Fraulein and Mr. Goldman work for the same mega Corporation. They are star players that will retire with a generous seven figure retirement package. Fraulein is very good at her manly job, perhaps because she has many years of experience in a previous career requiring much discipline and physical strength, the armed forces, the Army.
Then there I was at wedding table number three as Fraulein is getting married again. This table is made up of mostly older married couples, but also present is my 20 year old son. I don't really want to be here. Everyone knows that Fraulein wasn’t single for very long after her divorce. After some chit chat, Mrs. Goldman wants to tell us about how she found Fraulein’s shorts in Mr. Goldman’s vehicle after they had gone out together on a running date in the woods. She wasn’t angry or anxious in her presentation, she just wanted us to know. I knew that Fraulein liked to do this sort of thing in her interim. She had no problem inviting men into the forest to run. (Later, a wife would confront her husband and say she was disturbed by the running shorts story, but the husband would say, "it's funny, it's not real.”) The table guests remained silent. The conversation then shifted to the high school graduation of the daughter of the Goldman’s, a topic they would want to talk about. However, after a query to Mrs. Goldman about this, there was a blank stare from her and some stammering in her voice, and we knew we shouldn’t ask any more questions.
Many months passed and then came an invitation from the Goldmans for a house warming party. They had moved quite suddenly from the community to a stylish, but not too large new home, on the other side of the city. It was a small gathering, this house warming, and the women gathered in the kitchen where Mrs. Goldman, now in an anxious presentation, would pour out her woes to us. Her daughter had become the willing prisoner of an evil family in the community. Enamored with a son of this family, who was enlisted in the Army, the daughter in her senior year abandoned her parents and siblings moving in with this son who lived in the family home. She was an excellent student, had college admission acceptance letters and a scholarship secured, which she forfeited. This family tortured the Goldmans accusing them of being negligent parents and demanded of them, like, the daughter's dental records. The ultimate indignity occurred when the daughter "got rid of it," and this family sent to the parents the bill for the procedure. To add to her stress, Mrs. Goldman’s mother recently died and she inherited a lot of money. Also, she acquired a lot of wine glasses, which she showed us, from her mother who didn’t even drink wine. Mrs. Goldman then escorted us upstairs and showed us a fully furnished room, ready for her daughter, upon her return. This is real and it’s not funny.
Eventually, Mrs. Goldman would, for example on social media, give in to talking only about her two other children. Additionally, she distracts from her pain by traveling, especially to Paris.
The Corporation supports ex-Fraulein and Mr. Goldman to do almost anything they want to do vocationally. They can return to work after retirement and be well paid consultants. They can acquire fascinating new jobs. They can buy more houses and beach houses (well, but not that one).
Do we support them or reject them? I know what I did.