I really should put on my flame-retardant suit before posting this.

According to CNN, Mary Winkler, the woman who shot her preacher husband, could go free today.

I mention this mainly because something about this case has always smelled funny to me, and I've wondered why, as I have deep sympathies for those in abusive situations and absolutely no doubt that some preachers are abusive jerks and most of my friends and family felt that was exactly what happened in this case and he got what was coming to him. But there was just something about the way the abuse allegations didn't come out until she'd had time to plan strategy with her lawyers, the fact that her testimony didn't seem to match up with her original statements, that has made me wonder if the justice system got played this time around. 

I think it's that I keep coming back to one little detail, a detail that's gotten perhaps the most attention, a detail that seemed in the eyes of small-town Tennessee such an Affront to Southern Womanhood that that nasty man got what he deserved:

The stripper shoes.

Remember, there were claims of all sorts of deviant sex, and then it comes out in court that he wanted her to wear stripper shoes. Good grief, I think I had more deviant sex than that this morning. Are stripper shoes really so scarring that a request to wear them during sex can put a person in the realm of battered spouse syndrome?  

Is Tennessee really that shocked by stripper shoes? I know they have stripper shoes in Tennessee. My cousin's girlfriend wore them to my grandmother's funeral.

See, I told you: Libraries are wacky places.

Me (barging into boss' office): There's a CURLING IRON plugged in in the bathroom.

Boss: First of all, that's not a curling iron. It's a straightening iron.