Nobody likes exes with book deals. Nobody. Oh … be indifferent if you will, those who believe you are exempt from this by nature of your sex or sexuality. But be warned all ye who enter here, you will rue the day Penguin publishing ever thought your ex’s Machiavellian story of loss and triumph over the powerful tobacco and low-fat yogurt machine ever warranted a $20,000 advance and 4-week book tour in Mississippi. Be warned, for you will not get another warning.

As you were previously warned, the wrath of your ex-girlfriend scorned is not one to be trifled with. And don’t fool yourself into thinking you didn’t scorn her because oh man, did you scorn her. Even that one time you made her blueberry pancakes? You scorned her. That time you bought her that cashmere sweater? Scorned. When you trafficked that prostitute across state lines and paid $80,000 into different shell accounts to cover your tracks? Totally scorned.

What’s worse, people like to hear about sleaze, and somehow your relationship is rife with it. Mind you, it’s not that we don’t want our exes to succeed. We would gladly take comfort in their success were it not for the nagging feeling that they’re somehow going to portray us negatively. The only thing that comes next-to-worse is not being mentioned at all.

Oh that’s right, you weren’t even mentioned. You weren’t even important enough. “What? Did I mean nothing to you? I don’t get a word in your precious little book? Hell, even the coffee guy you made out with that one time at Domino’s made it into the book!” And that doesn’t even make sense! You just spent the last few weeks leading up to the book’s release party telling all your friends and family that they shouldn’t believe her lies. You carefully explained that you were just trying to release her hamster into the wild and things got a little suggestive. You covered your bases. Then, much ado about nothing. It ends in a whimper, hardly a bang (come to think of it, wasn’t that how your relationship ended in the first place? Could explain a lot…) That’s right, ain’t nobody likes ex-girlfriends with book deals.