Wessays ™: 745 Umbrella Man in the Kitchen

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

745 Umbrella Man in the Kitchen

News item: A guy in western Pennsylvania "man" has been charged with using a frying pan to beat up his fiancée. This was a few months after he was found not guilty of charges he deliberately poked one of her eyes out with an umbrella. He's 54. Don't have an age for her, but public records show someone with her name in her town as being 27. Immediately, this arrangement rings alarms. Wazzamatter, guy, raiding the cradle because women your own age are too wrinkled? Or is it that they just know better than to stand for your crap?

Nice the guy hangs out in the kitchen. Not so nice his weapon of choice, a frying pan. Cops say she had to be airlifted to a hospital for treatment of broken ribs and face injuries. For the umbrella incident, he said it was self defense. She picked up and threatened him with a glass table, he said.

This sounds like a guy who gets tanked up or methed up, gets angry and throws things around. Chances are, she's a whole lot smaller than he is. And there are indications she has a daughter younger than ten, though the Associated Press story doesn't say so directly. Let's hope the kid didn't see all this. If she did, it'll screw her up for a lifetime. She'll spend her teen years and 20s searching for a guy who can handle and umbrella and a frying pan, and it's a good bet she'll find one. Or several. She'll likely turn violent herself, if not physically, then emotionally. She'll think all of that is normal, and for her, it will be.

The fiancée is not likely to leave this idiot. She'll tell you convincingly that she loves him and thinks she can change him. Nah. Almost never happens. And should she have the good sense to get out from under this situation, you can bet he'll find another victim.

The question is how'd the guy get off the hook for poking an eye out with an umbrella? "It was raining out. I just had the umbrella at the ready because I was going out to get 'Charlott' a Subway Foot Long. She provoked me and what could I do? Pass that Jim Beam. will ya?"

Shrapnel:

--Mini fast food review: McD's "Third Pounders." Blech!

--People who do this writing kind of work need editors to keep us honest and for when our BS meters aren't working. Some want to make gratuitous changes. In the words of Mike Clancy, "They're editors. They can't help themselves."

--Remembering Chet Currier, gentle "Aw Shucks" kind of guy with a razor sharp intellect who forgot more about mutual funds than anyone reading (or writing) this will ever know. Chet's gone three years this month, way before his time. But we still ask him questions and sometimes he answers and the answers always make sense.