All was well when she thought of me as Angus McTavish, native of Edinburgh, come to America for riches and fame. She laughed at my jokes and adored my idiosyncrasies. But ha!, when it turns out I'm actually Billy McKeage of Sacramento, California, then all of a sudden it's "Oh, I can't trust you any more." The fact that I have vaguely Scottish ancestry (though I'm mostly Russian) did not impress her. Suddenly my voice is whiny and nasal.

Let's get some perspective, people: so I faked an accent, so I lied about my job. How many fetching young ladies could I pick up if I admitted in public that I'm not an engineer but a manager at a Bronx McDonald's? Please. And she wore makeup, thinking her deception was acceptable.

Six years of marriage down the drain.