Beating a Dead Horse

A bit ago, I posted a story about a jilted lover whose rage took on the task of destroying some valuable property.

A friend of mine messaged me, relating a similar situation, in which his buddy got a lovely and pricey bike sawed in half by a similarly jilted lover.

My friend, who is the best guy you could ever know, asked me "Is this a common thing you girls do?"

It is sad, when I think if it, that pretty bikes and fancy guitars get demolished when a love turns ugly. I can imagine it is like the sadness that happens when you watch old Civil War movies and the horses are being gunned down, their spindly legs grasping at the air as they fall into a puddle or something. During my seventh grade history class we watched one of these, and I whispered to my classmate Ben how sad I was for the dying horses.

Ben looked at me in slight disgust, "What about the men?"


Yes, Ben! What about the men!

Perhaps things like guitars and bicycles sometimes fall as casualties in love and war. It doesn't stop there, people get nasty divorces and then houses, money and children are suddenly spoils as neatly suited lawyers engage in paper battles.

With my experience in all things jilting, it does not surprise me when I hear of a slashed tire, broken bicycle, or splintered guitar. In fact, the naughty little drag queen inside of me claps her hands and says "You go girl."

I don't know what it is, why I feel vindicated instead of sad for the proverbial dead horse. 70 cents to the dollar? Menstrual Cycles? Childbirth?

I remember once I was absolutely enraged, heart broken, sobbing, and very drunk. I gazed on the sleeping, passed out drunk form of my perpetrator, angry at how hurt I was, angrier that he was not awake to witness my clearly devastating hurt. I couldn't sleep, and began noticing objects in his apartment. Stupid chair, stupid pillow, stupid cheese grater. Then the objects began to vibrate with potential.

Ha! I thought! I will take them! That will show him who he thinks he is.

I really didn't have much of a strategy when gathering items; candles, the book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max, a tiny, electric fan, sunglasses. I grasped the loot in my arms, feeling devious and successful. Wait till he wakes up without his tea lights!

Then I realized I was hammered, it was 4 a.m., and I was twenty minutes by car from home.

I replaced all the items, defeated. Then I decided on a new form of revenge. I threw his lighter across the room, and planning to leave as soon as I sobered up, hid his "water pipe" in what at thought at the time was the last place he'd ever look.

Morning came, and with it two gut wrenching hangovers.

"Why is my [water pipe] on top of the refrigerator?"

... Perhaps not the cleverest hiding place.

I think that when a fiery, fiesty, woman feels the pain of heartbreak, she radiates it in her body like a new form of energy. That night I felt like I could shoot my pain from my fingertips, like a crazy Spiderwoman. It is so affecting, it is so resonating, it is red like fire and beautiful like the sun. It is the reason my friend's father said, "My whole life has been about keeping the woman happy," it is why a spider can eat her mate. A woman's pain consumes her being, and she lets it, as she has accepted it as a natural heritage.

So to answer your question friend, it is perhaps more common that we girls mess up some men stuff in the wake of our splintered hearts. We'd just like you, or your guitar, to understand what it feels like to have something of yours broken.

"Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy." ~Henry Kissinger