Chapter Twenty
“When I Was Young.....And Soft Things”

Claudia Teck was finally returning to The Most Important Place in the World. To her way of thinking it was.

Rumor had been buzzing, although it was a nearly silent buzz, about the halls of the Herschberg U. Department of Literature for months. It was whispered that Claudia Teck had accepted a position teaching (not just lecturing, mind you) at Herschberg. If this were to be in fact true, it would be the biggest coup for the Lit department since Walt Whitman's illegitimate and loudly denounced half-sister Gwendolyn had become Dean, well over one hundred years ago.

Claudia had hated her time at HU. She had been scorned as the most pretentious and least attractive (both physically and socially) member of her class. It hadn't helped that, during her sophomore year, her younger brother Bony had enrolled.

Bony was nearly as universally disliked as Claudia, but he needed attention. Lots of attention. Any kind of attention. Although he had denied it, Claudia believed that he had started the whole "Bony Teck" parody of the old Apex Technical Institute commercials that persisted in being loudly joked about in her presence during her final three years at HU. (And when ya grad-joo ate, ya gets yer own FREE setta tewels).

If it hadn't been for the presence of Bony, she might have been able to make it through four years at Herschberg being roundly despised and ridiculed by only a small group of classmates. As it had happened, she was ridiculed by the entire student body.

Fortunately, Claudia was able to enter denial faster and harder than nearly anyone else in the continental U.S. Within weeks of her brother's arrival she had come to the conclusion (which she thought that she had always believed) that her peers were unimaginably childish and immature. She began to seek out the company of the faculty. By the end of her sophomore year, she was engaged to the youngest professor in the Engineering Department. By the time of her graduation she had borne him a son and divorced him, realizing that he, too, was hopelessly immature and childish.

After her graduation, Claudia sought out the company of progressively older and more mature gentlemen. By the time of her return she had buried three husbands and her current one was in a nursing home in Center Moriches, NY.

Hooking up with older men had its advantages. Claudia's third husband, J.C. Pantaloon, had connections to the New York publishing industry. And so her first collection of poetry, When I was Young...... And Soft Things first saw print in 1986, a mere 7 months after she left Herschberg. When I was Young had proved wildly popular and gone through 6 printings in its first year alone. Then came the stage play, the Broadway musical and finally, in the summer of 1990, the record-breaking box-office smash action/comedy film starring Arnold Schwarzeneger, Billy Crystal, and Meryl Streep.

With her newfound wealth, Claudia found that she was able to do the two things most important to her. She was able to lavish huge donations upon her alma mater, to ram her success down the throats of her former classmates. She was also able to purchase herself a weekly slot on A Prairie Home Companion.

At the county airstrip (newly re-named The C. Teck Airport), there was a limo awaiting the new poet in residence. There were also three young men holding signs welcoming Ms. Teck. As Claudia made her way from the helicopter to the limousine, she stopped to sign autographs for her fan club and got a custard creme pie in the face.

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