Just because governmental protections are in place, it doesn’t mean that we should relax our vigilance when making purchases. Unscrupulous businessmen have existed since the beginning of commerce and there is no indication that anything will ever change. A major part of my book, “A Little on the Side,” is devoted to being careful and knowing what you are getting into when you undertake having an affair. It’s why I developed the concept of the “Adultery Quotient,” a tool to help you determine the safest and most discreet lover. Still, human nature is what it is, and very often, people rush headlong into situations without considering the ramifications or consequences of their actions. Here are two such tales. Caveat Emptor!
Tale #1 –
Sometime ago, a married man I knew quite well was having an affair. No doubt he and his lover were quite careful at the beginning of their relationship. However, as is often the case after an extended period of cavorting without getting caught, they became complacent and less cautious. Certain people in the community became suspicious, but most probably, didn’t want to think the worst. And without glaring evidence, that’s the way it should be. In my book, I even recommend taking advantage of that quirk of human nature, the inclination to give people the benefit of the doubt. Inevitably, since he wasn’t being too careful, it became apparent that the man was having an affair. When confronted, he even admitted it, claiming he was in love with the woman, a defense his wife probably would have had a problem with, had she known. Despite his proclamation of love, however, he never left his wife. So much for love.
Time passed and it seemed like the affair was over. The woman in the relationship had moved on and was living with someone else. The sordid affair became a distant memory. That was, until one day, I logged onto my computer to find that the wife of this adulterous man had purchased my book on Amazon. Not only did she purchase it, but she was sending it to the “other woman.” I was baffled. First, I never thought she knew about the affair (the wife is always the last to know). Second, it was totally out of character for her to do such a thing. So, after some investigation on my part, a person who knew them well speculated that the man was probably using his wife’s credit card without her knowledge. No doubt he had an additional copy of her credit card and simply put the purchase on it. He may have even been the one who regularly paid the bill so never thought his wife would see the transaction.
He did make one mistake. He assumed that when purchasing the book from Amazon, it would be shipped from some giant Amazon warehouse. Oops! Little did he know that I was the shipper. And let that be a lesson for those of you who shop online. Make sure you know the identity of the shipper when making your “discreet” purchases. It should say right on the site.
Although I have seen this guy since he made the purchase for his former lover, I haven’t told him that I know. On the other hand, I do snicker whenever I see him. He should be careful never to piss me off. And just in case you were wondering, I did autograph the book.
Tale #2 –
So you may have been wondering why I called this story “Sexting with Sid Stein.” Thanks for getting this far. You’re going to find out now.
Before I get started with this tale, there may be a few of you who don’t know what sexting is. When I wrote my book, it didn’t even exist. Back in the day, and I am not even going too far back, it was called cybersex. People availed themselves of the Internet to have sexually-charged conversations with their online buddies via Instant Messenger services or in chat rooms. This caused a great deal of consternation in many marriages when one spouse or the other discovered that their husband or wife was “carrying on” online. I purposely did not use the word cheating because various opinions exist as to whether this behavior qualifies as marital infidelity. I am not here to judge, but I don’t care if you do. I will say this, however. If you discover that your partner is having cybersex, then it might be a clue that something is amiss with your sex life at home. Just saying. Anyway, sexting is just cybersex on a cell phone, although besides just sexy texting, it could include sending dirty picture messages. Now that is settled, let’s get on with the story.
I was working a gig one night at a bar. Karaoke! I love karaoke. My ex-girlfriend was there with some of her friends, having drinks and taking turns singing. First, there is something you have to know about having your girlfriend at gigs, whether you are a dj or a musician. Two things, really. It’s an impediment to having a good time and a successful gig. Invariably, women will want to flirt with you. I certainly understand this phenomenon when a good musician is part of the scenario - the woman is attracted to talent. With a dj, however, the talent is admittedly less apparent, even though a good dj can make a good night better. I assume it has something to do with being the center of attention and the person in control. With karaoke, there is an additional twist. Some women will flirt with me because they want their songs bumped up in the rotation. Good luck with that, girls. You had better be smoking hot. For me, these flirtations and supplications are nothing more than distractions. I understand the underlying dynamics of the situation. For a girlfriend, however, these encounters can be interpreted as threats, depending upon how “smoking hot” the woman is and how far she is willing to carry her “flirtation.” If your girlfriend is at all insecure or jealous, this can become a headache which you would rather do without, especially while you are working, and especially if the offender is rubbing up against you. The other difficulty as the dj is that you don’t have much time to spend chatting with your girlfriend, which means that for most men, she will appear as unattached prey. If you are the kind of person who has a problem with that, then I don’t recommend you become a dj or a musician. It’s part of the territory, so deal with it.
So there I was at my gig, doing my thing. My girlfriend was at the bar with her friends drinking and having a good time. At some point, I noticed a guy chatting her up. Since it wasn’t her first time at a bar and certainly not the first time someone ever hit on her, I had no worries and went about my business as usual. Besides, I recognized the guy hitting on her. Although I didn’t know him very well, he was well-known as a local politician. Since I was confident that he didn’t know she was my girlfriend, I didn’t hold it against him. At some point, he apparently had enough of flirting and left the bar. No problems. That’s showbiz.
After he left, my girlfriend came over to tell me a bit of news. The politician in question had asked for her telephone number. She complied, sort of. She gave him my number. And, it wasn’t long before I started receiving text messages from him - dirty ones. The man was sending sex texts to me! When you ask a woman at a bar for her number, you proceed at your own peril.
My girlfriend thought it was pretty funny of her to give this poor guy my number. I say “poor guy” because he seems like an otherwise nice person, sexting aside. And, he was dealing with Sid Stein, who felt he had only one course of action available to him. I sexted him back. However, all I want to say about our exchanges is that we went back and forth quite a few times and things got hot and heavy. I am confident that I turned him on. Needless to say, my girlfriend and I had a few laughs.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to maintain this charade for too long. At some point, instead of a text, he called. I let it forward to voicemail where he no doubt heard my voice. Realizing he was duped, he never texted me again.
What struck me as the funniest aspect of this tale is that I forgot about it fairly quickly. That’s not really so funny, but because I forgot, I would always say hello to him whenever we ran into each other. “Hi, how’s it going? What’s new?” In retrospect, I must have made him feel excruciatingly uncomfortable because I never mentioned the sexting. He probably thought I was mocking him with each greeting but that wasn’t the case. Even I felt badly. It wasn’t until months later that my girlfriend reminded me about the sexting. Oh well.
By the way, in case you are wondering who the politician is, it’s none of your business! I never kiss and tell. Not with real names, anyway.
