Mrs. Bainbridge caressed the books as she

Mrs. Bainbridge caressed the books as she removed them from the crate. She had finally obtained a complete set of Chalmer's "History of the Noodle Trade", the 1838 edition with

a steamy foldout of Chalmer's limp noodle (wink wink). The books also featured an epilogue chronicling the history of catfish noodling, but Mrs. Bainbridge was more interested in

rum and large men named after states. For instance, in a week long black out Mrs. Bainbridge was "porked" in every wafflehouse by a man named Ohio, well she was good and ready

to go west with Dakota or maybe Vegas. OK, that's not a state, but just maybe she'd spread her legs for a city-man if he had the goods. And by goods she meant meat products or

intangible commodities. Then she considered going to Boulder or Denver, where the men outnumber women.

She settled into a nice abandoned bivy sack on the Bastille Crack. Soon she was chatting it up with scads of wiry fit eligible student bachelors. She fell hard for a Philosopy stu

but sadly, Philosophy Stu didn't love her back. Not because his deterministic outlook reduced "love" to just a certain pattern of neurons and endorphins, but because she was ugly.

"There is no such thing as inherent beauty," Stu was always saying, but that didn't keep him from dating supermodels. She raged at his hypocrisy and at her own ugliness which

ate at her slowly day by day. Prim could never be as pretty as the gorgeous models Stu dated, and the only thing she truly wanted at the moment was his attention. She slammed her

head against the wardrobe in despair, which caused its door to swing open. She noticed bright light from behind her hanging clothes. She looked in. She'd discovered the real world.