Author: Marie Lathers

The recent MAGA executive order limiting the number of dolls for each child has prompted famous children from America’s past to reminisce on their own childhood toys. Laura Ingalls: When we lived in the little house in the big woods, I had a rag doll. It was really just an old pair of Pa’s boxer shorts with a wad of straw sewn up inside, but if I turned it sideways I could pretend the two brown buttons were eyeballs. Once we got to the little house on the big prairie, Ma replaced it with a corn husk doll, without buttons…

I can’t limp down to the corner without some ignoramus asking me if I’m still in love with my mother. Ha, ha. Never heard that before. What I would give to go unnoticed, but it’s my dammed feet. Everybody knows the story because that nuisance Sophocles keeps tweeting about it, mentioning my gait. Hobbling around is like having “I’m a pervert!” tattooed on my forehead. As if no one else in town has foot problems. Why, just the other day I saw the Graeae sisters shuffling to the bus stop with their canes; no one stopped to smirk and ask…

My name is Jehanne d’Arc. First name, Jehanne. Middle name d’. Last name Arc. I hate the name Joan. I hate English. Don’t call me Mademoiselle d’Arc, either. Or Madame d’Arc. Or Saint anything. I’m not a saint now and I never was one. First, let’s deal with the idea that I was some kind of shepherdess, happily and virginally jaunting through the meadows, feeling the glow of the warm sun on my face and telling my sheep how much I gloried in keeping them as my flock, as though I were a ewe in the flock of Jesus. Me,…