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Community Corner

Jeff Ward: How to Scare Your Boyfriend Without Using a Shotgun

I may be a gender traitor, but I don't want to get shot, either!

Every now and then, the magnitude of an event in one of our 22 happy Friday Patch suburbs makes me sit up and take notice. And let me tell you, when the fine folks in Downers Grove set out to pique my interest, they go all in.

Let’s just say, were I an inhabitant of that fine municipality and my wife, girlfriend, or maybe even my sister, asked me to do the dishes, people would say they’d never seen an old guy move that fast. I’d be practicing my best “yes dears” 24/7.

, 43, currently faces charges of aggravated domestic battery and aggravated battery with a firearm and may ultimately be charged with attempted murder. DuPage County Judge Elizabeth Sexton set her bail at $1 million.

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If she does manage to post bond, Podruzek is barred from having any contact with her victim, which, when you consider the following series of events, I don’t think will be much of a problem.

Apparently dismayed by her boyfriend’s inability to clean a dirty dish, our enterprising Downers Grovian decided to put an exclamation mark on her displeasure with the help a .410-gauge shotgun.

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Despite being a relatively small-bore weapon, prosecutors said her hapless beau suffered “four or five entry and exit wounds” in the neck and shoulders after being shot at virtually point-blank range through a bedroom door.

Which brings us to our second life lesson: A locked bedroom door may not be nearly enough to protect you from a really angry Downers Grove woman.

After discharging the weapon, Podruzek put it back in the garage, smoked a cigarette and returned to the bedroom only to find her boyfriend lying on the floor moaning, “I’m dying, I’m dying.”

Playing dead is always a good move you want to avoid being shot twice.

Finally realizing she’d actually wounded him, Podruzek dialed 911, and the boyfriend will recover—physically if not psychologically.

Our modern day Calamity Jane told police they’d been discussing their relationship and she believed “things were going to change.” But then the dirty dish set her off and she only wanted to “scare him.”

I will admit that any firearm pointed in my general direction would likely scare the you-know-what out of me, but it always pays to remember that only GOP vice presidents can get away with shooting someone in the upper body with a shotgun.

At the risk of being labeled a gender traitor, I’m more than willing to offer all women three equally potent methods of scaring your boyfriend that don’t necessarily involve the repercussions of employing a firearm.

(1) Immediately after spotting that dirty dish, you could look him in the eye and, in an excited voice, say, “Honey! I’m pregnant!” This is especially effective if you’re over 40.

If you utter those three little words while he’s standing on a concrete surface and, if the shock doesn’t immediately kill him, then the fall from fainting probably will. And you walk away scot-free.

(2) If, due to age or other circumstances, that ploy won’t work, then try this: “Honey! Guess what? My mother’s coming to live with us. She loves doing the dishes!” Trust me, there’ll never be another dirty plate in your house—or the one next door.

(3) The next time he goes out, get a couple of neighborhood kids to come over and explain that you want to play a trick on your boyfriend. As soon as he walks in the door, have them leap out, hug him and yell “daddy!”

Now some advice for men with dishwashing issues. I have found that, if you’re willing to take some simple prophylactic measures, you might not find yourself on the business end of shotgun. And if you take other prophylactic measures, she won’t be able to pull the “I’m pregnant” scam on you, either.

(1) Upon finishing your lunch, have the dog lick the plate clean and just put it back in the cupboard. If you don’t have a dog, get one.

(2) Toss the plate in the trash! But then be sure you take the garbage out ASAP. If you’re an especially enterprising sort, go ahead and replace the dirty dish with a new one from a secret stash in your closet.

Be careful here, though! She might be so impressed with your “dishwashing technique” that you end up doing even more dishes and replacing all of them could get expensive.

(3) Buy her a dishwasher, which would be much more romantic than that table saw you got her for Christmas.

This whole silly scenario proves that nothing good ever comes from any woman tying to change any man. It’s just another sad example of the feminization of America.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Men are happy being men and we’re happy to let women be women, but women want men to be women. You cheerfully agree to marry us, relentlessly try to “fix” us, and then, unhappy with your handiwork, leave us for some macho jerk who treats you like crap ... or you shoot us with a shotgun.

It’s stories like this one that remind me of why my good friend Rob Kelley and I came up with the Ward-Kelley Postulate some years ago. Never even think about cheating on your wife, the Postulate goes, because one woman in your life is more than enough, and two is twice the "joy."

Especially if they're toting shotguns.

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