Ted Gargiulo

My new story collection won__ please everyone, nor was it meant to. Then again, not everybody lives in my world. If they did, I__ have to move out and find another world to write about.

Procuring the house in Ballister was a desperate bid for respect, for recognition, the ultimate gesture (or sacrifice, as it turned out) that would prove him a worthy successor to the Flo and Walter Prices of the world. To my mind, the Culver was Norm__ way home, the only way he knew. It was an ever-evolving means to an ever-evolving end that eventually ended him. Who or what led Norm down that thorny path__evotion, economic pressures, family cynicism, Beth__ insatiable appetite__as been a topic of endless debate. You can believe what you want to believe. Personally, I don__ think any rational argument under the sun would have deterred Beth__ __essiah_ from his mission. If the Ballister acquisition was Norm__ cross, as everyone seems to think it was, then it was Norm who chose to bear that cross. And pride that nailed him to it.

Ah, dear Reader, is there a married man living who hasn__ purged his drawers and closets of premarital memorabilia, only to have one more incriminating relic from yester-life rear its lovely head? Kristy contends that old flames never die, not completely. They smolder for years in hidden places. They flare up again just when you think you__e over them. They can burn you if you don__ deal with them. Such is the price I__e had to pay for not rooting out the evidence of my life B.C. (Before Contentment). Or, perhaps, for having planted it too well. But that, you see, is no longer an issue. Shall I tell you the crux of this argument? A man with a past can be forgiven. A man without one cannot be trusted. If there were no pictures in my drawer for Kirsty to uncover, I would have had to produce some.

Picture this broad: 22 going on 18. Half the guys in my class would have given their left testicle to date her. This cupcake is the guidance counselor the principal has assigned me. Miss Boyle is her name. We all call her __iss Bubbly Water._ Imagine the teasing I have to endure from my friends. Not to mention what it__ like, sitting across from this Barbie Doll every Thursday afternoon, watching her cross and uncross her legs, while she__ lecturing me about__et this: __taying focused._ Right! My pants are on fire, and she__ handing me a crash course in Psych 101!