“Fidelity  n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.”
—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

“An ideal wife is one who remains faithful to you but tries to be just as charming as if she weren’t.”
—French playwright Sacha Guitry


In my dentist’s office one day, I picked up a copy of some magazine he’d put out for the diversion of waiting patients and ended up perusing an article called, “Your Marriage Could Be in Trouble…and You May Not Even Know It.”  It was all about clues that your spouse may be having an affair.  Evidently, one of the telltale signs of infidelity, for which every married person should be alert, is a vehicle parked outside your house that you don’t recognize as belonging to someone in your neighborhood.*

Lo and behold, when I arrived home after my dental visit, there was a vehicle outside my house that is not usually parked there.  “Wow!” I thought. “That certainly was a timely article!”  Heeding the article’s advice, I waited for my front door to open and someone to come out.  Incredibly, mere seconds after I pulled up, my front door did open, and someone did come out.  What’s more, I recognized the interloper.  (The article said 38% percent of affairs are with someone the betrayed spouse knows.)  Immediately, I confronted the home wrecker and shouted, “Are you having an affair with my husband?!”  “Not me,” said Joe, our UPS deliveryman, who looked back at my husband K— standing in the doorway and conceded, “although…he is kind of cute.”  Then he got in his truck—the one parked in front of my house—and drove away.  K— said Joe was just carrying the second of two heavy packages inside, but I’m still not so sure.  What can Brown do for you, indeed…

All joking aside, some people are a little obsessive about fidelity.  I suppose this is understandable since fidelity is sort of an all-or-nothing proposition.  You don’t get days off or “freebies.”  I always find it humorous when people ask advice columnists about the “rules” of cheating.  There’s only one rule of cheating, and it’s really simple: if you have to ask if you cheated, you cheated.

Although women are always portrayed as the ones worried about his cheatin’ heart, guys seem to have cornered the market on tools for discovering infidelity.  A while back, I came across a website for a product cleverly called “CheckMate.”  At first—and especially because of its name—I thought it was a parody.  After all, we live in a world where it’s hard to tell fact from fiction any more, and it doesn’t much matter whether we’re talking about websites, body parts or television news.

But I quickly realized that CheckMate is real.  The method by which it works is far too disgusting to describe here; let’s just say it involves underwear and test kits.  Thankfully, for you men out there who find such an approach distasteful, there is an alternative: you can just rent a GPS device and track her every move with a satellite network!  There’s a certain irony to the idea of military hardware being used for the sort of grade-B gumshoe work that used to occupy the likes of Guy Noir and Columbo.

Personally, I find both of these methods a bit too high tech.  If it were me, I’d just get a parrot.  It worked for Chris Taylor of London, England, although to be truthful he didn’t get the parrot for that express purpose.  It just turned out to be a dual-purpose parrot: part bird, part rat.  When it began squawking, “Hiya, Gary!” and Taylor’s girlfriend Suzy Collins looked a little pale, Taylor figured out that Collins had been entertaining another fella in their apartment.  Specifically, one named Gary.

I guess I’m lucky having a husband who’s never given me a reason to require the services of body fluid testing labs, military satellites or talking birds.  That’s especially good because I’m way too lazy to make the effort to gather conclusive evidence of infidelity.  You know what they say: count your blessings.

Frankly, if I ever thought I couldn’t believe the answer my husband gave to the question, “Are you having an affair?” I’d probably just flag down our UPS guy and say, “Joe—if you want him, you can have him.”  Then I might get the parrot…because I hear they mate for life.


* This piece of advice came with the obvious caveat that it is not particularly useful should your spouse decide to get really friendly with your next door neighbor.