Say It Isn't So

I went to the office for a few hours this morning to catch up on some work, and when my PC booted up, the MSN home page came up as it does every morning.  I could not believe my eyes when I read the shocking headline: Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have separated.  There it was - amid countless stories of the tsunami relief efforts and about the crazy weather in the United States - Brad and Jenn are not only separated, they have "formally" separated. Oh dear heaven - can this week possibly get any worse?  First we make it through the frozen tundra-filled holidays and then go straight into the monsoon season, and now that the rain has quit for one day, we wake up to read this dreadful news.

The news said that rumors have been flying for a few weeks now about the state Brad and Jennifer's marriage - the news reported last week that she had been seen without the insanely expensive wedding ring [that was big enough to choke a horse].  When I read that the other week, I thought "Well, that's no all that earth-shattering.  My mother has taken her wedding ring off a few times, to clean it or when she was she was having a bad arthritis day and her knuckles were swollen.  So I thought maybe Jenn might have been having the big rock cleaned or something.  I never dreamed it was the precursor to the formal separation.

So what exactly is a "formal" separation?  I would think either you're separated or you're together - no formality about it. Maybe the "formal" part meant that they both paid an exorbitant fee to their publicists who made the "official" announcement.  Whatever.  Let'e take bets on how long before he shows up with some Hollywood hottie hanging all over him.  My guess is that it won't be very long.