…..he was searching for a wholesome girl…..an industrious girl…..a resourceful girl…..a GENUINE girl…..yet, let’s face the plain, unforgiving facts here, so few of those exist anymore. They are an endangered species, scarcely different from the Siberian tiger or the Florida manatee or an old-time, Roy Rogersesque western cowboy. So when he finally lucked out and found an old-school girl for himself, he felt remarkable kinship to a gemstone miner in South Africa who has just unearthed the next Hope Diamond. He vowed that he would treat this incomparably exquisite creature with respect, with gratitude, with no small degree of adulation, with saintliness even…..and that if their bond was ever to be broken, it would be as a direct result of her actions and not his own. Said was a promise he was destined to break, of course, but—Spoiler Alert!—the surprise here lies in the astonishingly short duration before his transgression occurred and not in its virtually guaranteed immediate disavowal, this coming from someone whose not always splendid behavior was almost as predictable as the phases of the moon…..
Fred's Soapbox 