It's Valentine's Day, Leap Year month. Love is in the air, florists' business is booming, heart-shaped candy boxes are everywhere. It's enough to make the recently jilted feel ill. Even in those darkest moments...
Love's not all wine and roses, and Valentine's season is a poor excuse to hang on to a limp affair. But it takes a certain amount of finesse for one to let go, while leaving both parties feeling like winners.
Some people know how to bow out with grace. But when the split is done crudely (you know who you are), it's enough to make the dumped raging mad, even if he or she knew the match was a dead end anyway.
Just for laughs, conversation and computer crash-and-download time, we performed an informal in-house survey of men and women, to uncover the top 10 methods of getting even.
The key word is "laughs." We're not suggesting you perform any of this sort of vengeful action. Just the idea of inflicting this torture on the one who's done you wrong should be enough to satisfy the urge for retribution.
If you've got a top 10 list of your own floating in the darker crevices of your inner-child mind, share it with a friend. Not someone who'll egg you on, but someone who'll share a good laugh over your diabolical streak and maybe snap you out of it.
(Kids, don't try this at home.)
10. Glue all pens and pencils to the inside of their pencil cup and office drawers .
9. Beyond the old key-the-car prank, put glue in their car locks.
8. Call Judge Judy and expose the wrong-doer on national television.
7. Women can slip a copy of "Fatal Attraction" in the mail. Anonymously, of course.
6. If the ex had planned a plane trip, call the airline, say you're his or her secretary/wife/husband and cancel the reservations. Or change the bum's aisle or window seat to a middle one.
5. Order 10 subscriptions to some lame magazine in different variations of their name. For instance: Joseph Samuel Blow; J.S. Blow; Joe S. Blow. They'll have a hell of a time trying to convince circulation that they didn't order this stuff, and they'll get tons of remittance notices in the meantime.
4. Place the skimpiest underwear he or she had been keeping at your place in a brown paper bag, and hand deliver it to your ex's new boyfriend or girlfriend.
3. Kidnap their pet dog/cat/bird.
2. Kill with kindness. Say "hello" with a card as if what they had done didn't faze you at all. Doing so might release any bad feelings you harbor. Maybe they'll even feel like a jerk for treating you so badly.
1. Forgive and forget about it.
Live your life and be happier than your ex can ever hope to be. That's the best revenge.
Star-Bulletin staff
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