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A number of urban legends featuring jilted female partners in romantic relationships striking back at their erstwhile lovers involve some form of subtle, non-confrontational revenge scheme whose payoff will become apparent only at a safe remove across time (such as legends about placing a long-distance call and then leaving the telephone off the hook for days on end, or strewing an apartment's carpet with grass seed). This tale of secreting seafood in a cleverly concealed area is another entry on that list, one in which the wronged woman effects a plan that irredeemably ruins one of her former partner's prized possessions (e.g., his home, his new car) and forces its sale at a huge loss due to an ineradicable bad smell produced by rotting fish One of the underlying messages expressed by such tales is the notion men value possessions far more than they value relationships. Striking back not at them, but at what they own, is seen as a killer blow. Other variations of this story include: Mention of a similar stunt is included in John Steinbeck's 1945 novel Cannery Row: The character Doc advocates getting revenge on a bank by renting a safe deposit box, depositing a salmon in it, then going away for six months. In the 1993 film Grumpy Old Men, Walter Matthau hides a fish inside Jack Lemmon's car, and in the 2003 made-for-TV movie A Tale of Two Wives, the wronged women hide shrimp in the bigamist's office blinds. In early 2018 the old yarn circulated on Facebook in video form, accumulating more than 20 million views.
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