You need to pass a driver's test to drive. You need to pass a citizenship test to become a citizen. They really should make you take some sort of test before you become a parent.

Stacy met Ira at a nightclub. They went out with a few times, but she didn't really like him.

She says: "He tried too hard to impress me with things. I decided not to go out with him anymore, but he kept calling. In fact, he called periodically for two years until I agreed to go out with him again. When I did, I suppose he stopped trying to impress me so hard, and we just clicked."

They began dating, and after four months, Stacy was contacted by the mother of Ira's four kids. (He never married her. That should have been the first clue.) She told Stacy that Ira had been coming around trying to start something with her.

Stacy says: "By this point I'd already been conditioned to think she was crazy because she'd call all night, every night. She would literally call his house every five minutes until 3 am. I knew because I was there. He brushed her off as crazy, and I believed it."

(She adds: "As a side note, she really is crazy. She has shown up at my job and my house and has accosted me on the street yelling at the top of her lungs with her adolescent kids in the car about how I'm a whore and how Ira is her man. She has called, texted and emailed me. She even put their 11-year old daughter on the phone to tell me to stay away from her daddy. She only calmed down after I promised her I would call the police.")

After Ira's baby mama (times four) told Stacy that she and Ira had been sleeping together, Stacy broke up with him.

In a manner of speaking.

Stacy says: "Unfortunately, I would still have sex with him on occasion, and I became pregnant. After I was pregnant, I found out that he was seeing more than just that ex-girlfriend, but in fact had a habit of hanging on to multiple exes. He had a baby here, a baby there, but felt no remorse for his actions. Being the fool I was, I believed him when he said he loved only me and wanted to marry me."

It was Alexander Pope who said, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." And just to prove Pope right, Stacy went ahead and married Ira. And did Ira change his low-life baby-making ways? Stupid question.

She says: "We married, but it was soon over when I found out that he never stopped his cheating, lying ways. I was not happy when I found out that I was pregnant yet again. But to make matters worse, it wasn't long into my pregnancy that I found out my husband had impregnated not one, but two other women.

"I asked him why would he do this and how does he feel about three women being pregnant at the same time. He said, 'I don't have to take care of them.' I can't believe I ever let myself get involved with such an uncaring, unthinking person."

Personally, I think "uncaring" and "unthinking" are two of the nicest words anyone has ever called Ira.

Any thoughts about Ira? Send them, along with your questions, problems and rants to [email protected]. And check out my e-books, "Dear Cheryl: Advice from Tales from the Front" and "I'll Call You. Not.