Tell me your secrets and I'll tell you no lies?

I have blogged about this before, people like to tell me their secrets. Why? I don't know. Is it my round face? Does it scream out that I am trustworthy and a good listener? Does being fat make people assume your life is so empty so that you will be interested to hear of their most private and sordid secrets? Is it that obvious I am very inquisitive and like to know how people tick? Do I just look like a sucker?

I work with a gentleman whom I assume is probably in his 50's, he has been married 35 years and looks to be about my father's age. He is a nice enough man, I'll call him Beanpole. He sits on the other side of my cubicle. We have exchanged pleasantries and he is usually quite pleasant. He gives me brownies and chocolate sometimes, so he must be a good guy, right? Well, today, I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, answering the phone doing my job yada yada. He stands up and says, "Jodi, are you on a call? I want a woman's opinion on something." I said, okay, and put myself in "personal time" so that my phone wouldn't ring and I could talk to him for 5 seconds without getting interrupted.

"What's up, Beanpole?," I innocently ask as he takes a seat in the empty chair next to me.

Beanpole leans his lanky frame in close to me, lowers his voice to a barely audible whisper and points to his wedding ring. "You see this?", he asks me as I nod that yes, I see he is married or at least wearing a very large, very gold band that indicates he is a taken man. "I don't like wearing this, but I do it because I have been married for 35 years. My girlfriend also wears her ring, as she is married as well. We have been having an affair for 2 years. I am madly in love with my girlfriend. She won't leave her husband. Her kids are grown, but still live at home, she says she can't leave her husband because it will ruin their, the kids, life. Do you think that is true?"

I am not sure the look that must have crossed my face. One that may have given away my thoughts of WTF?? Do I look like a counselor? Have we ever said more than 2 words to each other? Why are you asking me THIS? However, being the ever helpful and nurturing coworker that I am and hoping to cut down on work place violence, I probed, I asked lots of questions. I surmised that Beanpole should probably think long and hard about his marriage and his mistress. Perhaps they all didn't have the healthiest relationship? (you think?) Perhaps he should rethink his relationships with both women. He claims he stays with his wife because when he leaves, as he moved out for 6 months, she starts striking out at people and being mean to people that have nothing to do with the situation. So he stays to protect the world at large I suppose. What a saint. What a martyr. My hero. **gag, gag***

"Wow, Beanpole", I remark, "You must be a busy guy! Being married, having a girlfriend, and you always work so many overtime hours", it is true he works a LOT of overtime.

"Well," he says lowering his voice now to a tone that would suggest we were sharing a intimate secret, "you don't know the half of it. This is incredibly confidential, mind you. I am also a deacon in my church, I teach Sunday school, I am an active member of the church."

I know at that point my face MUST have given me away. Not only is he a slime ball womanizer, he is a man of the cloth so to speak. "Really, and what would your church think if they found out that you have a mistress?" I ask barely containing my disdain.

"Oh, they would kill me," he says, with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders as if he had just told me he switched his car insurance to Gico.

"Um, well, Beanpole, it sounds to me like you have a LOT to think about. You have a lot to lose. Wow. It's no wonder you're so grouchy sometimes". When I said that a big boyish grin spread across his face, "You're so right!", he exclaimed, "THAT is why I get so cranky". After 13 minutes, he buzzed his way over to his side of the partition and said "Thanks, Jodi, I had a feeling that my girlfriend was really hung up on her role as a mother. And you confirmed it! Thanks".

Um, yeah, anytime you philandering hypocritical womanizer you! EWWWWWWWWWWW. Why oh why do people tell me this stuff, I ask you? WHY??? I am NOT a mental health professional nor do I play one on TV. Good Lawd people.

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Do you ever have a moment in your life when you stand back and go, WOW? I am experiencing such a moment in my life as we speak. Coincidence, I think not. I have a favorite local columnist who writes for our hometown paper. I have always LOVED her writing. I used to have a ton of her columns cut out and taped to my refrigerator. They have since yellowed and met a desperate and sad demise after they became soggy from leaping into the dog dish or met other cruel fates that can only happen in my crazy house. When I first started going to school and had high aspirations of becoming a famous novelist, such dreams have now been deserted in favor of a more realistic goal of working in the courthouse, I would tell anyone who would listen that I wanted to be a writer like Bonnie Sitter. She really was, is, my writing idol. I love her style of writing. It is honest, funny, and thought provoking.

Imagine, if you will, my surprise 2 semesters ago when guess who came strolling into my Admin. of Justice class? That's right. None other than Bonnie Sitter, I would recognize her anywhere, I looked at her picture for the last 8 years or so above her column every Saturday. I remember sitting there wondering if I should ask her if she was indeed Bonnie Sitter? Would she think I was a creepy stalker? I argued internally over making an ass out of myself in front of my literary idol. Finally my curiosity and my incredible friendliness won over. I spun around in my chair, "What's your name", I asked in my most non-threatening normal person voice. "Um, Bonnie," she replied quite meekly. "I thought so!", I exclaimed grinning like a idiot. "I love, love, love your column. You are the best writer, you really are." I gushed like a schoolgirl. "Thanks", Bonnie replied looking around the room as if to remember whom she could call to testify in her behalf later after I had attacked her in the parking lot demanding she tell me who was her muse, dammit!

Fast forward to the present day. Guess who I am going shopping with tomorrow? We are friends, Bonnie and I! True blue friends. I have been to her house, we've lunched and shopped before. However, when I really stop to think about it, the fact that I am actually friends with someone who I admired from behind my Saturday morning paper for literally years it completely blows my mind. How often does that happen? Really, in real life? Not very often in my estimation. And you know what, we really do have as much in common as I imagined that we would all those lonely Saturday mornings as I read her column nodding my head and yelling "Amen!" to the paper. It seems unreal when I stop to think about it, it really does.