Seventeen

The day after my seventeenth birthday, my friend Trish bought me the Paranoid’s Pocket Guide, just a little something to cheer me up. The front cover read, “Hundreds of things you never knew you had to worry about!” The bulk of it was dedicated to new bacteria on the rise and divorce rates and medical phenomenons. Skimming through this book yesterday, I noticed one disturbing “Insult to Injury” fact; the book alleged that “a man is much more likely to help an attractive woman who is bleeding to death than a homely one.” Didn’t everyone deserve a Knight in shining armor? No? Didn’t I? If I was hit by a bus, miraculously survived and was on the verge of life or death, would my attractiveness or lack of good looks really decide my fate? Would a chivalrous man run swiftly down the boulevard, throw his cell phone to the wind, and come to rescue me-only to first inspect my looks and determine if he finds them save-worthy? He would probably take one glance and think: Ah, I’ll save this one for the EMTs. I decided the pocket guide’s statement just added to the inventory of perks for pretty girls.

Then, I accused myself of being a hypocrite because honestly when I had imagined the above scenario, I had pictured my knight as my ideal ma

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