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A man wanted just two slices of cheese on his sandwich, so when his wife used three slices in his grilled cheese sandwich, he became irate.
Angered at the sight of all the extra cheesiness, James DePaola became agitated and violent, yelling at the woman, Michele DePaola. According to WSB-TV, DePaola then ripped the landline out of the wall so his wife couldn’t call the police and reportedly screamed at her intensely. The couple’s 12-year old daughter who witnessed the incident called the police to the scene, according to Athens-Clarke County police.
James DePaola was charged with obstruction of a 911 call and criminal trespass/damage to property over what the police now refer to as “the grilled cheese incident”. DePaola has a history of “abusive behavior,” and was often “excessively critical and controlling of day to day things in life” like sandwiches, apparently.
Why are they so jokey about it? Ripping phones off the wall because you’re disappointed in dinner is not healthy normal behavior, but it is also not NEW behavior. I’m disappointed. just because the food in question allows for more humor doesn’t make that situation any less terrifying or traumatic for the wife of daughter. And that would have been their daily lives. I know we are laughing at him but it also diminishes how awful he is. Within a few days, few people, few copycat articles and eventually the only thing many will remember is the joke “haha he got upset when his grilled cheese was too cheesy!!” It’ll be like the hot coffee lawsuit
And this man is given a platform. And you know what is terrifying? They don’t give a fuck. There is no way fox didn’t know, and they weren’t scared of any real blowback. Because reality is people dont care enough about abuse for it to be a problem.
The mundane nature of the offense actually makes it more terrifying. My final night of marriage, he raged because I was too morning sick to go out as planned and leave the house to him. It didn’t stop him from doing what he wanted, I was just going to go to bed after feeding my toddler.
It’s so mundane an offense, that you feel stupid telling anyone. Even having lived through it, sometimes I have a hard time believing it.
One time he almost drove us off the freeway because I knew more about genetics than he did. I had a degree relating to the field and he had once watched a documentary on it.
And he raged because I hung up the phone when he got home. He was convinced my friend Jackie was actually Jack (names changed) and accused me of cheating. He knew I talked to Jackie at least once per week because we were working on a project together.
There was a Microsoft profile picture named Jack that he was convinced was the man I was cheating on him with. I couldn’t convince him otherwise, even after showing him it was in a file with other profile pics. He got a secret vasectomy to try to catch me cheating.
Spoiler: I was not cheating. I didn’t get pregnant again until he got a reversal. Guess who was cheating and gave me an STI?
They really don’t care. They either can’t afford to realize their sycophants are abusers because then they’d have to take a hard look at their own beliefs, or they think being abusive is a feature, not a bug.
