Monday November 19 2001 "Infidelity Kit finds cheats
with their pants down"
LONDON (Reuters) - Sick of rifling
through his pockets in search of mysterious hotel bills? Fed up with
stumbling upon her hushed phone calls?
Worry not, an end is in sight for all
those suspicious minds wondering what their other half was up to
last night.
A new ``infidelity kit'' being sold on
the Internet promises to help catch the unfaithful by way of bodily
emissions.
``Undergarments are the best place to
test,'' said Jonathan Friedman of the European distributors
Commercial and General. ''However, tests on the inside of shirts,
blouses, bedding and car upholstery are also valuable.''
Unsavory though it may be, Commercial and
General say thousands of doubters have paid 59 pounds ($86) for the
CheckMate kit hoping to ``end the nightmare of
suspicion.''
``I ordered your kit and found semen. I
feel justified with this to take our four kids and divorce (my
husband). This is great...now I can make his life hell,'' one
gleeful Californian woman wrote on the company's Web site,
www.getcheckmate.co.uk.
A bewildered young soldier wrote that his
suspicious mother performed the test on his wife's underwear while
he was away on a tour of duty.
The result: one lurid purple patch and
one equally lurid confession of an affair with his best
friend.
Friedman said the British-based company,
had received a storm of emails from the shocked, outraged, relieved
and curious.
``Does it stick to car covers?'' one
inquirer wanted to know.
Many voiced concern about privacy
issues.
Friedman acknowledged the kit raised
``one heck of a lot'' of questions about trust, but he said there
were plenty of people prepared to take a devious approach to win
peace of mind.
A survey of those buying the kit showed
about 40 percent were aged over 40, about 55 percent were women and
almost half had been married for more than 15 years.
The survey also elicited the curious fact
that almost 10 percent of British customers come from the seaside
resort of Brighton -- long a favorite spot for those who fancy a
dirty weekend.
Note: The reference to "
the British-based company" was a mistake by the Reuters
reporter who did this particular story. The company is actually
based in Seattle Washington USA with distributors in 7 different
countries including the United Kingdom where this story originated
in November 2001