If you've ever been through a divorce or even a breakup, you know: It's not unusual for people to want their stuff back.

For most of us, that means CDs, books, favorite sweatshirts ... maybe Grandma's china or the dog.

There is a guy on Long Island who wants his kidney back.

Dr. Richard Batista donated a kidney to his wife, Dawnell, in 2001. Now they're getting divorced, and he is not going to settle for half the house and the kids on weekends. I guess she's lucky he's not going for an arm and a leg.

Dr. Batista claims his wife was so full of health and vitality after his lifesaving organ donation that she began cheating on him, an accusation she denies. She counters that he was so obsessively jealous that he was inspecting and, um, sniffing her clothes for evidence of infidelity.

Will someone please explain to these people that the phrase "dirty laundry" isn't meant to be literal?

The judge is considering a gag order. I don't think an order is necessary.

I've never minded having my heart stolen, but you can only hope the person stealing your heart has one of his or her own. Otherwise, you end up fighting to get yours back, and when you do, it's all broken. What we need is some kind of surgically implanted LoJack.

In lieu of the kidney, Dr. Batista is willing to take $1.5 million. "We are asking for the value of the kidney that he gave his wife. In theory, we actually asked for the return of the kidney," said his lawyer.

This could set a very regrettable precedent. Not everyone is patient enough to go through the legal formalities; I would hate to find out I've been dumped the moment I wake up in a bathtub full of ice.

Dr. Batista is so devastated and shattered by this whole ordeal that he held a news conference. Isn't that what you'd do if you believed your wife had cheated on you and you wanted to punish her by repossessing one of her organs?

Times Online quotes him as telling reporters that in donating -- or perhaps we should more accurately say lending, "I did the right thing for her to this day. I could still do it again." No, not really. For a surgeon, he doesn't seem to know much about anatomy.

He claimed that her affair, which her alleged lover also denies, "put a hole in my heart that still exists." Lord knows what he's going to expect her to give him for that. If it were me, I'd offer to open him up myself and sew on a bicycle tire patch with extra strong mint dental floss.

Dr. Batista further complains his wife is keeping him from seeing their three daughters. I can't imagine why. So he announced to the world that he wants to eviscerate her because she's a ho. Parents going through a contentious divorce will let these things slip in front of the kids now and then.

It would be bad enough if donated organs became classified as marital property, subject to division upon divorce, but what if some legal loophole allowed couples to sue for organs as damages, or as an award for pain and suffering or the deliciously creepy "mental cruelty"?

"Your honor, it took a lot of guts to marry this woman. I want her intestines as compensation. Also, she has left me with no stomach for marriage, so I'll take that too."

"I worked my fingers to the bone for my wife, and in the end she burned me. She needs to provide skin grafts."

"Your honor, I am contractually entitled to this man's corneas. He always said he only had eyes for me."

Under current law, Dr. Batista's quest is pointless: Organs are considered a gift upon which a price cannot legally be put, let alone paid. He's hurt and angry because he imagines his kidney sleeping with another man. But that's love, and he has other organs.

I can think of two in particular that must be extraordinarily large. And made of brass.