Satirical Semite: My Crazy Ex-Wife

I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but it’s not applicable with my ex-wife Victoria because she is one of the undead. The other reason usual rules don’t apply is because Vicky is imaginary and never existed. Several of my friends were going through horrible divorces and I felt left out, so I invented my own nightmare spouse. My heart pulsates when she calls. Unlike her, at least I have a beating heart. I once set the “Jaws” theme as her personal ringtone, but it seemed a bit unfair and cruel to killer sharks.

I had to buy Victoria a house as part of the settlement, so I selected a nice property in the state of Victoria, Australia. The 15,000-km distance from London makes me feel regretful, but unfortunately I couldn’t find anything further away.

Victoria was a master mistress of misdirection. She virtue-signaled, pretending to be a good person. This went so far that she volunteered three nights a week at a children’s cancer hospital, staying up all night with terminally ill patients. She would then rush back at 5.30 a.m. to make me a fully-cooked breakfast and iron my shirt for the day, but once there was a slight crease on the shoulder, which proved that she just didn’t care. It was all about her. Vix also spent alternate weekends helping at a refugee center. She was in it for the glory, even if she refused multiple awards for volunteering, saying “I’m not in it for the glory.” I think we can agree about the nature of her true intentions.

I imagined that Australia would help Vicky reconnect with her ancestral heritage since her great-great-grandparents were British convicts, sent there on prison ships January 1, 1818. Their crime was something like slave trading, manufacturing kosher haggis, or smuggling forbidden Chinese electronic goods into Britain via a hidden cove in Northern Scotland. That was back in the days when Scottish people hated the English and wanted to leave the United Kingdom and join the European Union. Coincidentally the date of her family’s exile coincided with the publication of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” The book was a biography of Vicky’s great-great-grandmother.

She enjoys Australia even though it has been closed to tourists for two years due to COVID restrictions. “Yes it’s a police state with draconian rules where people haven’t been able to visit dying relatives in Western Australia, but thank God this isn’t New York city. Who cares if  99.72% of their covid patients survived? 0.28% didn’t! I think it’s great that our lives are restricted, the country is mostly closed—at least we are protected!!  Also did you know that there is 1 in 54 chance of driving into a deer if you live in California, and 4.5% of fatal car accidents in Australia are caused by colliding with kangaroos. We should also ban cars, and roads. Where we are going, we won’t need roads,” although I’m not entirely sure where she is going.

“We should also ban cars, and roads. Where we are going, we won’t need roads,” although I’m not entirely sure where she is going.

I am proud of the kids we had together, although Vicky keeps moaning about my loving, long-distance parenting efforts. “Can you stop calling at 2 am saying you forgot the time difference?” Each of our quintuplets is perfectly healthy, and how much sleep does a four-year-old need anyway?

Each of the quins are named after John Travolta film characters, even the girls. Unfortunately they are all rubbish at dancing. So much for my plans to exploit them by forming a Von-Trapp-Jackson-Five dance troupe and make a fortune while they perform 20 shows a week in Las Vegas.

Victoria was not into recycling, but I carefully composted all of our food scraps, cultivating a bio-pile inside the kitchen throughout the length of our marriage. When the kids were born I insisted on biodegradable diapers, and since the local council’s recycling efforts couldn’t be trusted, I added these to our bio-mountain. “Get that sh*t out of my house!” was her microaggressive response. I can’t help it if she hates the planet.

You can’t win them all. It could be worse. In comparison, Victoria was the most reasonable of my five imaginary ex-wives. Which reminds me, I really should get a real wife in real life. 

Marcus J Freed is single. www.marcusjfreed and on social @marcusjfreed