Summary

Thomas briefly addresses the “you” audience. The female “you” met her husband after being startled in a bustling metropolitan city when a car horn honked, and her diaphragm fell out of her purse. After a year, they marry and eventually, the husband runs away to Fiji with “a cheap harlot named Sandra” (69).

While taking a bubble bath with Mrs. Kooshof, Thomas tells her a story about Herbie and Lorna Sue’s large number of childhood pets. As children, Herbie and Thomas purchased a live rat at the pet store to feed to Herbie and Lorna Sue’s pet snake. Herbie dropped the rat and it ran to a ledge outside their window, just out of reach. As a solution, Herbie ties his pet cat’s hind legs together with rope and dangles the cat out the window, comparable to “A fishing expedition” (73). Herbie drops...