AS SEEN ON CNN

by Angela Zeman

In Pittsburgh on Tuesday, October 16th, according to a CNN report entitled, SPY CAUGHT UNDER SUV, a woman spying on her husband crawled beneath his Suburban which he’d parked in front of his girlfriend’s home. A friendly neighborhood cat accompanied her. The detective business not being the exciting enterprise so often portrayed in novels, they both soon fell asleep. When she awoke, she discovered the tires of the SUV had been deflated, which pinned her to the asphalt. Unable to move, she yelled for help. A flooring subcontractor working at a nearby house investigated the odd, seemingly disembodied voice, but saw no one in the SUV. But before he could retreat, the voice shouted again. He bent to look under the vehicle, and was stunned to see what he described as “a body.” The woman pleaded for help, but he declined the honor, insisting on calling 911 to let experts do the deed. With the help of PFD Rescue workers, she emerged, laughing nervously and insisting she was okay.

Baffled onlookers, attracted by the commotion, commented they didn’t understand what she found funny about being flattened and nearly killed. Apparently in that same spirit of bafflement, police officers took her into custody. They drove her to the hospital for a mental health evaluation. Her husband, in the meantime, remained out of sight with his girlfriend inside the girlfriend’s house.

Okay, yes, I added some trifling characterization, but I’m reporting what I heard presented on CNN news. Shouldn’t there be more?

Who, besides me, sees misplaced humor here?

The Pittsburgh police took the woman to a hospital for mental evaluation, leading me to wonder, had those officers ever personally dealt with an unfaithful spouse? Had none ever experienced the rage of betrayal that can lead to taking a poorly considered action? Surely a little empathy would’ve served the humiliated wife better than an arrest and a hospital exam.

Didn’t the Pittsburgh authorities wonder who flattened the tires? Who else, besides the husband, would’ve thought to do it—vandals? She slept through the deed, so the perp must’ve tippy-toed through the task, which reeks of ‘malicious intent’ to my mind. At the very least, an officer of the law could’ve knocked on the girlfriend’s door and discussed the event with the errant husband. A man who would so blatantly squash his own wife under his own car might not have hoped, or even intended, that she emerge laughing in embarrassment.

Will the tire-deflator, whoever he was, face charges for attempted manslaughter, if not attempted murder?

As Paul Harvey would’ve asked a few decades ago, “Where’s the rest of the story?” Seemed a little funny at first, which is no doubt what attracted the attention of CNN—humor sells. But it’s not funny at all. That’s what I call tragedy.