I try.  I try to stay on the high road.  But I’m human.

It was during my “War of the Roses Situation” or “The Invasion” as I called it, when my estranged husband, after  two years, moved back into the marital home with children and I,  without invitation or permission, as part of a legal maneuver.   I’m still not sure what the legal maneuver was intended to accomplish . . .  but I digress.  The home  was still marital property, thus absent physical abuse there was nothing I could do other than file civil motions to get him out, which would take weeks.  I guess the emotional abuse of forcing himself in the home after two years didn’t count.  In the meantime, he came “home” after work every night, slept on the couch, and began legal proceedings to evict me from the home which he’d chosen to leave years prior and which, he told me later, he never wanted. Yeah, good times, good times.

The only good thing was that a couple of months prior I had  removed the television from downstairs  to keep  the kids from watching too much. So he was sitting in there in silence, with nothing to do. (He had no laptop or smartphone at the time.) Ha!

Anyway, I was  shocked, outraged, miserable, and yes,  pissed.

This was just so unnecessary;  he  had an apartment. So this wasn’t one of those – “I have no where to go” situations. I knew this.  Surveillance with My Mother– The “Look- Out“.  But because I was not on that lease, that apartment was his alone.   But my home?  It was still his home, too, technically, because his name was on the deed. Legally he could come and go at will, even though his “will”  had been to move out years before. It was so unfair.   I had no choice but to wait for the wheels of justice to turn and get that court order to get him out for good.  In the meantime, I would  play it cool. Real cool.

Remember that “Sex and The City” when Carrie’s boyfriend, Jack Berger, dumped her via a post-it note?  She was, of course, livid. That  same night  when she  ran into Berger’s  friends, she intended to take the high road and just say hello. Instead,  she took the lowest possible road, first informing his friends that  Berger was a bad lover, then educating his friends on the right and wrong way to break up with someone.  Much to her surprise, she did not play it cool.

Well, I had a Carrie moment. I hadn’t intended to say or do anything.  I was going to take the high road.  But this was my home and he was just sitting there on MY couch.  He hadn’t lived with us for two years, but he was on MY COUCH!  It was too much to bear.  My  internal GPS took me off the high road, just for a few blocks.  Like Carrie Bradshaw, my efforts to play it cool failed miserably.

But I channeled a different Carrie.  I went Carrie Underwood on his ass.

It was quiet, the children were asleep. He was just sitting there.  So I took the opportunity to fill the room with the sounds of Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats.  If you are unfamiliar, this is a country, pop-crossover tune with the following chorus:

I dug my key into the side of his

pretty little souped up four-wheel drive

Carved my name into his leather seats

Took a Louisville Slugger to both headlights

Slashed a hole in all four tires

Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.

Pretty self-explanatory.  Gotta love country music, no hidden meanings.

You see, my estranged husband/roommate had an SUV that he loved. I could see it from the kitchen. It was red. It was parked in the driveway.  Every time I saw that truck I wanted to hit it, or at least ‘key” it.  What is up with women and keying cars?   Is it like some sort of primal urge —  like shoe shopping or chocolate for some women . . . but I digress.  I’d never actually keyed a car, but somehow, I really, really wanted to.

Anyway, I blared the song, I mean blared it. Volume at 10.  I sang along, “I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up four-wheel drive.”   I danced, I whipped my hair.  I pressed repeat.  Oh yeah, I was jammin’.  He sat motionless on the couch.  He must have feared I’d lost my mind.  And —   I was standing  in the kitchen  — with all that cutlery.

Then I started to talk.

I went on and on  about how dangerous it is to leave his car out on our dark driveway, that anything could happen to it.  It really wasn’t safe. There had been some crime in the neighborhood lately, I told him.  Maybe he didn’t realize since . . .  HE MOVED OUT TWO YEARS AGO!!!!!

“I’m just saying,”  I said, being  ever so helpful.

He was non-responsive.  But I think I made my point.  Point being —  that I might, I just might do something crazy.

Now, I’m too smart to actually commit vandalism.  I would not intentionally destroy or devalue marital property.  That would be bad.  Plus,  I never would have given him anything that could be used against me in court.  I just planted the seed, so to speak, of my discontent.

The bottom line is I didn’t touch his stinkin’ car.  It took a tremendous amount of will power, but his ride remained an undamaged symbol of his masculinity and mid-life crisis.

I guess I hadn’t veered too far from the high road after all.  Except I went a little justifiably crazy, but I had enough sense to do it in private and leave no evidence. Thank you very much, law degree.

Still, I would bet good money that the next morning and every morning after that he made a thorough inspection of his “pretty little souped up four-wheel drive” before heading off to work.

Legally, he’d won this battle — at least temporarily.  But I couldn’t let him feel so comfortable about it.  Not on my couch.

Thanks Carrie Bradshaw.  Thanks Carrie Underwood.

Hell, he’s lucky I didn’t go all Stephen King’s Carrie on his behind.

Just Me With  . . . A Tale Of Three Carries, and a slip off the high road.

Postscript:  I got my court order two months after The Invasion.  Later the marital home was sold at my request.

Postscript: I published this post almost ten years ago. Today, as we speak, that same pretty little souped up four-wheel wheel drive is in my driveway. I am not happy.