Aunt Valetta paused from her squirrel ironing

Aunt Valetta paused from her squirrel ironing and her lip curled in disdain at Pa's offering. "Road kill don't make for good coats! I got my pride!" Her fur coat business

catered to the elite, despite her own humble western Pennsylvania roots. "For cryin' out loud!" Aunt Valetta hollered. "Is it so hard to get me some decent squirrel pelts?" Beyonce

demanded only the finest squirrel pelt thongs and ear muffs, but the quality of available pelts had been in decline ever since womprats were introduced. Aunt Valetta flung the

social conventions out the window when she introduced "Laugh Mourning" to funerals. They'd kicked her out of church but she had the finest womprat fur hats anyone had laid eyes

on. She'd actually sold her soul for this ability, and despite the fact that making fur hats is a far less impressive skill than summoning demons, she turned down the cult's

offer to let her summon them. She was far more content to create fur hats anyways. So she moved to the north, where fur hats were in demand and the cult wouldn't search for her.

It was funny how the other shoe dropped, making ripples across the northern ponds of her salvaged existence. When the doorbell sounded, she was trying on a new brassiere, and...

The bifurcated head of her husband on a bird's body was ringing the doorbell with his newly webbed feet. He had been folding stories all morning! She said, "Wait, please!" and then

hearts. There were no winners in the end, for every heart involved had been broken. Tina and Benny never saw each other again, but each often wondered what could have been.