Crazy Sign Lady

A few days ago, I was sitting at work trying hard not to fall asleep at my computer when a message from my friend popped up on my screen.  She said, “Dude, you will never believe what is happening out at the front gate.”  As this was likely to be the most exciting part of my day, I prepared myself for a good story.  My friend told me that a woman, who appeared to have had a very rough morning, was standing outside the gate of my company holding a sign saying, “my husband ___ is cheating on me with ____.”  She stood out there all morning for two days in a row.  Both her husband AND his mistress worked in my building.

There were many things about this story that were disturbing to me and here are a few:

1)  About ten minutes after the woman started her “campaign” to out her husband and his mistress, word had spread about a “crazy wife”.  Having been through some pretty extreme trauma myself, I automatically understood how a person could be driven to do a seemingly nutty thing.  Instead of calling her crazy, I actually wanted to get her some breakfast at the cafeteria and sit by her side while she outed the ass hole.

2)  I counted at least 5 male coworkers who called home as soon as they heard about the sign lady to make sure it was not their wives.  Another 10-15 were asking around if anyone knew the names of the people listed on the sign.  I think its self explanatory why this would be disturbing.

3)  I heard some of the backstory a little later that day and it only made me feel more angry.  Apparently, this man (the cheater) told his young coworker (likely at least 10-15 years his junior and a single mother) that he was divorcing his “crazy wife”.  While nearly everyone in my office laughed about how her stunt certainly played into his portrayal of her, I couldn’t understand why nobody could see that this was the oldest line in the book. (my wife is crazy and I am divorcing her)  News flash – why didn’t he wait until he was divorced before he had sex with this chick from work!

On of my friends is always joking and saying that “crazy people make sane people crazy.” Well, my guess is that “crazy sign lady” was once a perfectly sane woman who was in love with a man.  I am also going to guess that out of all three people involved in this “triangle” of sorts, she was the last one to find out about the affair.  She may have believed her husband was just as faithful as her.  She may have devoted her whole life to raising his children while he could go forth and have a successful career, only to find him one afternoon in her bed with his young coworker.

I don’t know if this man is a psychopath like my ex or whether or not this lady is actually crazy.  I do know, however, that people do really terrible things to each other.  Folks shouldn’t judge someone else so harshly unless they have walked in their shoes.  I feel terrible for the crazy sign lady.  We all went back to our computers and talked about her over lunch, but she actually has to live this tragedy.