Ask a Stand-Up Comedian
Have you always wanted to know the secrets to life? To a happy relationship? How to drive the big rigs and experience the fulfilling career you've always wanted?
No one affiliated with this Web site knows any of those things, but if you send in your questions, we'll be glad to answer them in a completely useless and at times cosmically insulting way. WARNING: These columns get raunchy sometimes. Read at your own risk.
When I was a child, I developed a huge crush on "Mickey," a young man who worked for my mother. As I grew older, the crush grew to love. Twenty-six years later, I am still very much in love with him -- and we were married two months ago.
Last night, Mickey told me something that's tearing my heart out: He and Mother had an affair 18 years ago. I am trying to act as though I'm OK, and promised Mickey I wouldn't tell Mom that he had confided in me. Now I honestly don't know if I can keep silent, knowing my husband had sex with my mother. I feel hurt, betrayed and sick about the news.
I still love Mickey and don't want to end our marriage. He says the affair shouldn't matter because it happened long ago, and I shouldn't dwell on it -- but in my eyes it might as well have been yesterday.
How will I ever face my mother again and not let on that I know?
-- Desperately Hurt in Florida (Actual Dear Abby question, July 2003)
Jerry Thomas: Ewww. Ewww, gross! Your husband had sex with your mother? And you thought it would be a good idea to tell US about it? Ewww! Do you even have a clue how completely gross that is? Don't you think it would have been a whole lot better for the rest of us if you had just kept the whole thing to yourself? The one word I can think of to describe this isn't even intelligible. It comes out something like "Heeeyeeeeechhhhh!" when I try to say it.
Look, there's a good reason why people keep dark, festering family secrets that haunt them to their graves. It's because they have the simple human courtesy not to inflict their private nightmares on the rest of us. They lock themselves in their homes and live desperate, solitary lives of horror and regret. And the rest of us are extremely grateful for that consideration, thank you very much.
My advice is that you move to a small, Midwestern city, as far away from major traffic hubs as possible, and keep this whole thing to yourself from now on. Develop some disturbing tics or mannerisms to deter normal people from close interaction with you. And cross us off your Christmas card list, mmmkay?