commentary by Patrick H. Moore
I’ve noticed that one of the trickiest parts of being married is when my wife comes up and interrupts whatever I’m doing because she needs to discuss something “important”. In order to keep the peace, I yank myself out of my reverie and try to look attentive. I say “try to look attentive” because the appalling truth is, I generally don’t want to be bothered.
My wife, however, very much wants me to be bothered; whatever is on her mind is of paramount importance to her and I better damned well pay attention.
Right about now, 43-year-old Timothy Bork of Mount Angel, Oregon is probably wishing he’d paid attention last Friday when his wife, 45-year-old Toddi Bork, who was brave on beer at the time after downing at least a six-pack, got totally pissed off and doused him with gasoline and lit him on fire because she reportedly couldn’t get his attention.
Now when Toddi decided she was damned well going to get Timothy’s attention OR ELSE, she really had a pretty solid reason. You see, Toddi, like all wise and humane people, loves her dogs. (If a person does not love dogs, said individual should possibly be kept at arm’s length, though there may be valid exceptions to this rule.)
Unfortunately, last Friday, Toddi’s love of dogs was at cross-purposes with poor Timothy’s very valid concern for the condition of their lawn. As Rick Stack pointed out to me when he sent me a link to this story (and told me to “post it” OR ELSE he would have me arrested for tax evasion), one look at their lawn will tell you why Timothy was concerned. It’s yellow and ragged and looks terrible, a veritable eyesore. If our lawn on our suburban SoCal hillside looked like the Bork’s lawn, there just might be a neighborhood committee pounding on our door telling us to turn on our blankety blank sprinklers. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that the Borks may not have a working sprinkler system, for if they did, their lawn would probably look quite a bit better than it does.
Anyway, it was just Timothy’s bad luck that day to have decided to spray their backyard with weed killer, perhaps as the first step in a lawn reclamation project. Toddi objected to this because she was afraid the DDT or whatever Timothy was spraying would cause one or more of her 4 chocolate brown Labradors to get sick. So, while intoxicated, she tried to get Timothy’s to listen to her concerns.
Because Timothy refused to pay attention, she doused him with gasoline and ignited it. According to at least one report, Mount Angel police engaged in a routine neighborhood patrol just happened to be driving by and saw poor Timothy on fire there in front of the house.
The Paramedics were called and Timothy was rushed to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland with burns on his chest and face reportedly covering 15 per cent of his body. It is unknown how serious the burns are but I suspect they’re plenty bad.
The Mount Angel police report that when they arrived, they initially thought there had been an accident with a barbecue. Toddi, however, was forthright in admitting her wrongdoing; she bravely marched up to the police with her hands behind her back (as if she were already cuffed), said she had drunk six or seven beers, and admitted she had set her husband on fire to get his attention, but that she hadn’t intended to kill him. She also told the police to arrest her which they did.
She is now in jail and has been charged with attempted murder. Her next court appearance is scheduled for August 27th.
Although Timothy is certainly expected to survive, I imagine he will be seriously scarred for life and will probably need skin grafts on his face.
So let this be a lesson to all you valiant husbands out there; when your spouse wants (needs) you to listen to her concerns, be a good sport and pay attention. Whether or not you want to admit it, her concerns are just as valid as yours, maybe more so. Besides, you really don’t want to end up like Timothy, and you probably don’t want your wife to end up in custody facing murder charges.
Kurt Vonnegut has a line which perfectly captures the pathos of this Mount Angel tragedy:
“That is my principal objection to life, I think: It’s too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”
Vonnegut’s narrator delivers this line at the end of the first chapter of his book Deadeye Dick. He’s alluding both to his father’s befriending of Adolf Hitler and the fact that he accidentally murdered his neighbor, but like so many of Vonnegut’s memorable quotes, it resonates well beyond its immediate context.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Toddi Bork appears to have made her “horrible mistake” with the greatest of ease, and, sadly, she is likely to pay for this particular mistake for a very long time.