Episode 1: Personal Drawers

Before I began my journey into 2007, because it was such an eventful year, I thought I’d reflect back on some tidbits of my long ago past. You know: back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (well, more accurately, when I was married to my first husband, and the marriage was coming apart). It was a crazy time in my life...I had married young (while still in high school and to answer the unasked question: NO, we were not pregnant, just young and stupid and...gag....in love).

EPISODE #1:
(A Personal Drawer Means Just That)

We were living in the metro Atlanta area and I was working for an attorney whom shall remain nameless. He was young, only about 26 or 27 at the time, and had taken over his father’s law practice. He was also newly married to THE MOST proper Southern Belle you can imagine. She was so polite and correct and sugary sweet it made my teeth hurt just talking to her. And he was just as exacting and PC and precise and “by the book” as she was. I mean, you look up “Mr. And Mrs. Perfect America” in the dictionary, you see their pictures.

So, it came as quite a shock one day when I found what I found in his office. Now, I am not a snooper, so I was not mucking around anywhere I should not have been. He was in state court one day, and called me in a panic from there because he was missing an important item from the file of the case he was in court about. I looked here, I looked there, I checked files and offices, and his exact words to me were, “tear up the carpet if you have to, but FIND THAT [...item]”! So I went back to his office, as he remembered distinctly reviewing this document the night before while sitting at his desk. I started rummaging once again through his various desk drawers and started emptying them one by one, looking frantically for this document. From this one particular drawer, that appeared to be a “personal” drawer (i.e., cough drops, kleenex, tooth brush, sinus medication, inhaler, etc. among the items in the front part of the drawer) I kept looking deeper and further back in the drawer.

WHOA, HOA! OMG! Was this EVER a “personal drawer”. The first thing I found was a receipt for a post office box rental in another town, and it was not the town in which he lived. Now, that in and of itself was not so shocking. But, he had a PO box for the office, and I knew his home took mail delivery, so at first I kind of wondered what he needed another PO box for, especially in a town about 20 miles west. But...whatever. So I kept looking for this particular item he needed for court.

Hello! I found copies of order forms from what must have been what I’ll call here “men’s magazines” where he had ordered....um....let’s just say....personal pleasure items....all for delivery to this post office box in that next town over. OK, I’ll spill it...he ordered a blow up “companion” doll, cuffs, whips, chains, and ...um...particular items that...let’s just say that they resemble and are supposed to function the same as a particular part of the male anatomy. EeeeeeeeWwwwwwww!

OK, now I have worked for lawyers my whole life. My brother is a lawyer, and some of my dearest friends are lawyers. And I know how they save EVERY scrap of paper, EVER, EVER, and ALWAYS. But to save copies of the entire pages of the order forms where he ordered his kinky toys? Picture it: he filled out the order form WITH HIS OWN, REAL NAME, with the PO box rental as the address, and instead of just photocopying the order form part at the bottom corner of the page, he copied the whole, entire pag, pictures and all. I assume this was so he'd know and have a picture of exactly what it was he was ordering. I did not find the toys themselves, nor did I find the magazines which these order forms came out of.

All of which leads me to believe two things: 1) this stuff, and the magazines from which he ordered them, were not going to his home, or being enjoyed in the company of his lovely young wife; and 2) he must have a room, an apartment, something, somewhere where he was keeping these items.

Another interesting thing to note: this was back in the day before cell phones, so if he had a little “sumpin, sumpin” going on on the side, she certainly wasn’t calling him at the office during the day. Cause I answered the phones all day from 8 to 5, and never once did I answer a call that even remotely sounded suspicious. And if he’s cautious enough to have “her” (if indeed there was an ongoing “her) never call the office during working hours, then why leave all these receipts and order form copies, photocopies no less, straight from the magazines, in his office drawer?

So anyways.....draw your own conclusions, as I did. Actually, I did not want to think about it that much, but I just could not help myself. It was the proverbial train wreck that you can’t help yourself from rubbernecking to see. It haunted me for days and weeks. I could not go into his office for months afterward without feeling awkward.

After my discovery, I just put everything back where it belonged and kept looking for the item that had been the purpose of this mission in the first place. Turns out, boss man had it in his possession all along. He’d simply looked over it the first time he searched his briefcase. From that day forward, I always made sure he had EVERYTHING EVER he could possibly need, when he left the office to go to court. Do you blame me?