i am The Other Woman.

My creative director and I always joke around about how I'm his work-girlfriend. We spend so much time together that it's all too true. We love each other's company, always laugh at each other's jokes, and spend more time with each other in the day than we spend conscious hours with our significant others.

However, today our "affair" was taken to a whole new level when his wife called him this morning and said "How, exactly, do you think it makes me feel when I see an email print-out to Not Lisa on the kitchen counter that simply asks 'will you marry me?'"

Some back-story: a few months ago, Creative Director had to take a trip with a few of our clients. Unfortunately, they had only enough money in the budget to take one agency person with them and Creative Director was their man. He gets uneasy when it's just him and the clients, as he has no filter and needs an account service person (see: me) to keep him in check. He also has no talent for entertaining clients, despite being the gay man that he almost is.

To help ease his social anxiety, I sent him a fairly comprehensive list of restaurant choices. They were categorized by client mood (varying from "I want to eat well on the company dime!" to "I'm going to get nipple clamped if my expense report is high.") and food genre, then punctuated by a Google Maps link giving him directions from the hotel to the restaurant. Obviously, the only appropriate reply to this email was "will you marry me?"

Fast forward to four months later, yesterday evening. Creative Director is going through his back-pack and pulling out (hee) any paperwork that he no longer needs. He doesn't think to actually put the trash in the trash can (creatives distract easily) and leaves it in a stack on the kitchen counter for his wife to accidentally find the next morning.

Three words come to mind: bless his heart.

All I could tell him when he recounted the story was "That's what you get for being such a whore."

Luckily, his wife really isn't mad. We have met and think each other is delightful. She also knows there is no reason for alarm. But, because she is so delightful, I do know that she's not going to let him live it down for the next couple of weeks.

However, there is one thought that is a bit unsettling... why did he take the time to go into his "sent" folder and print out the email with his reply at the top, rather than printing straight from his inbox the email that I sent him with the restaurant selections?

I posed this question to my friend Ryan who merely said "STOP the over-analysis." But where's the fun in that?

He also then said "I can't handle you right now. I have to go see my therapist and find my center again."