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Now available for preorder:
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CHEATERS:
EMOTIONAL
INFIDELITY UNIT.

BY JENNIFER BYRNE

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EPISODE 1

Reboot-y Call

HOST: Welcome to Cheaters: Emotional Infidelity Unit, where we confront shameless emotional adulterers. Meet Charlene, a loving wife who contacted us after months of suspicion that her husband Harry, an IT specialist, was carrying on an emotional affair with a co-worker. After following him for seven weeks, and shooting hundreds of hours of undercover surveillance video, we confirmed Charlene's worst suspicions. Harry was caught red-handed "talking shop" with this other woman, opening up to her about things they had in common, things that he would never, ever share with Charlene, his own wife. Here is the startling footage we caught:

HARRY: You're going to have to defrag that hard drive and set up a new operating system.

OTHER WOMAN: Yeah, I know. I guess I ought to install a firewall, too, huh?

HARRY: Yep. And be sure to outfit it with anti-virus software. That damn system is so obsolete, drives me nuts.

OTHER WOMAN: Tell me about it!

(HARRY and OTHER WOMAN laugh. CHARLENE watches footage, cracks her gum angrily.)

CHARLENE: Ohh, that bastard! He never talks to me about the obsolescence of firewalls!

HOST: We are now at Harry's workplace, where we know he's in a meeting with the Other Woman right at this moment. We're not sure how he'll react; we're going in blind here.

(A bald, muscled BODYGUARD kicks down the conference-room door.)

HARRY: What is this?

CHARLENE: Oh, don't you know, Mr. Defrag? Mr. Operating System? Mr. Hard Drive?

HARRY: Um, those are all terms I use at work, but I don't understand why you're saying them like that, with the word "Mister" in front of them.

CHARLENE: (Screaming at OTHER WOMAN.) You emotional home-wrecker! Stay the [CENSORED] away from my man!

(Fisticuffs and hair-pulling ensue.)

HARRY: Can someone please explain this?

(The BODYGUARD grabs HARRY and tasers him repeatedly.)


EPISODE 2

Funny Business

HOST: Bob couldn't have been more in love with his fiancée, Christy. She was beautiful, intelligent, and devoted—or so it seemed. Recently, Bob had begun to suspect that Christy had been sharing "inside jokes" with another man via e-mail. Through this behavior, Christy was creating a secretive, extramarital joke-intimacy that marginalized Bob's role as her spouse and primary joke-sharer. We tracked Christy's e-mail activity for a week, and, sure enough, there was some emotional hanky-panky going on in cyberspace.

csmith@aol.com: {Fwd: Fwd: Funny Cats!} Don't delete! UR gonna love this!!!

joe_jones@hotmail.com: LOL, Christy! Love the one with spaghetti on his head!

csmith@aol.com: haha, he's my fave too ... helps me get thru the day at this lousy job! Have a great weekend!

joe_jones@hotmail.com: UR too funny ... TGIF!

HOST: Our investigation revealed that the situation was even worse than we had originally thought: it turned out that Christy had shared this illicit joke-intimacy with over 30 other individuals, at least half of whom were men. Bob was none too happy when we told him the news.

BOB: She's giving it up emotionally to every [CENSORED] guy in town!

HOST: And that brings us here, just outside the home of one Joe Jones, whose hotmail was hot for Christy, indeed.

(The BODYGUARD kicks down JOE's front door.)

JOE: What is this? Who are you?

BOB: Where is Christy? Where's my wife?

JOE: Christy who? Do you mean my wife's friend Christy, who sends the funny kitten-pic e-mails?

(The BODYGUARD kicks JOE in the groin.)

BOB: (Sobbing, on his knees.) Ohh, baby, where are you? Why don't you send me wacky photos of kittens? Why? I love you, baby.

JOE: I don't understand ...


EPISODE 3

Bedside Manner

HOST: Susan and Frank were happily married with three beautiful children. But one day Susan began to sense that James was going outside the marriage for emotional reassurance. This is an extreme red flag for any relationship, since emotional reassurance is the very deepest form of intimacy and should be restricted to one opposite-sex person only per lifetime. The hot, dirty temptation of extramarital emotional reassurance can be very powerful indeed. Unfortunately, Susan's instincts were dead-on. Here's what our surveillance team caught on tape of James's indiscretion:

JAMES: God, this is terrible.

OTHER WOMAN: It's going to be all right, James. Trust me. I want you to live your life and be happy.

JAMES: But what will I do without you?

OTHER WOMAN: James, you're strong. I know you'll be OK.

(SUSAN watches footage, angrily twists her hair extensions.)

SUSAN: Oh, what will you do without her, you [CENSORED]? You're about to find out!

HOST: We're now gathered outside Room 113 at St. John's Hospital, where James is rendezvousing with his emotional gal pal. Let's do this!

(The BODYGUARD prepares to kick the door open, but a NURSE stops him.)

NURSE: No need to kick down the door. I'm bringing in a morphine drip for the patient.

(They enter and find JAMES sitting at the bedside of a sick woman.)

HOST: You're busted, James.

SUSAN: What do you have to say for yourself? Seeking emotional reassurance from this skank?

JAMES: Susan, this is my mother. You know that.

SUSAN: Yeah, so?

JAMES: And she's dying.

HOST: Well, now we've seen it all, folks. This isn't just emotional infidelity; it's emotional incest. It's a sick, sick world out there.

(The BODYGUARD maces JAMES in the face.)

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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:

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Fragments From Edwards! The Musical By Ben Greenman
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