Ok, I’ve waited long enough. I’ve scanned headlines for updates and hoped for something new to arise so the timing would be relevant. But I can’t hold it any longer. I want to talk about Audrey Seiler.
Who? Seiler was the 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Wisconsin who went missing one day last March. She was nearing the ranks of Elizabeth Smart and JonBenet Ramsey when she turned up four days later, alive and safe, in a marshy area near her apartment. Seiler told authorities that a “bad man” had abducted her from her home at knifepoint, knocked her out with cold medicine, and bound her with duct tape. Shortly after she gave the police her statement and descriptions for a composite sketch, tapes surfaced from a Target store security camera showing Seiler purchasing a knife, cold medicine, and duct tape.
Upon searching Seiler’s computer, investigators discovered that not only had she found a romantic string of e-mails between her boyfriend and another girl, but that during the time that she was supposedly missing, “someone” had used her computer to look up local weather forecasts and to search for wooded areas near her home.
After some light interrogation, Seiler cracked. She had made the whole thing up. She bought the materials, tied herself up, and waited in a marsh to be found, hoping this would shuffle her beau’s focus back to her. Why, some could ask, would she choose such an irresponsible means of reconciliation?
Because she’s brilliant, that’s why!
Some girls might try to remedy their ailing college romances by faking a minor illness or a dead grandparent, refusing to eat, or even getting smashed and fooling around with another guy for the greater good of inducing jealousy. But not Audrey Seiler. She’s beyond all the usual acts of self-centeredness. She didn’t just guilt-trip her boyfriend for not wanting her anymore, she punished the whole country. Search parties, public and private investigations, and thousands upon thousands of tax-payers’ dollars and air time spent publicizing her disappearance to caring people coast-to-coast. Sure, some might consider inconveniencing an entire nation by wasting their time and money “selfish,” but how can you put a price on (forcing) true love?
Audrey Seiler should be applauded for her reckless actions. Going to stupid extremes like this for a boy who isn’t paying enough attention to you isn’t childish; it’s romantic. Just imagine, “all this was for you, honey-bear. Sure I’ve been given three years probation for lying to police officers and obstructing their duties, and the courts are making me pay back the hundred-grand that the state put towards preserving my useless existence, and yeah, maybe one or two people who were really missing died while the cops were looking for me, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay for my co-dependence.”
Audrey Seiler, Fatal Attraction and Single White Female have got nothing on you. Boiling rabbits and jamming stiletto heels into eyeballs are small potatoes compared to making the CNN-viewers of America see you as the victim. It’s just a shame that you’ll never again be able to dazzle anyone with this skill, what with the fact that no one will ever date you again.
So let this be a lesson to all you sorority-type-rejects out there: if you want attention, faking your own kidnapping is a good way to go. Unless, of course, you don’t want to be known as the psychotic half-wit from Wisconsin, in which case it would probably be wise to act like a normal human being and do things like, you know, not fake your own kidnapping.