Perhaps I’m being horribly hypocritical writing this book of gifts to mock the significant other in your life who has let you down. The mantra of my first book, Adulterer’s Wife: How to Thrive Whether You Stay or Not is that revenge is not sweet and the best revenge is to get past the need for it. However, rather than recommending that cheated-upon folks smash their former partner’s prized Ming vase or shoot an unfaithful husbands in the nuts, I’m providing some gently sardonic humor at their expense. I’m also not suggesting a gift of a dead rat or stinking fish—that wouldn’t show any class at all. Sorry, I take that back. One of the entries in this book is Gourmet Rodent. However, if you do actually send out Gourmet Rodents as a holiday gift to a previous partner from whom you are in the process of divorcing, he or she might not be very helpful about splitting up assets, giving you that password you’ve forgotten or someone’s contact details that you’ve lost. You’ll be seen forever as the Christmas Grinch.
Instead, just think what you would like to give your ex and smirk about it in private. It is important to remember that taking the high ground with an ex-spouse and behaving with cordial dignity is likely to make your dealings with that person go considerably more smoothly and protect your best interests in the long run.
This book draws on the success of the “12 Christmas Gifts for a Cheating Ex” blog I began in 2016 and have continued up to the present (pun intended). I’d never send my ex any of these items. That hasn’t stopped me compiling a spoof gift list every year because laughter is a great way to combat the sadness of a broken relationship. Every Christmas season from 2016 onwards, I have produced a brand-new list of items for the discriminating gift buyer. However, there was a worldwide shortage of unfaithful exes in in 2017, so I never compiled a holiday gift list for that year. Actually, I’m lying about that—I just dropped the ball.
Yes, I’m a hypocrite and inconsistent. In the first four years I compiled a list of spoof Christmas gifts for a cheating ex, I included no links to buy any of the items as I didn’t want to encourage anyone’s vengeful instincts. Now, by popular demand, I’m including links to buy any items that are readily available. Some people told me they wanted to get things I mentioned in my previous lists for friends, relatives and existing partners. However, many of these items are one-of-a-kind and unavailable, even on Amazon or eBay. You’ll just have to improvise. Maybe some second-hand socks from your local thrift store?
As the author of Adulterer’s Wife: How to Thrive Whether You Stay or Not, perhaps I’m being sexist by often assuming the cheater is a man, mainly because mine was. Sometimes I’ll refer to the gift recipient as “he or she,” but more often than not I’ll obliviously trample over the pronoun minefield and simply say “he,” or “him.” However, I’ve included some equal-opportunity presents in this book that would be suitable for any unfaithful former partner, male or female, straight or gay, cisgendered or trans, and at least as regards the Third Prize Male Medallion in the Critters chapter, a barnyard animal.
This collection of appropriate gifts for a cheating ex is gathered from across the globe. Wherever I happen to be, I love to discover quirky stuff by going to yard sales and flea markets. The products showcased here hail from England, Italy, France, China, Jamaica, New Zealand, Australia, America and even that very exotic country, California, as well as from completely off the planet. However, for my 2021 Christmas gift list, in keeping with the dreary Covid tradition of a travel-free existence that year, all 12 gifts hailed from the United States, although many of these products had taken their own journey to get here as they were manufactured—yes, you’ve guessed it—in China.
Many of these gifts are vulgar, inconsistent with my mission message and politically incorrect. But as I once heard Love Without End author Glenda Green say, “politically correct” is always political and rarely correct. At least for my annual Christmas gift lists, humor has trumped platitudes. All the items included in this book are 100% guaranteed to create laughter. They already have done so. That’s because I always find my own jokes to be extremely funny.
Even though it might have been somewhat gross, I was tempted to include a genuine dead parrot as in this book. As I wrote in my Thrive Global blog, “How My Life Became Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch,” I had access to a couple of deceased lovebirds and photos of one in glorious Technicolor. But then I might have had too many Pythonesque items in this list.
Finally, it looks like I have turned down an opportunity for this to be one of the most successful comedy books of the century. A close friend of mine is a numerologist who insisted that I could achieve that by having 104 gift items. But I thought that number sounded odd even though it’s even. I had already upped my total from a round 100 to 101 make it seem even more than 100. Also, 101 is a nod to the American university course numbering systems. The number 101 conveys the essential nature of what I have written in this book, implying that it would be meaningful for anyone, even those without cheating ex experience. No doubt my numerologist friend would be appalled at the number of chapters in The Cheating Ex Files —13. And the ISBN for the print version ends in 13. Thus, if you suffer from triskaidekaphobia, this book may not be for you. All I can say is that I’m grateful not to be kakorrhaphiophobic. Actually, the previous two sentences may put me off ever making an audiobook version of The Cheating Ex Files.