a good larf

Chatting at home with Simon last night about a colleague who is going through the family court at the moment reminded me of the drama that is seperating one life unit into two. It also rekindled a memory of the depths ex partners can go to to seek revenge on a spouse, to try and equal the pain of the heart. This story is funny and despite the agony at the time i did manage a very good larf.

The crux of the amusement stems from the fact that my ex husbands name is Simon and my then boyfriend (now my husband) is also named Simon and that additionally, my surname is X and my boyfriend (now husband) also has the surname X. My ex husband has a different surname.

The circumstance that i found myself in is that i recieved a letter from the government stating that a certain department had been trying to contact me, unsuccessfully, by phone and had also twice sent someone around to my house to 'interview' me. I had remained uncontactable, hence the letter and would i please call this department for an interview about my current living arrangements.

???
So i call.

The woman who is in charge of my 'case' informs me that they have had an 'anonymous' tip off that i am in fact co-habiting with someone yet recieving extra government allowance allocated for people parenting solo. Could I please confirm that my ex husband had moved back into the house. What the!? That sounds horriffic! NO!

I tell her that but she also informs me that the tip off has included details about a vehicle being seen frequently at the house etc and being there for a few days. I say 'well my ex husband drop the kids off every week but he doesnt even come inside the house and that this tip off is a bit of a mystery to me coz there is no way on earth we are back in a relationship together'.

She asks me a few more questions... my mind is racing around trying to figure out who on earth would make a 'tip off' like this; that my ex and i are back together...its ludicrous! Nuts. A really awful notion! The only person who i think would make a tip off about me being in a relationship (and hence 'concerned' about co-habitation with another man) would be my ex husband but he is the one being tipped off! Im confused. Then the lightbulb goes off. I ask her a few questions about the names she has in front of her...

Is the reported name of involved person Simon? "yes"
Is the surname reported X? "yes"
I tell her that Simon X is not my ex husband, despite the name, that he is my boyfriend and the name of the person doing the tip off would be my ex husband Simon? "Umm I cant reveal that."

I tell her that what has happenned is that someone in the department has seen the names involved and become confused and has assumed that the boyfriend is the exhusband and the ex husband is the boyfriend. It gets really special here as the natural effect of such confusion is that the ex husband has now also implicated himself inadvertently as a co-conspirator in this 'defrauding'. He has, by his own doing, sent the goverment dudes around to his place to answer the same questions i am getting and go through the burecratic nightmare that was required to prove his innocence! Priceless. Boy , did that woman and i have a belly laugh on the phone that day. I really, really would have loved to have been a fly on the wall the day the ex realised what a totally botched job he had made of his attempt to make life difficult for me.

There was no defrauding on my part. Sleepovers dont count. I could have told him that. Ahhh, revenge gone wrong. Sweet enough for me.