My Idea for a “Shit List” May 15, 2008

My best friend, this morning, was sleeping in her bed. Her ex-husband, who is psychotic, came to her door because she didn’t answer any of the 10 threatening and insulting voicemail messages he had left her calling her a “tramp”, a “whore”, and a “loser”, and their daughter let him in the house.

She heard his voice and escaped into the bathroom, which he proceeded to enter, called her a few more names, and then whacked her across the face and knocked her right off the toilet onto the floor.

She got herself up, attempted to chase him out the door, while he is continually calling her names, and finally lost it, whipping a set of keys in her hand at his back.

He finally left, she called the cops, and discovered that if she presses charges they will both go to jail because “it was all said and done with” and then she threw the keys at him - making it a double assault.

Sigh. Deep heavy sigh.

She also can’t get a restraining order “until he does something”. I stood right there next to the officer telling her “not in ____ County, anyway”.

So what are we to do?

By the way, said psycho ex-husband hates my guts with a fiery passion because I have dared to tell him, to his face, to knock it off, leave, and that, oh, by the way, I think men who talk to their wives and hit them like he has for years should be buried up to their necks in the sand and a lawn mower run over their heads. You know - kind of as a public service.

I am also, in his book, a “whore”, a “tramp”, and a “loser”.

Which - whatever. I’ve had my ass beat by bigger men than him and should push ever come to shove and he make a threatening move toward me, I know without a doubt I could tear him limb from limb.

The point is - the nutty fucker drives by here day and night. (My friend is also who I bought my palace from and lives about - I don’t know - 30 secs walk away from me.) He calls her day and night repeatedly.

OK, so the law is set up so that “they” can’t do anything to him until he kills her, or somes close.

What about the rest of society?

I don’t know who said that evil exists - nay, even thrives, when good men do nothing.

And I absolutely believe it is my job, as a woman hell bent on leaving the world a better place for being here, that I have the right, even the obligation, to confront shit like this by standing up calmly and saying, “Alright, knock it off. Your behavior is not acceptable here, it will not be tolerated, so go away.”

And then someone told me, yeah, but if you do that, you just inflame the situation.

So I guess what we’re all supposed to do is just sit there and be called names by needle dick freaked out wife beating assholes?

Um. No.

There has to be a better alternative.

I really don’t care about being called a bitch or any derivative thereof. I am one, certainly, at times.

At one time I had the brilliant idea of publishing a “shit list”. You know, as in “Oh, I’m on her shit list today.” And just taking submissions from women and publishing them with men’s names, not with hearsay and mean spirited revenge stuff, but just with verifiable stuff like “doesn’t pay his child support”, “beats his wife”, “cheated on his wife” - and leaving that list in places like bars where women and men run into each other.

That way, should a man and woman meet and there be some interest generated, the woman could say, “Hold on,” look him up, and see what his past “references” are.

Yes, there would still be the morons like me who would say stuff like “Oh, he’s not like that with me” and “Oh, nobody understands him like me.” Which makes me laugh to think about, I am so predictable, and why I want to be alone because I know the kind of mental contortions I do.

But maybe - maybe? - it would have the effect of old fashioned shunning. Maybe those little pukes would all go somewhere where they could hang with like minded pukes and leave the rest of the world alone.

Maybe it would change the world.

Yes I know. I KNOW, Adam - who will invariably point out the flaws in my idea from a legal point of view. I love you Adam. I really do. You would never be on anybody’s shit list, except maybe - temporarily - on Britt’s sometimes.

I’m open to ideas for refinements.