“How do ugly people do it? How do they accept other ugly people?”

“This is your important question of the century?”

”I think people are sitting home at night and worrying about this as we speak. I want to help them. Did you know there are more than a million ugly people in Seattle alone? Just think about that, one million ugly people. It boggles the mind!”

“Are you including me in your survey?”

“No. I don’t associate with ugly people. You’re safe.”

“And how do you define ugly people?”

“Well, fat people are automatically ugly. Some of them would probably not be so ugly if they lost weight, but since they haven’t, they’re ugly. Once we remove fatness, ugliness is rather easy to determine. There is a fantastic agreement about ugliness. People tend to agree on ugliness.”

“Are there many ugly people?”

“If you once again remove fat people, then the answer is no. As you might suspect, ugliness exists on a bell curve, like most things in life. There will always be plenty of average-looking people, and a relatively equal number of good-looking people and ugly-looking people.”

***

So many ugly people and so much time not to write about them. This was supposed to transform into a story about how two ugly people find each other and fall in love. Obviously, I didn’t get there. I’m doing that a lot lately: not getting places. Oh well. Why can’t I write about something nice and friendly, like stuffed teddy bears?