Sweet T. and Biscuits

There comes a point in every girl's life when, suddenly, it begins. Maybe it's an offhand comment, a commercial that you can't forget, a shirt you realize looks terrible on you. Maybe you remember it or maybe you were too young to really know what it meant, but there's just no escaping...The Trickle. I don't remember the very first time I noticed The Trickle, but I do remember certain droplets. I remember a distant cousin telling me, when I was 6, that when I grew up I was gonna be "a knockout." I didn't know what a knockout was, but it sounded awesome, like a superhero (you can imagine my disappointment). I remember my grandma saying, when I was maybe 10, that my mom should get me into modeling, and I'd "only have to lose a few pounds." I remember Santa in my elementary school gym looking me up and down and pointedly telling me I looked like I'd been "a  very  good girl this year." I was in sixth grade

“I really can’t stay!” Noel protested, as her laughing friends pushed her through the door to the party.   “I’ve got to get away from all this Christmas dating craziness; you know yesterday I was at a party where a guy actually told me I looked like I’d been a naughty girl, so I should feel his lumps of coal? Lumps of coal, you guys. Who would that ever even work on, seriously?” She didn’t mention that later she’d briefly considered hooking up with him anyway, just to be sure she actually did still know how it all worked down there, given that she hadn’t been with anyone in, oh, a year or so. Noel wasn’t a fan of the whole forced-dating rush of the holidays, when no one wanted to be stuck without someone to kiss under mistletoe (or, even worse, be forced to go home to their families again and listen to Grandma go on and on about how she wishes there was a baby in the house again, you know, before she dies which will be sooner than you think, you know ), so they threw themselves i