My name is Maggie Finegan, and I’m the continuous victim of a clam jam. To answer your questions:

No, I’m not Irish—I was adopted.

And, yes, clam jamming is a thing.

I’ll wait until that one sinks in. Taps toe of shoe quietly.

Okay, ready? I’ll go on. It’s a pretty crazy story. It all started one dark, stormy night—wait, don’t roll your eyes at me, people. Fine. So it might have been more of a typical Upstate New York overcast kind of day. I had left work early since my boss, whom I fondly referred to as Sybil, left work at lunchtime for a meeting in the city. I took advantage of him skipping out early, knowing that I could hurry home and clean up the apartment I shared with my fiancé, Shane, and set the mood to get lucky. Things had been a little off lately, with both of our work schedules usually residing in the “heinously hectic” realm, and I wanted to remedy this.

Sliding my key in the lock of our apartment door, I stepped one heel over the threshold, and my favorite pair of Jimmy Choos slipped, sending me off balance. I barely caught myself as one hand flew out to brace against the entryway wall to steady myself. Prepared to take offense with whatever object had made me nearly land on my butt, the next moment happened in slow motion. You know what I’m talking about. Slooooow moooooooootion. Where a moment in your life is too freaking weird, crazy, or just all-around effed up, and your brain does some weird thing with the synapses, immediately slowing everything down. Like an out-of-body experience. That’s what I had going on. Because the offensive object that had me nearly falling on my butt was a pair of woman’s panties.

Fact: Those panties weren’t mine.

You know. In case you were wondering.

My slow motion continued as I bent down to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me because, yeah, that was my initial thought. They might be my panties. Because no way would my fiancé be getting “jiggy”—thank you, Will Smith, for that term—with someone else, right?

Go ahead. Say it. Say exactly what you’re thinking. Maggie, what the hell is wrong with you? Stop being delusional!

I kicked those panties to the side, slid my briefcase’s straps o my shoulder, and set it in the corner of the entryway. Walking down the hallway, I could hear my heels clicking along the hardwood floors. And do you know what I thought the entire walk to the bedroom—to our bedroom? I thought, Wow, these floors are gorgeous. And those oversized windows looking out onto downtown Saratoga Springs have a gorgeous view. I’m so glad I chose this apartment.

Weird, right? I think I had an idea of what I’d find in that bedroom, and my mind had officially gone into full-blown protective mode.

The noises were the worst. Let’s be real here. I get that, in the heat of the moment, you’re probably going to have harsh breathing and some moans, but what I heard as I approached that bedroom was something you’d likely find on the Discovery Channel. Elephants mating, perhaps? Something large scale. Maybe if wooly mammoths still existed, that would be the closest thing to what I heard coming from that bedroom.

That’s right. I know you’re cringing right now. It was absolutely mammaliciously awful. Yes, I made up that word, but you have to understand that mammals everywhere were shaking their heads in disgust at that moment.

I’m going to fast-forward a bit now because I’m pretty sure you know how what I call “the discovery” went. They both shrieked, he pulled out of her—out of her mouth, by the way—and claimed it wasn’t what it looked like.

Because, you know, his penis inside of a woman’s mouth was one of those blind taste tests or something. Like back in the day when they were all like, “This is Coke? Wow! I can’t believe it. I’ve drunk Pepsi my whole life.”

First of all, you should not be that amazed and mystified by a freaking beverage. That’s just lame.

Let’s move on.

I kicked them both out. Luckily, his name was not on the lease since he’d moved in with me. Not so lucky was the fact that this place was on the pricey side of things, so I’d have to watch my spending on happy hours, takeout, and dinner nights out.

Here’s the quick rundown:

1. I left all of Shane’s belongings outside the door. ALL of them.

2. Okay, so I might have tossed some of his things in the trash. My bad.

3. Luckily, our lead building attendant, Mr. Charlie, has adored me from day one and once I informed him of what went down, he told me not to worry about anyone reporting the overabundance of crap piled up near the trash chute.

4. I Craigslisted the hell out of that mattress. Because God only knows what had gone down—pun intended—on that thing when I hadn’t been home.

5. I did the whole bawling my eyes out to my best friend, Sarah, between bouts of inherent desire to maim Shane. Because, let’s be honest, that’s what women do. After too much Pad Thai— wait, I’m kidding; no one can have too much Pad Thai—at my pity party, I made some new decisions about my life.

This is the point where the story really begins. Get comfy. Well, as comfy as you possibly can when preparing to read about a year of my life being clam jammed.

Shall we begin?

To keep reading Maggie’s story, .