Kate Ryan

Fresh orange juice, milk, thick slices of ham, a block of cheese, a carton of eggs—her husband kept it this way should this moment arrive.

For the record, I didn’t mean to be born so tall. I didn’t ask for bulky shoulders or a head that doesn’t fit most hats.

It was a tradition of theirs. When siblings Sue and Johnny went home to their mother’s for Christmas, they watched the 11 o’clock local news.

Surviving the Apocalypse didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy a little romance.

The case of beer I brought, as my mother explained, is “pure poison” and so I must drink it all by myself.

I saw my old babysitter at a women’s wrestling cage match.

A bloated mother in her polka dot one-piece gnaws on a corndog while reading the romantic pulp she picked up on her way out of the supermarket . . .

She closed in on the open pores enlarged ten times their normal size by a high magnification pocket mirror.

She got too high while watching The Bachelor and had a misanthropic breakdown.

LAX, on the other hand, seemed like a perfect place to pick up the latest deadly virus.