• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, July 18, 2016

Sometimes people do stupid things. Usually they don't mean to. Like the ad exec who once barfed all over the bar at Bergdorf Goodman. And from time to time, we all do things we wish we could take back and hide from the prying eyes of the internet. And so as I report this story about a 60-year-old ad executive who drank a bottle of vodka and strangled his 53-year-old wife, I'm not going to use his name. 

No, the wife is not dead. The couple's 23-year-old son intervened. The ad executive in question worked for a major financial newspaper in England for 33 years and recently retired. That coupled with a simple Google search will probably net you a name if you really must know. This happened sometime in the past two weeks and police were called to the scene and the man was arrested for assault.

The exec has been hit with a domestic violence prevention order and has been banned from returning to his home for 28 days. Apparently, the exec has had issues with alcohol before but is said to have been sober for quite some time before the attack. In addition to the 28 day ban, the executive will also partake in seven days of rehabilitation. 

When questioned as to whether or not he was actually trying to kill his wife, the man said, "I don't think I would have done it. I just wanted to scare her." Now you can certainly go to a Google search and find out more details if you please. You can certainly take me to task for both not mentioning the man's name and, as well, writing about this in the first place. But it happened and so I'm telling you. Shoot me now if you wish.

Or you can read Barbara Lippert's insightful analysis on the aforementioned Bergdorf Goodman barfing event which examines why this sort of behavior captures our attention. No, the two events are not entirely the same but they are, in a way, analogous.