Hell Hath No Fury.....

I'm sure we all know the rest of the quote. I thought I had seen everything or heard everything about what women have done to men who dumped them or hurt them, until I watched MI-5 this morning, when Vicki Westbrook to get back at Tom Quinn (played by the wonderful Matthew MacFadyen who played Darcy in last year's Pride & Prejudice) had cards made up that intimated he was some kind of escort and then plastered them all over London in phone booth's and sex shops.

Wow, that was one pissed off woman. Unfortunately for her, she attempted to get back at the wrong guy. Her actions interfered with an MI-5/CIA operation dealing with President Bush's visit to the UK, so the CIA scared the crap out of her by picking her up at her job, and then ransacking her apartment in front of her. The head of the London office, Christine, basically told her to get the hell out of dodge for a few days and to never darken Tom Quinn's doorstop ever again.

Wow, that sure beats nuisance calls or signing your ex-boyfriend up at various porn sites on the internet. Or getting hold of his credit card and charging hundreds of dollars, or calling up his new girlfriend pretending to be delivering the results from his STD test. Not that I've done any of that.

My way has all ways been to cry a lot, and to be incredibly reasonable when a guy breaks up with me. I think the most I ever did was just call up the guy afterward to let him know that I thought he was a shit, but that's about it.

It just goes to show you what extreme behavior some people are willing to indulge in when they've been hurt or pissed off. Thinking about this episode of MI-5, it made me wonder what a woman in the 19th century might have done if she was discarded by her lover. Would she have gone away quietly, or would she have tried to find some way to make her former lover pay? Beyond the usual trying to make his wife or bethrothed think the relationship was still on.

In Sidney Sheldon's The Other Side of Midnight, when Noelle discovers that she's been dumped by her American lover who promised to marry her, she waits until the child she is carrying can feel, and then causes herself to miscarry. Of course, the only person she ends up hurting is herself, since she can then no longer have children.

What is the most extreme thing you've ever heard of anyone doing after they've been dumped? Or what have you done after a guy has dumped you?