A Teenager's Dreams


So I'm sixteen and I'm naked. This happens a lot, they say, but for me it's really strange, because I'm judging the Miss America pageant and I'm having a hard time with it, to say the least. The whole time I'm standing there on the stage with my pencil and my scorecard and I can tell the camera is on me because I can see the red light and Dick Clark is looking at me, waiting for me to announce the winner. And I'm thinking about Mickey Mantle, and about my mom, and about that ugly woman who lives on the corner but nothing is working. So I reach for the microphone and if I'm lucky I wake up about then.