I was once a “webmaster” – back when that was a job – working under a Christian evangelical patriarch. Late forties, silver hair, dutiful wife – so basically Mike Pence. I’ll call my guy Mark Price.
I was in college at the time, and this was a pretty cool job – I made fifteen bucks an hour and could work basically any hours I wanted, and as many as I wanted. I just sauntered into the office, sat down, and started making websites. Specifically, this was for an institute loosely associated with the college, and our biggest project was making a website, funded by a grant from a pharmaceutical company, about a little-understood chronic illness.
Mark Price was a congenial fellow. A handsome Santa Claus. I can’t remember how I was hired. Did I interview with Mark? I have no memory of this. In any case, nothing prevented me from getting the job, and I was a brash, outspoken, sometimes shaved-headed young woman. So far, awesome.
Things didn’t get weird until Mr. Price brought his new wife in to meet us all. She was a widow or divorcee, I forget which, with kids at home, and Mark Price was her second husband. She looked at him with stars in her eyes.
I was made to understand that the two had met at church and that the new Mrs. Price was so very, very thankful to God for bringing her a husband like Mark. A manly, strong, commanding, Christian husband like Mark. Especially since she was a single woman with children. She was ever so grateful. I’m not stereotyping her – she told us all of this explicitly, in the office, during work.
