Living Happily Ever After
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Blog Articles

“Family” of Strangers

Date: September 27, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

In the moments following my former husband’s 2009 revelations,  as I wrote about long ago, he instantly became a stranger. I felt like I didn’t know him—and never had.

The June 20, 2012 “American Greed” episode revealed another stranger I guess I’d never really known: my former mother-in-law.   Sadly, it became apparent that she had never really known, or gotten me and what I’m about, either.

I discovered that when posted online with the “American Greed” episode teaser was a letter she had written to the judge at the time of her son’s sentencing, a letter I’d never seen or read—the letter that said something to the effect that she believed I’d been in cahoots with her son and helped him hide the money he stole so we could enjoy ourselves when he got out of prison!

Not! In fact, not even. By the time she’d written that letter to the judge urging him to make her son pay for his crimes and as part of it attempted to erroneously throw ME under the bus along with her Ponzi scheme-committing offspring, I’d already divorced her son and had moved to another state.

Sometimes the unexpected life isn’t just strange…it’s stranger than fiction. All you can do is shake your head and laugh—that’s what I’m doing.

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” (Mark Twain)

 

 

The Blunders I Make

Date: February 2, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I’m more financially successful, but it just means the shopping blunders I make are bigger now.” (Cathy Guisewite)

I’m not more, or even successful at all, financially, now—in my unexpected life.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not capable of a shopping blunder on the rare occasions I venture into the retail arena, I proved that on my husband’s 50th birthday cruise. You can count the number of times since 2009 I’ve “gone shopping” on less than 10 fingers. (Why shop, or even “look” or window shop, why tempt yourself to spend money you don’t have, when you have no money?)

It happened after the candy store incident. (The moment in a store my husband accidentally called me by his ex-wife’s name. Poor guy! He’s only done that once but he’ll probably never live it down, especially since I’ve immortalized it in this blog:)

We were strolling along the sidewalk of a quaint eastern town when I glanced in a window of a store that looked like it sold all kinds of fun, unique, interesting, vintage, boutique-style items. I announced to the group, “I’m going in here. Does anyone want to come?” Everyone kept walking so I told my husband to tell the group to go ahead, I’d catch up, I just wanted to look in the store for a minute, and I headed inside.

To my surprise, my husband followed me. I thought, “Ah, new love! I’ve forgotten that the newlywed phase of marriage is so nice! How wonderful it is that my husband will follow me into a store simply for the sake of spending time with me. How nice of him. How patient.”

A few moments later, his brother joined us. I thought, “Wow. What nice men in this family—to follow their wife, or their sister-in-law, into a store so they won’t be alone. How chivalrous.”

I started to look around at the merchandise for sale and then suddenly it hit me. Just WHAT kind of store had I ventured into? Lets just say the items for sale were…inappropriate. Of a…suggestive nature. And the theme underlying everything appeared to be nudity and…private parts. OOPS.

“Oh my goodness!” I exclaimed. “What kind of store is this? This is NOT what I thought I was going to find in here!”

My husband laughed. “I wondered what you were doing shopping in a place like this,” he said. His brother agreed. “Yes, I didn’t expect you to shop in a place like this, but I was even more surprised that you announced to everyone where you were heading, so I had to come and see this for myself.”

Leave it to me to unknowingly stumble upon a store like that and to unwittingly go inside to shop. Only I would do something like that—and announce it to my mother-in-law, her sister, friends and other relatives, some of whom I was meeting for the first time! I quickly made my exit and caught up to the group. There were many an eyebrow raised in my direction, lets put it that way!

I’d finish this tale by saying, “Andrea Merriman does it again.” Only it’s Andrea Ramsey now. But apparently, I’m still blundering. You know what they say: ”A blunder at the right moment is better than cleverness at the wrong time.” (Carolyn Wells)

I guess.