[Note – since I posted this earlier today, the entire article is now available for free here:]
AOL Money & Finance: WSJ – – One Tough Day for Two-Timers
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article in their Friday Relationships section entitled "One Tough Day for Two Timers". It seems private detective agencies are swamped with work that day. Here’s why:
"Valentine’s Day is the biggest single 24-hour period for florists, a huge event for greeting-card companies and a boon for candy makers. But it’s also a major crisis day for anyone who is having an affair. After all, Valentine’s Day is the one holiday when everyone is expected to do something romantic for their spouse or lover — and if someone has both, it’s a serious problem."
Here’s another couple of paragraphs from the article:
"Martin Investigative Services in Anaheim, Calif., has been booked up for Valentine’s Day assignments since the end of January. Founder Thomas Martin, a former agent of the U.S. Justice Department, says the firm, which charges $95 an hour, will handle 14 to 20 suspected infidelity cases that day, nearly double its usual load.
One of Mr. Martin’s Valentine’s Day clients is a doctor whose wife, also a doctor, aroused his suspicions when she told him she would be changing her regular daytime shift on Tuesday and instead working until 8 p.m. Like virtually all private detectives, Mr. Martin won’t reveal his client’s names. He says private eyes from the agency also will be following an attorney who told his wife he can’t have lunch with her on Valentine’s Day because he’ll be in court; the wife, also an attorney, knows that her husband always gets a lunch break in court."
You can’t make this stuff up! To read a last excerpt, the end of the article, click the link just below.
"…Sean Lanigan, says he worked on a Valentine’s Day case last year for a married client who was planning to be out of town with his wife — and wanted to spy on his mistress. Mr. Lanigan says he followed the girlfriend to a card store where, using a special pinhole camera built into the button of his shirt, he videotaped her buying two Valentine’s Day cards. Her next stop was a store where she bought a dress using the client’s credit card — and finally at a hotel to meet another man.
Ruth Houston, author of a book called "Is He Cheating on You? — 829 Telltale Signs," says she generally recommends against spending money on private detectives to catch cheaters because the indications are so easy to read. (Sign No. 3 under "Gifts": He tries to convince you he bought expensive chocolates for himself.) But Valentine’s Day, she says, is an exception. "All the cheaters have to make contact that day," says Ms. Houston. "This is the one time you’re not going to come up empty."
Lauren Gorence, a 24-year-old medical assistant in Boulder, Colo., says she didn’t pick up any signs her boyfriend was sneaking around on her… until Valentine’s Day. When her boyfriend didn’t show up for a planned dinner that night, Ms. Gorence called his best friend, who said the boyfriend was out to dinner with a woman but he didn’t know where. Ms. Gorence waited outside her boyfriend’s house until 1 a.m., confronted him and never spoke to him again. (She declines to name him.)
Ever since then, Ms. Gorence says, she doesn’t attach any significance to Valentine’s Day. For the past several years she’s spent Feb. 14 hanging out with friends and plans to do the same this Tuesday. "It’s an overrated holiday," she says. "I think every day should be just as loving as the next.""
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