Meet Neville

A guest post by Carol.

Um, hello?

I’m, er, um, Neville. [clears throat nervously] I’m, um, Dolores’s college boyfriend.



Oh, didn’t she tell you about me? I’m not really surprised. [resigned sigh] It was a long time ago, you see. We were quite young then, just barely weaned, you might say. It didn’t last long, but perhaps you already presumed that.

I met Dolores many years ago, while I was working on my doctorate in advanced numbers theory at MIT. She was waiting tables at Grendel’s Den, on break from her studies in radical ovine feminism at Harvard. She’d just decked some silly Delta Gamma who was getting snotty when her potato skins were taking too long. I’m not one for senseless violence, but Dolores was poetry in motion, my own fleecy Million Dollar Baby…

I never thought a beautiful and, um, experienced girl like her would notice a man like me. You know, a nerd? You don’t have to look uncomfortable; I know I’m a nerd. All my life I’ve been laughed at and made to feel inferior. I know some of you out there know what I mean. When you went to school, you might've been called a spazz, or a dork, or a geek. Those of you that have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down, whether you think you're a nerd or not, you know what I mean, don’t you?

Well, it seemed inconceivable that a hot tamale like Dolores would ever go out with a dorky Coopworth like me, but she did. Yessiree, that one glorious autumn in Boston. She, ahem, made a ram out of me, yes, she did. Always had a voracious appetite, if you know what I mean, and I’m not talking about hay. [dreamy look] I don't mean to be indiscreet, but Dolores' devil-may-care attitude was a very heady drug for me. For instance, before my...er...deflowering, I dutifully retrieved the condom from my wallet (it was a natural lambskin one...they feel like I'm not wearing anything), and Dolores laughed at me and told me it wasn't necessary. The excitement was dizzying.

All good things must come to an end, they say, and so it was with Dolores and me. Broke my heart into a million pieces. I scraped together my work-study money and bought her a diamond ring. Well, it was only a promise ring, and okay, it was really cubic zirconium, but I truly loved her. She shoved the ring up my -- well, never mind – and told me she wasn’t about to “get shackled to some ivory-towered pointyhead who didn’t know his ass from page twelve.” [sighs deeply] Oh, she looked marvelous when she was angry, fire coming out of her eyes, stamping her little hoof on the ground.

If you see her, tell her I still love her.