YOUR CHEATIN’ HEART

“The time will come,” sang Hank Williams, “When you’ll be blue / Your cheatin’ heart / Will tell on you.” These are some pretty big tells.

PONCHOS AND PUNCHES: A real-life telenovela broke out in Mexico City one steamy summer night in 2018. A man wanting to propose to his girlfriend hired a mariachi band to serenade her at her house. As they were playing the song “Si nos Dejan” (“If They Let Us”), the woman emerged onto her balcony in what would have been a very romantic moment…if one of the mariachi singers hadn’t been her husband. She’d been secretly living in this house while carrying on with a man who had no idea she was already married. “The music came to an abrupt end,” wrote the Daily Mail, “as the singer traded blows and insults with the woman’s lover.”

BENCHED: A man in Peru was mapping out a driving route using Google Street View when he clicked onto the Puente de los Suspiros de Barranco (“Bridge of Sighs of the Ravine”). On that bridge he saw a bench. And on that bench he saw a woman (with her face blurred out). And lying back on her lap he saw a man (face also blurred out). It was a tender moment that stopped the Google mapper in his virtual tracks. Blurred or not, he could recognize his own wife. And that wasn’t him lying on her lap. The dejected husband posted pictures of his grim discovery on Facebook, along with the news that he was filing for divorce.

ACCOUNT-ABILITY: A man thought he’d found the perfect way to fool around on his girlfriend: create a second Facebook account with a fake name, and use it to flirt with other women. His plan might have worked if not for Facebook’s “suggested friends” feature. His profile picture, along with a different name, popped up in his girlfriend’s sidebar. She clicked on the account, and there he was in all his cheatin’ glory. (She “unfriended” him.)

WATCHING TELLY: In 2018 a 51-year-old English woman and her 15-year-old daughter sat down to watch a live variety show on TV. That week’s episode featured a wedding party that was led through a corridor and—surprise!—onto a stage in front of a live audience. Everyone had a big laugh…until Mom and the daughter saw Dad on TV holding another woman’s hand. He probably hadn’t expected to be on television in England, because he’d told his wife and daughter he’d be in Dubai on business. Oops. It turned out that the husband was actually married to that other woman. He’d forged divorce documents to do so, which landed him a bigamy conviction and six months in prison. The two women became friends.

Elephants can’t jump.