On Meeting The Woman Behind the Man Who Embarrassed a State

This blog is dedicated to Aunt Patty. Happy Birthday. (apologies for its belatedness)


When I say "the woman behind the man," I mean Mrs. Jenny Sanford. And, when I say "met," I mean I sort of stood near her for a while.


Mrs. Jenny Sanford decided, for a reason I suppose I understand, to kick off her book signing tour at the bookstore where I work. This bookstore, which I shall leave nameless, is pretty unimpressive, but it is near to downtown Columbia. I guess if you're going to stick it to your philandering husband, best to do it closest to his home and office.

We had planned to have a crowd of about 500 people attending the signing that night. We had almost every manager on staff to help direct employees and crowds and so many employees that the managers seemed to have a hard time figuring out where to put everyone. We had all been informed that there would be press there to cover the signing, which was to last two hours. Normally, store employees and managers don't take much thought about what we wear to work. We are supposed to have clothes that would be appropriate in a business casual setting. We are always more casual than business, but we have those lanyard things around our necks, so it doesn't really matter. You can tell we're employees. However, because of the camera crews and the possibility of ending up on the front of a local newspaper or on a local tv channel, we all took extra pains to ensure that we truly did look nice. Everyone had on dressy shirts and the girls wore their nicest costume jewelry. I had actually cared about my hair that day and had done my best to fix it. I also wore panty hose, an article of clothing that I loathe, to ensure that if they did get a picture of me, my chicken legs wouldn't seem so discolored and hairy.

All week we had been preparing the store for her arrival. We straightened the books with special diligence, we dusted and moved tables. The night before her arrival, I personally (with some help from a manager who was already off-duty) pulled a fallen urinal cake out of the toilet it happened to be clogging with nothing but a pair of rubber gloves and two paperclips hooked together. We couldn't wait for the cleaning crew to get it. We had to stop the mess in its tracks.

That night, I walked into the store to begin my seven hour shift, and I was eager about it. It seemed silly to me, even then, to be so excited about the event. I mean, after all, we were going to have to clean up the mess that Mrs. Sanford's fans left behind. And more than that, we were going to have to control that crowd of fans. I had learned already from a book signing by Jan Brett, the children's illustrator, that controlling these sort of fanatical people was nearly impossible. But I always love a break from the norm, no matter how difficult it may be.

I was disappointed to learn that I would be nowhere near all the hubbub. I was to be stuck behind the cash register all night, selling Mrs. Sanford's memoir to the impatient people who were getting in line for the signing. Fantastic. I hate being stuck behind the cash register. Standing in that one spot makes time move so slowly that you don't care about what time you're off, because you're pretty sure you'll be dead before then. But I wasn't alone. There were two other people acting as cashiers as well, and all of us were from places where people were used to snow. I bring that up because a forecast of snow had been given that day for Columbia and people were all jittery about it. Well, actually, they weren't really jittery at all, a fact that really let me down. I was really looking forward to mass pandemonium, you know - grocery stores being cleared out, people fighting over the last can of tuna - that sort of thing. But nobody really believed it was coming at all.

At about five o'clock the other cashiers and I discovered that if you stared out the window without blinking for about twenty seconds, you would be able to see the tiny snowflakes that happened to be falling. We laughed a little, dubbed it The Blizzard, and turned back to waiting on customers.

Time passed, and the snowflakes got bigger and kept coming. The forecasted 1-2 inches was becoming more like 5 or 6 inches. The turn out for the Sanford signing was looking like it would be pretty pathetic. And it was. At about seven o'clock I was pulled from my register and told that I had a "new job." We had to start the signing because Mrs. Sanford insisted on returning to Charleston that night instead of staying the night in a local hotel. I was given the job of standing beside Mrs. Sanford's table and taking the books from eager customers, making sure they had flipped it to the right page and then handing it to Mrs. Sanford's assistants, who in turn handed the books to her.

For over an hour I stood there, less than three feet from her as she talked with people about the snow, thanked them for their support, assured them that this book was written as a salve for women who had been through similar situations, that it was not at all written to embarrass her husband while promoting herself. And when women who almost certainly had been through similar situations stood before her trying to wipe the tears off of their cheeks before people began to notice, she took their hands and promised to pray for them. She told them they could make it if they stayed strong and true.

I found it really rather thoughtless on the part of the planning team that Mrs. Sanford's signing desk had been set up directly across from our Happy Valentine's Day display table. I didn't think that her decision to kick off her signing on Valentine's Day weekend was so surprising. I figured that it was meant to either instill pity for her or rage against her husband (or both) in her supporters. But the table being so near by was truly an accident, one that deeply amused me. There was a certain obliviousness in some of the people who showed up for the signing as well. There were quite a few husbands who came with their pregnant wives, or who came alone to have the book signed as a gift for their wives for Valentine's day. "Aren't you sweet to do that for her!" Mrs. Sanford made this comment to each husband without batting an eye. Her ability to smile at these men so sweetly and sincerely reawakened my fear of politicians.

I suppose I had a part in the irony that night as well, Right after I left Mrs. Sanford's table to go home (we were all sent home early due to weather conditions) I picked up a card for my husband. Casablanca themed.

The weather slashed the number of visitors from five hundred to less than two hundred. The hoards of press we had expected turned out to be five people, two with large cameras, one with a news video camera, one with a camera phone and one with just a note pad and pencil. One of the large camera people left the scene after about fifteen minutes, as did the video man. Two of the others, Camera Phone Man and Note Pad Lady, stayed for almost all of it. The only one who stayed the entire time was the other man with the large camera. I began to suspect, after a while, that he was actually hired by Mrs. Sanford herself. While the other reporters attempted to interview people in line about Mrs. Sanford, he took shots of her empathetically holding hands with people and he took shots of her laughing with people.

Apparently the rest of the South Carolina Press was out filming The Blizzard. My co-worker told me later that she had seen a snippet of the signing on the news. It flitted on and off the screen in between shots of snow covered streets. My face appeared on a corner of the screen for about half a second. I guess the bigger news story actually won out. Politicians mess around every day. Columbia hasn't seen a snow like that in years.