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[Editor's Note: Dan Kennedy is the author of "Exactly Like Liz Phair, Except Older. And with Hypochondria ," which appears in Love Is a Four-Letter Word]

This ex-girlfriend of mine was at this book reading I was doing downtown, and out of nowhere this baby walks up; totally surprises us. The tiny infant looked exactly like one of The Supremes in their 60's heyday on Motown Records; maybe six-months old, but it had huge adult-sized teeth. And this baby liked me way too much; crawled fast and robotically up onto the table I was sitting behind, her head swaying to some sweet jam she was belting out, teeth the size of her own hand glistening in a disturbing confident smile. The ex-girlfriend, she's taken to attending my readings, and each night when she approaches me to have her book signed, something odd like this happens. And then she suggests we leave the bookstore together and go watch the Disney film Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. The catch, she says, is that if I accept the invitation, I will die. I am tempted because I love this movie, and determined to figure out a way around the death part, but in the end I decide against it; I decide I would rather live.