Mr. Dime was short at four-foot eleven.

Mr. Dime was short at four-foot eleven. Mrs. dime stood tall at six-foot seven. There were no little Dimes at all, folks said she was too tall,

too tall to fit in the double bed they shared. Would it work to sleep diagonally? Would she be forced to prop a chair under her feet? Being warm was very important to her, but

stole a small 'decorative' Indian boy from a market stall. "Well, he looked great on my porch 'til he went missing" she said as she stroked her

skin-tags and oily pimples. She ate butter and mayo sandwiches and dunked boiled hog's feet in pimento-cheese dip, she once got a huge

piece of fat caught in her throat and had to give herself the Heimlich by

throwing herself into the kitchen counter. But, she had a fear of counters rooted in childhood experiences with setting the table for deranged visitors who'd befriended her mom.

One of the strangers was the late Kurt Vonnegut, who had carved a picture of his asshole into the counter and babbled on about the firebombing of Dresden. She feared counters and

carvings, but she loved Vonnegut and stories about Dresden. And pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. And unicorns.

How she could combine trite things like unicorns and pina coladas with the bitter gritty inferno that was the bombing of Dresden I could not fathom, but women are like that.