Heh.

You know, I have to admit that I have a penchant for tabloid freak-shows. That said penchant speaks to the appalling emptiness of my inner life is a given, but it does occasionally lead to moments of cosmic black humor. To wit:

Mary Kay Letourneau--who, I'm sure I don't have to tell you but will anyway so you can pretend you don't pay attention to tabloid freak shows like your pathetic narrator, is/was the lunatic psycho teacher who, ahem, "fell in love" with a 12-year-old, Vili Fualaau (damn those Samoan names are tricky), seduced him (or he her, depending on which sick bastard you ask) into a sexual relationship, or, as the state of Washington likes to call it, "statutory rape" and as I like to call it, "so close to pedophilia it's just not even remotely defensible, he was 11 when they met for God's sake," got knocked up, had the kid, got sentenced to six months on a sweetheart plea agreement, promptly sought out the kid again upon her release, f***ed him in a car where they were quickly caught but not quickly enough to prevent her second impregnation, and got her skinny mid-30-years-old ass thrown in the slammer for 7+ years, the maximum under the law but which continues to seem a ridiculously short sentence given what would have happened to a 35-year-old man who did the same thing to a 12-year-old girl (and if he'd done it to a boy, even 'consensually,' oh my God would he be dead), and don't hand me that horses**t about how it's different for young girls because they're more easily impressionable and men are culturally dominant and blah blah blah, because there's nothing in this world more impressionably stupid than a 12-year-old boy just hitting puberty and yet still being a kid and wanting to be mommied and not having the slightest clue as to how to sort out the contradictory signals his body is sending him--this kid was offered the best of both worlds: a mother-figure whom he could f***--hell, I know very few grown men who could resist that--and where the hell was the kid's mother in all this sound and fury--shouldn't she have clapped the kid in a chastity belt and told Letourneau, in careful tones and with a knife to her throat, that little Vili was now off-limits--damn right she should have, this whole thing is just wrong.

Now.

Where was I?

Oh, right, crazy b*tch who f***ed a kid. Well, the good news is, there's a happy ending to all of this: They're getting married. Yes, despite the fact that she's a nationally recognized convicted sex offender with no job skills beyond teaching children (good luck on that job application, Mary Kay!) and he's an unemployed high school dropout, those crazy kids (well, one crazy kid, one lunatic hag) are somehow gonna make this work. And she's pregnant! Again! Hurrah! How is that a happy ending, you ask? Well, not for their children, of course. One shudders to think what those girls are going to go through in a few years when junior high school beckons. (After all, junior high school female cliques are known for being highly tolerant and not at all likely to victimize those who are even slightly different.) And not for Letourneau's other four children from the marriage she was in at the time of the--let me say it again--rape. (By all accounts, the marriage was in trouble, but her solution to this unhappy state of affairs does not get John Gray's seal of approval. Hell, I suspect even the Marquis DeSade would've blinked a couple times and walked away without comment.) No, they get to continue to think of their mother as an unrepentant child molester. Not, I suspect, for Vili's mom, who's been stuck raising the bastard offspring all this time--though maybe her silence in this matter derives from a sick obsessive need for grandchildren. But it is still a happy ending.

For whom?

For those of us who, as I stated earlier, have an eye for cosmic black humor.

Because Mary Kay and Vili let their wedding plans be known right before Valentine's Day.

Which means that all those who found themselves alone this February 14th--all those normal, decent people who questioned why they hadn't found someone--all those who sat through godawful 'desperation dates,' full of awkward silences and prayers that the waiter would come back just to break the tension--all those who curled up on the couch in fetal positions, convinced that they would be alone forever--all those poor, poor people got the added kick in the gut of hearing that a horrible, horrible woman who'd perpetrated an act of appalling sickness on a child--she's getting married! To her victim! Who loves her despite--no, because of that act of appalling sickness! Take that, all you normal, decent people who've never even thought of f***ing a child. You get nothing on this most romantic of holidays!* She gets the 'love of her live,' and she couldn't be happier! You'll find the bottle of sleeping pills on the second shelf of the medicine cabinet, and the fifth of Scotch is over on the wet bar! Have fun!

And that...is funny. And thus, a happy ending.


*Official Disclaimer: The author of this blog does not, in fact, regard Valentine's Day as 'the most romantic of holidays.' He is more inclined to align himself with those who regard it as an exploitative hustle perpetrated on the emotionally desperate by the massive conglomerates of the greeting card/chocolate sampler industries. However, he is also aware that many of those who deride the holiday the loudest do so out of the secret bitterness that they too are alone, or not involved with the person they want to be, so he does not wholly endorse the latter position either. If you're involved, just buy some flowers and eat out and be glad you're not alone and leave it at that. And if you are alone, just be glad you don't have to buy flowers or spring for dinner for someone you'd probably be bored with by now. Subject closed.