Maybe Next Year...

Gemma, dear readers, is the Paris correspondent for The Ferocious Reader. She is one of the Publishing Ladies, and an expert on Auster-Doyle syndrome.

Gemma: Were you at the annual Valentines Day pillow fight in San Francisco?

A-L: No. I'm Protestant. We don't celebrate pillow fights.

Gemma: Why not?

A-L: Because they're frivolous. And messy.

Gemma: And?

A-L: And because I was raised by a woman who lived through WWII. Pillows are not just for Valentines Day. They're for a lifetime. Especially for the Finns.

Gemma: How so?

A-L: Well, everyone knows the Finns used some brilliant tactics - like the Molotov Cocktail and white uniforms which camouflaged soldiers in the snow - to humiliate the Russian army during the Winter War, but it's a little known fact that their greatest weapon in defeating Stalin's army was...

Gemma: The pillow?

A-L: That's right. And that's the REAL reason why I can never attend the San Francisco Valentines Day Pillow Fight.

Gemma: And because you didn't know about it until someone in Paris told you.