Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. JILL CAMPBELL MACKAY finds out that that really is a truism
‘Candy is dandy
Liquor is quicker.
But nothing is as sweet
as revenge’
PROBABLY the very first time we experience the need to extract revenge is when we do it against our poor innocent parents in return for the trauma of our unsolicited birth. This type of revenge is more commonly known as adolescence and can be put down to being just a passing phase.
As we mature, our concept of revenge changes. No longer do we need to resort to acts of wanton vandalism or bristling resentment. Instead we can now diligently post on the internet every sordid detail relating to our ex-lover or, better still. There is, of course, a fine line between justice and taking revenge. The two are not necessarily identical, except in so-called savage societies where the guiding legal principle remains ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ and you can automatically expect to receive a public flogging, or be stoned to death for committing adultery.
If you are wronged in these countries you can usually rely on the law to support your passion for a bit of a personal vendetta, but here in Europe the best you can do is to open a tub of Dayvilles, curl up on the sofa and watch re runs of Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood in classic vigilante mode.
While revenge may occasionally step beyond the boundaries of the law, it does have a strict moral code of its own. For a start, the nature of the revenge must be appropriate to the nature of the alleged offence; you are not going to cut the tie collection in half or sever the left leg from each of your partner’s trousers if he is only half and hour late for your anniversary dinner.
As many a poor male has learnt to his cost, when it comes to revenge, women are the real artists, the real bards of poetic justice. Men on the other hand, want to extract revenge with physical violence. Only a woman can appreciate the subtle beauty of symbolism and put it to work for her as a form of sweet revenge.
MARGARET used to be secretary before she retired to Cyprus and she told me how she had “got back at” her awful boss. “He was a particularly vain man and a bit of a bully with the woman in the office, always commenting on how they didn’t know how to dress properly, or making nasty comments about body odour, so, one Friday afternoon I filled his office radiator with the oil from three cans of tuna. The heating was always left on over the winter weekends so when he returned to work on Monday the smell was quite overpowering. After cleaning and repainting the office, the smell was still there and he went crazy trying to find the source. In the end he had to move to another floor so we were all spared having to deal with him so much. His office was then used to store old chairs and tables as no one could ever work in it.”
A vengeful secretary is a genuine force to be feared, something bosses from hell tend to overlook. They have been known to fill their victims’ car air vents with talcum powder just as he was taking some VIP clients out to dinner, or rinse the boss’ coffee cup in the toilet bowl. One girl exacted revenge by giving telesales people her boss’ direct line.
Women do have a terrifying capacity for cruelty to material objects: a woman in Doncaster found out her husband was having an affair so she super-glued a wheelbarrow to the roof of his car. “Well he always said his two great loves were gardening and cars so I just brought the two together,” she said in her defence. Another lady in her early forties was incensed when her husband was found to be having an affair with her best friend so she went to the bank, drew out £500 and wrote his name, mobile number, and the words ‘kinky sex desired’ on every note. She then spent the money at various shops within a five mile radius of their home.
And what about the woman who was so fed up with her husband criticising her that on the night of the final match of the champion’s league on LTV she cooked him dinner with a chocolate mousse made from e-lax, told her beloved she was going to her girlfriend’s for the evening and then took the TV remote with her in her handbag?
For Edith it was when her husband’s car headlights hit the kitchen wall at knee level rather than the usual waist level that she knew her husband was having an affair. “He honestly believed that this throbbing mechanical extension (a new open-top sports car) would make him look young and virile, not old and desperate. I was also upset about the amount of money he had spent on the car.” Edith in time-honoured fashion wreaked her revenge by super-gluing a fully charged vibrator to the bonnet of his car when it was parked outside his new lady friend’s house. He had to drive home with this thing vibrating madly with people staring and laughing at him. The next week he sold the car and I got a divorce. Even ten years later, he is still referred to around town as the ‘old throbber’”.
Reassuringly, most of us don’t have much truck with the kind of outrageous revenge behaviour that makes people feel humiliated and deeply hurt. The bigger, stronger and cleverer you are, the more you owe it to others to lift them up rather than crush them down. Better still is to turn the other cheek. But how many of us really could forgive and forget and not want to vent their spleen when the hubby informs you he is leaving? No I thought not.
