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- Mabel Mains is 25 years old and I made her up ten minutes ago as I was walking down the street to this park. (Actually, now it's been over a year. I wrote that sentence and a few of the following ones about a year and four months ago. But, let's continue.) Mabel Mains is a very unhappy person and she's always blamed it on her parents for giving her such a horrible name (although, of course, she should be angry with me rather than her poor parents, because I'm the one who named her). Mabel Mains works in a department store selling underwear. She hates the underwear because she knows she wouldn't look good in any of it. She hates the women she sells the underwear to as well, because all of those women probably look good in the underwear they buy, and Mabel is jealous and spiteful. Mabel Mains is 30 pounds overweight - or 20, depending on how skinny you think she ought to be - and instead of either accepting herself as she is or trying to lose weight, Mabel merely curses her fate bitterly, angry that so many women are naturally thin while she is naturally fat. Mabel Mains is a decidedly unattractive girl, but if you want to know the truth about her, she's actually quite pretty, she just won't give herself a chance because she assumes no one else will give her a chance. So she goes through life assuming everyone thinks she's fat and sour-looking, and as a result everyone thinks she's fat and sour-looking. The story I'm going to tell about Mabel Mains is a sad one, because if she'd chosen differently she could have had happiness in her life, but instead she chose the safe route, and so now she's just as unhappy and alone as she ever was. (Although what exactly her story is, I don't know. I wrote that, like I said, over a year ago, and now I can't remember what I was planning to write. So I'll find out what happens the same time you do. So, let's find out what happens.) When Mabel Mains was 21 years old she fell in love with a boy. She'd never fallen in love before that. She'd never even fallen in like before that. And now suddenly she was in love. She wasn't expecting it, as is usually the case when people fall in love, isn't it? It was her senior year of college and it was her lab partner, Tony Caponi. At first she'd laughed at his name, Tony Caponi, because it rhymes, but she stopped after he said to her, "And your name's Mabel?" She should have known better than to delight in someone else's unfortunate name. After that she didn't talk to him for a week. Well, that was because they only had lab once a week, so she didn't see him for a week. But if she had seen him she wouldn't have talked to him. Mabel Mains lived in a single room in the dorms. It was something she tried to keep secret (not that she really had anyone to keep it a secret from) because she felt kind of silly and childish and lazy living in the dorms. She felt like a failure. But she didn't have any friends to find an apartment with, and trying to find a place on her own was too intimidating. And besides, there was a cafeteria on campus. And it was just so easy being so close to everything. The next week Mabel was walking out of her dorm to her biology lab. It was a Tuesday, the worst day of the week, according to Mabel Mains. She'd just turned onto the main sidewalk from her dorm when she saw her lab partner Tony Caponi, and he saw her, and so now he probably knew that she lived in a dorm. Mabel was embarrassed and to hide that she quickly became sharp and impenetrable and arrogant. He said hello to her. "Tony Caponi," she said, slightly derisively. "Mabel Mains," he said back. And then he laughed at her. Not like a mean laugh, but like a humored laugh, like he wasn't hurt that she'd said his name slightly derisively, like he didn't really care that they had shameful names. Mabel didn't know what to do, so she just kept walking, even though he was walking right next to her. She wished he'd turn around or see a friend or start walking faster or anything just so he wouldn't be walking with her anymore, but he just kept on walking next to her, even though she wasn't saying anything. She tried to think of something to say. What would a normal person say, she wondered. Maybe she could talk about the weather, or maybe about how slowly their biology professor talked, or about how greasy the T.A.'s hair had been last week. But she said nothing, and then when they got to their building, Tony Caponi said to her, "Ready for frogs?" and she mentally hit herself on the forehead. Frogs! Of course she should have talked about frogs! But she hadn't. So they dissected a frog, and Mabel didn't like Tony. First, he was so unmethodical about everything, whereas Mabel would have preferred more methodicalness. Second, he did not seem to be disgusted by the smell of the frogs when they were first handed out to the class. Third, he looked at their frog very steadily and carefully, as if he were studying it. What was there to study? It was just a dead frog. Mabel wondered if Tony Caponi's family was related to Al Capone but had changed the spelling to disassociate themselves from him. Mabel also wondered why Tony Caponi had blue eyes and brown hair. Weren't Italians supposed to have dark eyes and dark hair? Mabel went back to her room after the lab was over and ate microwaved chili and Fritos. Sometimes she didn't eat in the cafeteria. (Eating there too much made her constipated.) Mabel Mains was majoring in communications. She had to take biology in order to satisfy the general ed requirements. She'd put it off until her last year because she'd always been hoping that the administration would drop the science requirement. But they didn't. Mabel Mains ate her microwaved chili and thought about her biology lab. She decided to tell the T.A. that she wanted a new lab partner, that she couldn't work with the one she'd been assigned. For one, their working habits were too dissimilar. For another, she just didn't feel comfortable as a female having to work with a male. She was sure the T.A. would give her a new partner if she mentioned the gender thing. The next day after her Modern Media class she went to the biology department to talk to her T.A. She looked through her backpack for the syllabus with the T.A.'s name on it but couldn't find it. She couldn't remember his name. She approached the department administrative assistant. "Hi," she said. "Hi," the woman said back. "Hi, um, I'm looking for my T.A., but I can't remember his name," she said. The administrative assistant looked at her. "What class is it?" the administrative assitant said. "It's Biology 101," Mabel said. "Oh," the administrative assistant said, "well, there's your professor right there. You can talk to him." It was her professor. Mabel approached him. "Hi, um, I needed to talk to my T.A. for your class, but I can't remember his name," she said. "Do you know how many T.A.s I have?" her professor said slowly. "No," she said. "Well, I have a lot," he said slowly. "Um, well, I'm not sure, but his name is like Lemon or something." "Zest," her professor said slowly, and then he turned around and walked away. She approached the department administrative assistant again. "Hi, um, can you tell me where Zest's office is?" she said. "No," the administrative assistant said. "T.A.s don't have offices in this department because our budget was cut in order to pay for the new football stadium. You'll have to wait until your next section, or until your next class." So Mabel left the biology department and went to the cafeteria and got a slice of pizza and a salad and a glass of chocolate milk and a lemon bar and a bowl of pudding. After that she went back to her room and played computer games until midnight.
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