The Spousal Spy

By Wu Lingyao

The Spousal Spy

By Wu Lingyao

W hen talking about extramarital affairs, everyone loves to say:“No cat doesn’t like fish, and men are no different than cats. Bad people are all the same everywhere.”

“Men who go to singles bars have one thing in common–they’re already married.”

“Men find it impossible to resist office romances, they can make money and date at the same time, and all on company time to boot!”

One woman said that she is sick of her licentious husband's never-ending love triangles. Even after being married for many years, her husband never seemed to stop ‘dating,’ the only thing was that his wife never knew who the“other she” was. At one time she was in a bad mood, she told her young housemaid, “I think my husband is cheating on me with his female secretary.” “No way!”the maid replied, “Are you telling me this on purpose to make me jealous?”

聊到婚外情，大家总爱说：

“哪个猫儿不偷腥？男人就像猫一样，只是比猫高一点儿。唉，天下乌鸦一般黑。”

“在单身酒吧里的男人有一个共同特点，那就是他们都是已婚的。”

“男人觉得办公室的恋情很难拒绝，可以一边赚钱，一边谈恋爱，反正用的都是公司的时间。”

有一位女士说，她已经厌烦了花心丈夫老缠在三角关系中，不能自拔。结婚数年，先生一直都在谈恋爱，只是太太不知道“她”是谁。有一次，她心情很不好，对家里年轻的女佣说：“我怀疑先生和女秘书有染。”“不会吧，”女佣回答，“你是不是故意说了让我嫉妒的？”

每个女人发现先生出轨的线索都不同。衬衫领口的唇印，来路不明的女人头发，晚归却没有好借口，午餐一吃三小时，信用卡上买的东西都没带回家等等，都是可疑的线索。还有太太接起就被挂的怪电话，先生电话里的声音出奇的温柔，说些“我好想你，我想握握你的手……”之类的话，还辩称说是和他妈妈聊天。

在医生诊断完毕之后，都会开列出医嘱，在此过程中需要有两名医生和护士来共同核对药物数量，在药物使用过程中还需要严格的执行药物的“七对、三查、一注意”制度，能够明确出药物是否得到了正确的使用，对患者进一步加强负责。

我有一朋友，她说小时候放学回家都在当侦探，在纸屑篓里翻翻，就知道自己上学时，妈妈给在家的妹妹什么好东西吃，自己也可以据理力争，争回点儿好处。妈妈不在家时，她可以从她是穿了拖鞋还是皮鞋外出，来研究她走多远，会不会回来做饭。凭着从小训练出来的侦探才华，她认为每件事都有线索可寻。

“这个电话一直响了23声没有人接，那他一定在家。”

不知道这是什么逻辑，怪不得有人感叹说，男人花了几千年发展出来的一套逻辑观念，女人能在几分钟之内破坏无遗，但气人的是，常常是她对。

“他看到我那么高兴，那么殷勤，一定是另外有别的女人。”

“他忘了系领带，一定是……”

似乎每件小事都逃不过她的慧眼，虽然没有学过科学辩证法，却又料事如神。不需指纹分析、化学实验、测谎仪，却能用手边的工具来做侦测的器材，借助一本电话簿、烟蒂、手帕，她都能找到证据来证明她的想法。

（摘自《幽默女人麻辣烫》中国长安出版社）

The clues discovered to expose a husband’s unfaithfulness are different for every woman. Lipstick on a shirt collar, unidentifiable woman’s hair, returning home late without a good excuse, a lunch that lasts three hours, credit card expenses for things that never seem to be taken home are all suspicious clues. Calls hung up when the phone is picked up by the wife, the husband’s voice turning exceptionally tender in the phone, saying things like, “I miss you, I want to hold your hand……”and then defending himself saying it was his mother on the other end.

A friend of mine said when she was little she would go home after school and pretended that she was a detective. Rummaging through the trashcan, she could know that when she was away at school her mom had given her little sister something good to eat and wanted good grounds to argue on, hoping that she could gain some “rewards”. When her mom wasn’t at home she would look to see if she had worn her sandals or leather shoes to figure out how far she was going and whether she would be coming home to make dinner or not. Based on those detective skills that she developed, she reckoned that there are threads to pull at for everything.“I phoned him and heard the phone ring twenty-three times in a row and no one picked up, he’s definitely at home.”

I’m not sure what kind of logic that is, and it is no wonder that people lament saying that men have spent thousands of years working on a set of logical concepts only to be broken by women within a few minutes, and most annoyingly, the woman is often right.

“He’s that happy to see me and so attentive, he must have a woman on the side.”

“He forgot to tie his tie, it must be that……”

Seemingly nothing could get past her ‘all seeing eyes,’ she seems to foretell the future like a god. She has no need for fingerprint analysis, chemical experiments, or lie detectors.He is able to turn the tools beside her into detection

equipment—taking clues from a phone book, a cigarette butt, or a handkerchief—everything becomes the evidence needed to prove her point.

Later she married, and in the clues and traces she realized that her husband was having an affair, but weirdly enough this time she didn’t go investigating herself, instead she hired a detective, saying, “I’m hiring you to follow my husband and that woman night and day. The most important thing is to find out what that woman sees in him, because I can’t see it.”

(From Witty Women’s Hot Pot, China Chang’an Press. Translated: Sam Bowden)

女人:天生的侦探

文 |吴玲瑶