A few Saturdays ago, Mr. W’s ex-wife, the mom of his kids, graduated from nursing school. I give her lots of credit for changing careers in mid-life, going back to school, and actually completing the education and training in an entirely different (and noble) career. That’s a lot of juggling time, money, kids, job, with your eye on the dream at all costs. We all went to her graduation. Also present was her friend, whose name I can’t spell, I only know it’s pronounced something like “Naughty.” Haha, how appropriate.

Some history on Naughty:
The first time I met Naughty almost half a year ago, Mr. W and I had gone over to ex-wife’s house to pick up the kids. Naughty and her daughter were there, hanging out with ex-wife. The ex-wife, as usual, was pleasant with me and chit-chatted a bit. I said hello to Naughty & Daughter, they both look at me, turned back to each other, and continued their conversation in Spanish. Mr. W whispered to me that the two women are known bitches and to not worry about it. A few minutes later, Mr. W and ex-wife went somewhere to get something in another room, and it was me alone with these two women in the kitchen. I made another pleasantry comment. They paused their conversation, and then turned back to each other after ignoring me and kept up the Spanish. It was absolutely rude. But MAYBE they didn’t speak enough English to be cordial, I dunno.

At ex-wife’s graduation on the Saturday in question, we were seated with Mr. W on my left, and Mr. W’s daughter on my right. Naughty arrived prior to the commencement of the ceremony, walked behind us, and Mr. W’s daughter turned around. “Hi, Naughty! How are you doing?” she said. Naughty said, in slightly accented but otherwise perfect English, “Hi, good! You look so pretty!” Daughter said, “Thanks,” and they had a few more sentences exchanged. I turned to Mr. W, who was clearly grimacing from even having to be around this woman, and I said, “Oh, so she does speak English!” Naughty unfortunately sat on the other side of daughter, but I figured I’d given her enough of a chance from before and was through offering the first olive branch.

After the ceremony, people stood around taking photos. I wasn’t part of most of the photos, so I sat to the side. Naughty tried to insert herself in the family photos of ex-wife and her kids. Mr. W, designated photographer for the event, later showed me the photos. Naughty was either completely or half cut out of the frame of the photos. I felt a little bad for her. Until dinner.

Dinner was at a local restaurant. Ex-wife had invited so many friends, family and coworkers that the restaurant arranged 5 long tables in a “T” shape for the party to sit around. Naughty was at the upper right corner of the “T” shape, Mr. W and I were at the bottom base of the “T”, and ex-wife was in the middle. When I would look up toward ex-wife, like when she was opening her graduation presents or telling a story, I’d see Naughty in the background, glaring at me. Even when there was nothing going on and I’d look in that direction, it seemed she was always glaring at me. Then, at the end of dinner, when we stood and walked around to ex-wife to say our goodbyes, ex-wife gave Mr. W a hug and thanked him for bringing the kids and for being photographer, then she hugged me and thanked me for coming, and I said, “Wow, two years, and you did it! How does it feel?” So we were in mid-conversation and I swear, I was in mid-sentence when Naughty came up on ex-wife’s right, grabbed her arm and pulled her away from me, and said something to her in Spanish. Oookay…that was rude. Two minutes later, ex-wife returned, laughing. She said, “Naughty’s all concerned about me being polite. She said, ‘Make sure you hug [Mr. W] and thank him for taking photos for you today! Give him a hug right now!’ and I told her, ‘I already did, and I thanked him.’ ” She laughed that off and continued her conversation with me. But I’m thinking, the witch (Naughty, not ex-wife) is trying to make waves! She’s trying to get ex-wife to embrace her ex-husband in front of his current girlfriend, to tick me off! What is her PROBLEM? Of course, first of all she underestimated how UNcatty I am, because that wouldn’t have upset me. She also underestimated the friendly nature of my and ex-wife’s relationship, and the trust between Mr. W and me.

The stupid thing is, why is she trying to mess with me?! I don’t know her. I guess I’d understand if ex-wife and I hated each 0ther, so as ex-wife’s friend, Naughty’s trying to make a point of supporting ex-wife by being a bitch to me. But don’t you take the cue from your friend, and when you see her getting along with the new girlfriend, why do you think it’s your business to shake that?! No wonder Mr. W hates her.