My husband did it

Feminists have said for years that women -- especially married women -- should take control of their personal finances -- Never trust a man to do it for you.

WELL -- my husband's been telling me for months that his clients owe him thousands of dollars, and I'm starting to think he's a liar.

I got this nagging feeling a couple of days ago that something was fishy when Jerod made three separate trips to the grocery store. My husband's far too perfect to do something absent minded, like driving home without the groceries or losing his credit card in the parking lot -- those are my kind of screw ups.

TRUTH

If I was bit by a poisonous snake, and my life depended on Jerod making a second trip to the grocery store for a vial of life-saving antivenom; I'd die. 

"I'm sorry," he'd tell me. "It's a waste of gas to drive in circles like that."

But here he was going back and forth -- six trips -- from the grocery store for no apparent reason. He forgot the milk on his first trip -- we already had three gallons, but OK. He went back a third time for popcorn and Kool-Aid.

So I did what any suspicious once-upon-a-time reporter would do -- I ransacked the house while Jerod was "grocery shopping." I looked at his email; I dug through his brief case, his dresser, his tool box ...  There was nothing incriminating except for the dozen-or-so 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew he had stashed in our closet. My gut still told me that something was wrong.

I wanted to tail him, but I couldn't very well pack the kids in the car at the same time he was leaving. I'd have to catch him off guard. My instinct was to stake out his job site -- park my car across the street and wait for him to stumble.

I went there after work this evening I was almost asleep when his voice  "Take it easy," to his crew. I watched him through my rear-view mirror climb into his car and start the ignition. His phone was out, and just as he raised it to his ear I was startled by the sound of my own phone ringing -- SHIT! 

I sunk down as low as I could in my seat and answered -- "Hello?"

"Hey -- uhm -- it's gonna be a while before I get out of here," he stuttered cagily. "Do you need me to pick anything up on the way home?"

As a matter of fact I do have some items I'd like you to grab for me -- a .44 revolver, some ammo, a spool of rope, duct tape and a tarp; you BASTARD. It was all I could do not to run across the street and kick the crap out of him, but I needed to know what he was up to. 

"I'm still at work too," I told him. "I'll call you before I take off ... Love you."

He hung up the phone and started down the street. I followed him from a safe distance pulling off the road as discreetly as possible when he stopped at a SEXpresso stand to ogle the topless baristas, and again when he stopped at a Hallmark store to buy God knows what -- it required a very large bag whatever it was.

I wondered if I wasn't going crazy -- maybe this guy was a stranger; my husband's doppelganger -- but he flashed me a peek at his butt crack bending over, and I knew it was Jerod. 

We started off again. Jerod ran two red lights, and nearly plowed over the Audi in front him. I was sure I'd lost him, but I caught sight of his car turning left into a Public Storage compound a couple of signals ahead of me. 

My head throbbed while I plotted my entry into compound without a key card. I could cry to the guy in the office, "Please let me in. I'll do anything you want." But what if the guy was a woman?

I abandoned my car in the driveway and approached the security gate. It seemed rather unlikely that I could scale the wrought iron death trap without getting injured, so did what comes most naturally to me -- I screamed.

"JEROD ALLEN TRENCHARD ..."

I carried on like a crazy person yelling for my husband until it dawned on me -- watching the lady in the rental office peek through the blinds in the window -- I had a cell phone in my hand. I called him.

"Are you on you're way home now?" He asked me. 

"No," I said calmly. "I'm outside the gate at Public Storage waiting for you to let me in."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean get your ass out here, and let me in," I screamed.

Jerod appeared a minute later red-faced and deflated. He pointed out the unit and stood there in awkward silence. He fiddled with his pants pockets trying desperately to hide his hands. I could see he was shaking. I was shaking too. 

I jumped out of my car and heaved the door to the storage unit open. 

Was this some kind of joke?

There I was alongside my hillbilly husband staring into nightmare -- a storage unit dressed up like Granny Doe's parlor with hundreds of Precious Moments figures and dainty porcelain bunnies and cats and pigs. There were hand-crocheted doilies draped over the arms of a turquoise wing-back; a pair of spoon-carved end tables; and a french-looking curio cabinet with curved glass doors.

My first thought was burglary. Jerod must have robbed some grandmother blind, but no. It turns out he bought the stuff -- every damned trinket -- with money he told me he never received.

"You're telling me that you spent $11,000 -- where? A church rummage sale? A Christian book store? What the f**k is going on?"

"I'm having an affair with a Sunday-school teacher ..."

"YOU'RE WHAT?"

"I'm KIDDING."

I CONFESS ...

Jerod was disappointed that my last post was "SO sedate."

He nagged me all night Tuesday to write something "crazy" about the crap we've been going through -- "Write something like, 'I know what Jerod is doing with his paychecks. He's keeping some barista whore in a house that's nicer than ours ..."'

It told him "no" at first -- "Absolutely not." But I figured since we're in this ridiculous situation, why not laugh about it? I wanted to make Jerod gay, but he said that was way too far fetched.

"No one would ever believe it."