Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t mean to shock you out of your pants (particularly you fatties), but I’ve got the most shocking news to report: Apparently I, Rokwell T. Finger, have been married for a while already.

I’m not defecating with you. Nor am I talking about my two previous wives, Arvelyn, the foul temptress, or Wyfe, my mysterious first spouse I never seem to reveal much about. No, this insidious beast is, as far as I can tell, some third entity I married more recently, after Arvelyn and after Wyfe, but before my engagement to my latest love, Ginger Baker.

You can’t imagine, even with hyper-space imagining goggles, how surprised I was to get a call informing me I had abandoned my wife on a deserted island known as Australia, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Her name is Felchyana Finger, which is either an incredible coincidence or the tart has even taken to using my name. I called her a filthy liar, and now that’s added into the lawsuit. Oh, yes—she’s suing me for abandonment. And now slander. As far as I’m concerned, she can sue me for complete forgetment, because apparently she has a case for that more than anything else.

People, believe me, if I knew I had a wife, I never would have started up with Ginger Baker. Heart be damned, and loins be voodoo’d. I am not the kind of man who goes out milking cows when he has a jug of milk at home, even if it’s goat’s milk. Actually, I have never met this Felchyana character, and I can’t fathom how I would even meet an Australian. But we were married. Her lawyer has pictures of me with her and everything. I’m not sure how they got me into that ridiculous Wild Kingdom get-up, but the woman tricked me into marrying her, there’s obviously no end to her powers.

Not that I’ve met her—beyond our time of marriage, that is. We’re speaking through attorneys, her attorney and me, who is representing myself. He’s a nice fellow, her attorney Nick Digby, but you can’t understand a damned thing the man says. I suppose they all speak that way on his primitive island.

Nice, yes, but he’s been spinning some cock-and-balls story about the FBI giving me a new identity, me hiding from the mob, then some nonsense about getting kidnapped by pirates. Honestly, do they think me an idiot? What kind of sane person goes around offending the mob, marrying Australians, and turning pirate overnight? It doesn’t sound like me at all. I’m not buying it.

But, from a legal standpoint, Digby and the foul-mouthed wife of mine have some kind of case, I can’t deny that. Worse than that, they have me over a barrel, and it’s full of piranha who are nibbling my kibbles ‘n’ bits. If I want to marry Ginger Baker—and I do—I’ll have to find a way to settle things amicably with Ms. Down-Under. Or I suppose that’s Mrs. Down-Under. No matter what lies she spins about me, the important thing is not to take it personally, just keep friendly, and try to walk out of this a single man.

In the interest of honesty, I have to tell Ginger Baker what kind of man she’s marrying. What I’m trying to decide right now is whether to wait until after we’re married, or if it’s quite necessary I tell her before. My conscience is telling me the latter, but I’m not sure how much I can trust my conscience, given that I’m a man who has huge gaps in his memory and has married women at the drop of a veil before. Ah, the dilemma! Torn between two women, only one of whom I really want. I suppose many men would happily trade places with me. If anyone wants to, try to match my height and my approximate looks so Felchyana won’t be able to distinguish us.