collective gulp in the room. Thirty sets of eyes widened, and then we all ducked our heads in embarrassment.

Then we came to this part of the poem:

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.



“What is the word picture here?” he asked the class. Duh. It’s a cat. But a big dumb jock in the back of class said, “Sex?”

So I can see where the “experts” might come to the conclusion that men think about sex every seven seconds. It’s not a big stretch to guess what topic is most on their minds.

But what about women? What do we think about when we’re not cutting gum out of a toddler’s hair or teaching a maniacal teenage girl to drive?

For me, it’s hair.

I swear I was a woolly mammoth in a previous life. The time I met Jon Bon Jovi and he came out of his dressing room with a pissed-off look on his face? It wasn’t because someone woke him up to go meet a fan. No, he took one look at me and my daughter and saw two chicks with more hair than he has, and it rocked his world.

Now, I’m not complaining about how much hair is on my head. I’m grateful, actually. But the fact that I blow out a hairdryer every six months plus the Great Hairdryer Debacle of 1979 and the Wedding Cake Disaster of 1984 means I have hair nightmares.

In the summer of 1979, I was at a teenage camp in Hollywood, Florida. The building was a former luxury hotel that had been built in the 1930s, and I’m pretty sure the wiring had never been updated. I was innocently drying my hair when the lights went dim. There was a pop and a flash, and my hair dryer started smoking. Then the lights went out completely. I set the hairdryer down and walked out of the bathroom. The hotel room was dark. And so was the hallway.

Basically, I knocked out power to three floors of that ancient hotel because my hairdryer overheated. And for the rest of the week, no one -- not one of my so-called friends – would lend me a hairdryer.

The Wedding Cake incident was worse. I was serving cake at a teacher’s wedding reception the summer after I graduated from high school. When I bent over to slice into the Groom’s Cake, my hair fell into a burning candle and caught on fire. I wasn’t hurt, but the scent of burning hair can actually ruin a wedding reception.

Much of my thoughts are about keeping my hair out of my eyes (and away from burning things) and how long I can go without washing it. And when I do wash it, I must schedule enough time to dry it, including several rest periods for the dryer during the process so that I don’t set off the eleven smoke alarms that were installed in my home by the paranoid previous owners.

And the problem is only getting worse the older I get. Josh, my hairdresser of fifteen years, said to me the other day while he was drying my hair, “You know, I think you have more hair now than you did when I met you.”

He’s right. I have more hair on my head AND on my entire body. In fact, my face is now covered with a fine blonde peach fuzz that makes it nearly impossible to wear makeup. I complained about it to the girl who does my facials.

“Why don’t you just shave it?” Chris asked.

Huh? Girls don’t shave their faces. I don’t need a five-o’clock shadow. Now that would really piss off Jon Bon Jovi.

“No, girls don’t have the hormones that would make it look like they had a beard,” Chris insisted. “A lot of my clients do it.”

I'm thinking about it – every seven seconds, in fact. But I'm afraid people will see me walking around with tiny toilet paper booboo blotters stuck to my face. If I decide to do it, will I ever actually admit to shaving my face?

Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Screwing with Forgiveness

Although I’m not in the habit of replying to comments by those too lily-livered to reveal their identity, a comment regarding my “Open Letter to Elin” must be addressed.

Anonymous wrote: “Yeah, Screw forgiveness. That’s just some 2000 year old ancient concept anyway.”

The English major in me is screaming that I cannot overlook the glaring punctuation errors in your post. But since we’re on the topic of forgiveness, I’m going to completely and utterly forgive you for those errors.

See, according to my dictionary, to “forgive” is to “stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw, or mistake. And I’m not feeling the least bit angry or resentful because you don’t know how to correctly punctuate a sentence.

Now, your reference to a “2,000-year-old concept” leads me to believe that you are a Christian and that you believe Jesus Christ, who was born just over 2,000 years ago, is the author of forgiveness by becoming a sacrifice for our sins. But if you’ll check your concordance, you’ll find that the word “forgive” and all the derivations of it are used more in the Old Testament than in the New. So, at least for Christians, it’s more like a 6,000-year-old concept. Again, I forgive you for the error.

I also find your opening sentence interesting: “Screw forgiveness.” Were you using the word “screw” as a verb or a noun? I’m assuming from the rest of your comment that you meant it to be used as a verb, much like the way I would say on this 24-degree day, “Screw this cold. I’m going to Key West for a few days.” In other words, you are saying my advice to Elin about getting out of that marriage is my way of ignoring God’s command to forgive others the way He forgave us.

Are you implying that Elin and every other woman married to a serial cheater should just stick around and hope her husband doesn’t give her herpes, AIDS, syphilis, or the run-of-the-mill skank crud? Really? Is that what you’re saying?

Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe you intended for “screw” to be a noun, implying that we need to invent a whole new brand of forgiveness, one called “Screw Forgiveness.” I kind of like that. Finding out your spouse is cheating is such a horribly heart-wrenching experience that it really takes a lot more effort to stop feeing angry or resentful toward the offender than, say, someone dents your car. “Screw Forgiveness” could define a whole new level of forgiveness.

All our quibbling about semantics aside, I think our real issue goes back to the definition of forgiveness. While the dictionary's first definition of forgiveness is to “stop feeling angry or resentful,” the second is, simply, “to pardon someone.” The word “pardon,” of course, means to “release from punishment.”

I can do the first kind of forgiveness. In fact, I must, and not just because God says to. I have to do it for my own mental health. But releasing someone from punishment, negating the consequences of the offending action? Only God can do that. And for me to try doing God’s job isn’t forgiveness. It’s stupidity.

A child whose parents unfailingly shield him from the consequences for his actions, incidentally, often grows up to be a full-blown narcissist. And go check every sex addiction treatment center in the country. I’d be willing to bet they’re all full of narcissists.

Another erroneous belief about forgiveness is the idea that forgiving and forgetting are synonymous. Three years ago, I visited Notre Dame. On the back side of that magnificent old cathedral, out in the garden, is a memorial to the French citizens who were taken away during the Holocaust and never returned. In blood red letters are the words Pardonner mais ne jamais oublier. The translation: forgive but never forget. Those words helped me sort out my feelings about forgiveness.

I’m passionate about pointing out these errant concepts of forgiveness because I struggled with the issue for years. I forgave my husband when he confessed his first affair. I forgave when he went back to the girl the next week. After that, there were more women. The simple truth is that my “forgiveness” didn’t help a single person on this planet. It just let him believe he could keep getting away with it. It actually made things worse.

You tell me, which affair should be the final straw for Elin? The first mistress, or the thirteenth, or whichever number we’re up to in the skank count? I’m all about Elin forgiving if we’re talking about her learning to stop resenting her husband, but screw the notion of forgiveness as pardoning forgetfulness. The whole point of my post was that he’s probably not going to change. She needs to save herself and her children from any more heartbreak so that she can begin the process of forgiveness.

Yes, forgiveness is a grand (and ancient) concept. But I don’t believe it’s possible to fully forgive until you’ve removed yourself from the offensive situation. And for that reason alone, I would encourage her to leave.

Screw stupidity.

Monday, February 8, 2010

An Open Letter to Elin Woods . . .

Oh, girl, what a mess you find yourself in.

I don’t have all the facts, but here’s what I think happened. You met a handsome, charming, very wealthy and very famous athlete, and he asked you out. For some reason, you turned him down at first. He continued to pursue you, and the whole world started screaming in your ear: Are you crazy? He’s Tiger-freakin’-Woods, the greatest golfer of all time!”

You couldn’t put a label on it, that feeling that something wasn’t quite right, so you ignored your gut and went out with him. And then, when he asked you to marry him, you asked him, probably over and over, what it was – that something – that was making you hesitate.

“I’m the greatest golfer of all time, quite possibly, and I’m handsome and charming and fabulously wealthy, and perfect. Nothing is wrong, sweetheart,” he said. “Now please marry me.”

So you married him and had two children with him, all the time thinking how silly you were to doubt him. Anyway, since you loved him so much, your love could fix everything. But still, something was bothering you.

And then there was a rumor. Or maybe two. But he laughed it off, saying that people always want to take down greatness. He probably said, “People are always looking for dirt. It’s a tabloid world, and we’re famous. Ignore them. Just keep being gorgeous and fabulous, but don’t ever mention to anyone that something is bothering you. Keep your mouth shut and your makeup on at all times.”

So you did. You ignored the rumors and the feeling that something was wrong. Until the day you found out the truth and couldn’t ignore it any longer: Tiger is a bad apple. And all your hoping and wishing and praying and loving couldn’t make him a peach.

A few years ago, my sister and her husband noticed that one of their toilets wasn’t working properly. Sometimes it flushed, and sometimes it didn’t. Their children were young and newly potty trained, so the possibilities were endless. The Barbie doll torso on the floor of Faith’s closet? Her head and lower extremities could have been the potty clogger. Hell, it could have been anything, perhaps even the puppy who had “run away.”

Kevin used a plunger. He used a pipe snake. Every time, the problem would resolve itself for a day or so, but in the end it always came back. This went on for weeks: the toilet worked sometimes, but just as often, it was clogged horribly. Finally, he took the entire toilet out of the bathroom, turned it upside down, took it apart somehow, and found the culprit -- an apple with several bites out of it. A child had apparently been eating an apple on the potty, dropped it, probably shrugged, and flushed.

See, dear Elin, an apple is the most natural thing in the world, a nearly perfect food. But in some circumstances, it’s a huge problem. Tiger may be the greatest golfer in the world, but being a great athlete has never made anyone a good spouse or even a good person.

I’ve learned not to ignore that gut feeling that something isn’t quite right about a person or a situation. I believe it’s God’s way of telling you to walk away, or at the very least, go beneath the surface and dig deep until you discover what’s making you uneasy. Quite often, the cause of your uneasiness is that a person is not what they claim to be. It’s a lack of integrity that’s at the core of every bad apple and also what, according to the proverb, “spoils the whole bunch.”

But you already ignored that nagging little voice, and you know what I’m saying is true. How does that help you now? You’re probably hoping to save the marriage for the sake of your kids. You want to give him a chance to turn things around. I hate to say it, but all the expensive rehab in the world isn’t going to coax an apple out of a toilet or reverse the damage that has already been done to your marriage. And please pardon the obvious pun, but a Tiger never changes his stripes. Despite what he and his therapists are telling you, I’m betting that your gut is still telling you that things aren’t right.

And although I’ve learned not to ignore the feeling that all is not right, I’m still not sure what the proper term is for it.

I just call it a “crapple.”

Monday, February 1, 2010

Mine's Bigger than Reggie's

At the beginning of the end of my marriage, my husband and I took a trip to the Bahamas with several other couples. Sixteen friends at the Atlantis Resort, lying around the pool drinking Dirty Bananas during the day and spending our evenings enjoying a long dinner followed by a little gambling, drinking, and dancing.

What? You’ve never had a Dirty Banana? Shut up! It’s a banana daiquiri with Kahlua poured over the top, and, all sexual metaphors about cheating husbands and Dirty Bananas aside, it’s enough to make you not care about a husband’s dalliances for a good thirty minutes.

I’d had big hopes for the trip. Most of the people in our group were friends from church, and I was hoping that my husband would re-connect with some of them and, as a result, return to church. It was also our first time away from the children since he’d been in rehab, and I thought that maybe some time together in a romantic spot surrounded by couples who loved each other might help us rekindle the love we’d lost.

That same week, the Atlantis was hosting a large celebrity golf tournament. Ten minutes after we checked in, someone in our party spotted Wayne Gretzky. Later that afternoon, another friend reported seeing Michael Jordan in the casino. At dinner that evening, one of the girls told us she had been in line behind Kid Rock at the waterslide. Pamela Anderson was on display in the pool area the whole week, although she wasn’t wearing her red Baywatch swimsuit.

We were literally in Paradise Island surrounded by famous people, eating fabulous meals, and competing to see who could be the biggest lazyass of all. It was shaping up to be the trip I’d hoped for.

Well, it was until halfway through the week. My husband staggered into our hotel room in the middle of the night and woke me up to tell me that he’d just disclosed to several of my girlfriends that he’d been having an affair.

And I should be grateful, according to his drunken reasoning, because now no one would ask questions when I filed for a divorce.

Humiliated and enraged, I got up and packed my bag. I called Delta and found out the next flight to Atlanta was at nine. I booked it and decided I’d rather wait at the airport than risk seeing anyone I knew, certain the story had already spread to everyone else in our group. My husband was sleeping with the lower third of his body hanging off of the bed. I kicked his leg on my way out of the room and said, “I’m leaving. I hope you’re happy, jackass.”

On my way down to the lobby, the elevator stopped, and an older black man who looked very familiar to me stepped in.

I said hello, and he nodded a greeting. Then he pointed at my bag, a soft-sided brown Samsonite on wheels, and said, “That’s a big suitcase.”

“Yeah, the ticket agents always tell me it’s one of the bigger ones they’ve seen,” I laughed.

He didn’t laugh with me. “It’s too big,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said that bag is too big. You can’t even lift it.”

“Yes, I can,” I said. “I lifted it off the luggage rack in my room three minutes ago.”

He ignored me and continued: “I have my own plane, and if you showed up to fly with me carrying that bag, I’d tell you it’s you or the bag,” he said.

The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Mr. October, Reggie Jackson, exited the elevator ahead of me. After four days in Atlantis, I had finally seen my first celebrity.

I’ve often wondered what the man saw when he looked at me. I’d been crying, and I hadn’t bothered to shower. I was a sad, sad girl, so horribly discombobulated by the fight with my husband that I might have misunderstood the man. Perhaps he wasn’t talking about my actual suitcase. Maybe he was referring to the baggage I was hauling around, a load I continued to carry for years, until the day I decided I was tired of defining myself through the lens of infidelity and a failed marriage.

Nah. He was talking about the Samsonite. So as a public service announcement, friends, please know that in the event you’re ever invited to fly on Reggie Jackson’s plane that he owns, pack lightly. That lardass has to save room for an ego the size of my suitcase.

On the other hand, it would be awfully fun to show up with a bag bearing a luggage tag that reads “Mine is bigger than Reggie Jackson’s.”