Reprinted from The Carmel Pine Cone, September 12, 2013
A Santa Lechuga Expectorator Exclusive: Joe Schmuck has filed divorce papers in the Monterey County Courthouse, ending his high-profile marriage of 20 years to Mary Schmuck.
Sources close to the Pebble Beach couple cited “irreconcilable differences” that developed after Mrs. Schmuck hired a man named “Carlos” as the family pool boy. The Schmucks were married in 1989 in a lavish ceremony at Willows by-the-Bay Church. Newspaper articles at the time described the wedding as the “social event of the year.”
It was Mr. Schmuck’s eighth marriage, and the third for Mrs. Schmuck.
Friends say they feared that the Schmuck marriage was in danger after Carlos was hired, inasmuch as there is no pool at the Schmuck estate.
Clarification: Mary Schmuck has filed formal separation papers in the Monterey County Courthouse against her husband, Joe Schmuck.
Sources say Mrs. Schmuck submitted the legal papers as a simple tax dodge, and that the Schmuck union remains as strong as ever.
The Carmel Valley couple was married by Baba Ram Dass at Monastery Beach during an expansive gathering of friends in 2000. It was the first marriage for both. Their pet ferret, named Willows, served as ring bearer during the ceremony. Newspaper articles at the time referred to the wedding as the “cosmic event of the year.”
Rumors that Mrs. Schmuck hired Carlos as a pool boy are unfounded, and close friends say that Carlos is actually the family’s live-in mechanic.
Rectification: Joe and Mary Schmuck have mutually agreed to seek counseling, according to sources close to the family.
The sources say that the demands of business travel have created a strain in the Schmucks’ relationship, but both are amenable to marriage counseling. Mr. Schmuck is a noted performance artist who is on the road for months at a time. Mrs. Schmuck owns and operates a car wash, which serves as the couple’s tax dodge.
The couple was joined in marriage in 1993, during a modest ceremony performed in the willow-shaded back yard of their modest Monterey home by a Reformed Methodist minister. The wedding was witnessed by about two dozen of the couple’s closest friends and family members, and newspapers completely ignored the ceremony.
Previous reports that Carlos is the family mechanic are incorrect. Sources say he is assistant manager at the car wash and that he is happily married, with three young children of his own.
Correction: Neither Joe Schmuck nor his longtime girlfriend Mary Klondike are seeking a divorce, according to sources. While Mr. Schmuck and Ms. Klondike have been “committed life partners” for the past 12 years, they have never been married, either to one another or to anyone else.
Sources say the Prunedale couple does in fact own a pool, but Joe Schmuck does all pool maintenance by himself. What’s more, all service work on the Schmuck-Klondike automobiles is performed at the dealership by a mechanic named “Bubba.”
Neither Mr. Schmuck nor Ms. Klondike owns a car wash. And Mr. Schmuck is not a performance artist, but has been a freelance consultant, specializing in actuarial work, for the past three decades.
Also, Carlos is the name of the couple’s 8-year-old son. Willows is the name of the couple’s rescue bulldog, and is not a ferret.
Responding to earlier reports that the Schmucks were seeking a divorce in order to perpetrate a “tax dodge,” a CPA who identified himself as the owner of a local drive-through tax service franchise told The Expectorator that both Mr. Schmuck and Ms. Klondike have never had issues with the Internal Revenue Service and in fact purposely contribute extra every year “so that they can do their small part in paying down the government debt.”
A Follow-up Expectorator Exclusive: An attorney representing Mr. Schmuck and Ms. Klondike announced today that the couple is currently contemplating a defamation lawsuit.
In related news, The Expectorator has agreed to a cease-and-desist order forbidding the column from publishing future exclusives, clarifications, rectifications or corrections about the couple.
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