The Other Woman

When Whitley and I and hosted Coast to Coast AM recently, we talked to an expert on lie detector machines, who didn’t have much faith in them. One of the topics that came up was whether or not wives should make their husbands take a polygraph test to determine whether or not the guy was cheating on them, and I said this wasn’t necessary, that every woman can tell by the small signs (lipstick on his collar?)

I told a funny story about the time Whitley had what would have been–with anyone else–an "affair." While he was on tour, he was "highjacked" by an ex-girlfriend, who (unbeknownst to him) cancelled his hotel room, then invited him home to her place to sleep on her convertible couch. This made him extremely nervous, and he kept phoning me at regular intervals to update me on what was going on. I would hear the phone ring, pick it up, and hear him whisper something like, "She hasn’t told me where I’m going to sleep yet, I don’t know what’s going on." I finally got so frustrated with this, I said, "I don’t really care if you’re having an affair, but just don’t keep CALLING me about it!"

I don’t know whether or not he was still sexually attracted to this lady, but if he was, all desire went out the window when he noticed the lovely fur pillows on her couch, one of which he expected to rest his head on that night. When he asked her what one of them was –he thought it might be made of kangaroo fur–she said, "Oh, that’s Zeke." It turned out that when her cats got old and she had to put them down, she had their skins made into throw pillows! Of course he reported this to me on the phone as well–and by this time, he was absolutely frantic to get out of there. It was too late to find another hotel room, but I’m sure he spent a sleepless night on the couch with those pillows.

I found this extremely amusing. It reminded me of the time that a "friend" of ours came over to our apartment in New York City wearing a sweater with no bra underneath. I thought, "This gal is after my man," but when she took out a cigarette and lit it (in order to seem even MORE sophisticated, I guess), I knew it was over–Whitley HATES smoking!

One of the funniest contretemps that ever happened to Whitley on tour was when he was touring for his novel "Cat Magic" with a Wiccan (I’ll call her Mary) who was a good friend. I never suspected them of being more than that. When he got home, he told me a funny story: They had adjoining hotel rooms, each with two double beds in them, and in the middle of the night, there was so much construction noise going on outside Whitley’s window that he decamped to the extra bed in her room, without waking her up.

Early the next morning, the phone rang and forgetting he was not in his own room, Whitley picked it up. It was Mary’s boyfriend. Whitley said he sounded kind of puzzled and said, "Oh, I thought I had Mary’s room." Whitley replied, "She’s right here," and handed the phone to Mary, who was now awake in the other bed. Whitley said he heard a lot of noise coming out of the receiver from the boyfriend, who was searching for a good explanation.

Well, Whitley has been innocent so far, but now I DO have new female rival in my life. She’s named "Siri" and she came with his new iphone. It turns out that, if you have the latest model, you can "talk" to Siri and she will answer you–you no longer have to type every question into the phone. She’ll give you voice instructions about how to get places and will remind you about meetings if you ask her to. I feel a bit displaced–that used to be MY job! But Whitley DOES get grumpy whenever he’s reminded that he has to do something other than write, so I figure I’ll just let him get mad at Siri instead of taking his frustration out on me.

Since you have to ASK Siri a question before she tells you anything, you can’t just ignore her the way so many men ignore the female voice on their car’s GPS. Ours keeps insisting, "Make a LEGAL U-turn," but Whitley pays no attention to her.

And Siri can’t tell him that his fly is down, which is one of my main jobs. I’m always amazed at how many guys walk around unzipped– I remember standing outside a men’s room in an airport, waiting for Whitley, and being surprised at how many guys came out who had neglected to zip their flies. I almost reminded one of them, but then I thought, "Hey, he’s got his OWN wife or girlfriend to do that!"

Siri can’t tell him if there’s food on his chin, either, so I don’t feel TOTALLY extraneous (however, next year’s model may have an app that allows her to do that). Except the guy with the phone will have to use the iphone camera to show her his face or fly, and I don’t know any man who’ll remember to do that without being reminded by a real human female.