by Aunt Clara –

Aunt Clara has had a dear reader request for her about this thing that happened on the world wide Internets. It seems this busy body woman named Ashley Madison has been creating all kinds of mischief. It is this reporter’s understanding that since Ashley Madison was a young woman she was trying to be a match maker. It started with people she knew locally and then, as her reputation grew, more and more matches were made. First in person and on the telephone and then on the whole Internets.

The problem is that some of these people Ashley Madison was finding matches for were already engaged or even married. To other people. Dear me, how was this possible? Reminds me of a busybody that Aunt Clara knew growing up, Miss Sylvia Knott. Sylvia was the teacher’s pet from the first grade on and was both a tattle tale and a little miss know-it-all. If Billy Hosier only ate half his Spam sandwich for lunch, you better believe that Sylvia would be the first one to tell his mother. If Chippy Wooster would not share the blocks at playtime, Sylvia would be right up there at the teacher’s desk before you could say Lincoln Logs.

Sylvia also considered herself a matchmaker and was sure she knew who should and should not be together, just like Ashley Madison. I am sure Ashley Madison was an impudent child when she was young, just like Sylvia Knott. Sylvia could have used her powers of persuasion to be class president, or work on big things like curing cancer or world hunger (she was certainly smart enough) but instead chose to use her powers for more frivolous ventures like matchmaking.

Aunt Clara would assume that Ashley Madison was the same. Just the fact that she was able to get so many people to come to her for matchmaking advice — millions if the press can be believed — makes one think she had the power to influence many.

Aunt Clara would never have believed that anyone in Grafton would ever feel the need to seek out the advice of Ashley Madison. But if the statistics are accurate, there are more than a few. Aunt Clara has always been able to pick out a cad in any group of gentlemen, and I am sure that my dear readers have probably run into a few in town.

You know the type, smile a little too bright, shirt a little too white, shoes always shined, and quick with a compliment. These were the types of men Aunt Clara’s mother warned her about from the time she was a little girl. “Don’t go in the cabbage patch with that scalawag,” mother would say, pointing to a smiling young man with a rose in his lapel, or “that man there will only try to give you a green gown,” she would admonish when a certain frat boy would walk in the room.

We girls certainly know who the “cabbage patch boys” are in Grafton and who is most likely privatizing their computers on Ashley Madison. It’s as plain as the trimmed eyebrow hair on their face. Aunt Clara could tell these cads that there is nothing in Ashley Madison’s web of deceit that they cannot find in their own homes in Grafton. Just remember what Aunt Clara’s mother told her the night before she got married. “I’ve learned that marriage is the best teacher of all. It teaches you loyalty, forbearance, meekness, self-restraint, forgiveness and a great many other qualities you wouldn’t need if you had just stayed single!”