That's one of the things that nails it into place: the masculine POV. She's the usual horndog, she's now serious about the election theft, he's now watching her puzzling it and getting the resentment.

It's a beautiful turnabout.

Ok. A painful one, for me at least, on Teppy's breath theme:

Undamaged, as it Happens...

The two doctors stand there, talking.

"So, damage extent? I'm betting paralysis - certainly some shortening of limb. You?"

They aren't bothering to lower their voices. Why should they? I'm five years old, with polio; they're sure I'm going to die.

"I doubt she'll pull through. But I'm betting severe bone impairment."

My head, the only thing not encased in the iron lung, wants to swivel toward them. I want to be able to tell them to drop dead.

Instead, I decide to survive unimpaired, just to annoy them. Around me, the machine shifts pressure, forcing my lungs to function.

Damn, Deb. I can't relate exactly, but in a way I can. And,ION, I still don't know what word I was fishing for, but some night it 'll wake me up or be on television.

And another memory, which deserves a longer piece, but is getting this one, which is still a bit long for the 100-word rule:

Self-Defense, 1972

I'm visiting a friend in western Marin county when the call comes from the dialysis lab.

Something's gone wrong. I don't understand the technical jargon, but the message is clear: if I don't get to San Francisco fast, I may not see him alive again.

The friend's car is dead. I thumb a lift, taking the first ride offered: a small man, driving a Buick, sympathetic. I explain the situation.

Five miles from nowhere, he pulls the car offroad. Seems the nice man is a would-be rapist.

The last thing I remember, before the red mist of murderous rage settles over my mind, is the look of horror on his face as my fingers close around his trachea, and his breathing shortens and stops.

erika, I was always an ornery little bitch....

Survivors are, a lot. There are a lot of pictures where you'd swear I'd be too young for the "You can't be serious," look on my face. But there is no denying...it's a photo.

I wish I could scan the photo of me taken - I think - a few months before I was had the nice little live serum shot that put me in that stupid contraption in the first place. It lives on my fridge, a tiny black and white photo, of about a four-year-old child, very pretty, with short dark red hair, and the little moo-cow is glaring, scowling really, and you can tell, it's the Basic Deb Look. And my father - this was during a rare period when I actually spent a couple of weeks in company with my real live parents - is sitting behind me, laughing his ass off.

If I hadn't been such a pretty kid, it probably wouldn't have been nearly so surprising and so comical. But at age four, I'd already had diptheria (too young too remember it, luckily), scarlet fever, pneumonia and then the delightful little incident with the bee and the stinger and the allergy and the glayvin.

I scowled a LOT.

I was born with a "yeah, sure...tell me another one," look on my face. Which would make sense for reincarnated po-lice.(I'm not at all sure about this, of course, but I have felt drawn to that stuff for a very long time, and also incredibly short on the kind of fluffy cute that strangers on the street expect from little blond girls...it would be hard with Stan Bolander's soul, wouldn't it? "Because everyone lies. Some because they have to. Some because they want to. And some because they can."And the more chaotic my work environment is, the more excited part of me gets.) But maybe that's a reaction to the the-rapists. Or maybe Mom and I walked a beat once.

Erika, that was great. I love the way you turn the election into a crime to be solved.

And this:

“It is such a turn-on when you act devious. Remind me not to cheat on you though.”

“This was an option for you?”

“Not anymore. Not since you’d kill me to be President.”

made me laugh out loud.

Thanks, but it's not really a trick. "Theft" and "fraud" are crimes. And you need to, when you look at a crime, look at who benefits. I'm glad you thought it was funny, too.