In no time, I was sniffling and wiping my nose with my palm, wanting more than anything else in the world for Ariel to get the human legs she so coveted and to walk with Prince Eric into the soapy Christian goodness of the rest of their lives, scentless and as gleeful as freshly minted coins, her spanking new feet as ostentatious as Scorah Pattullo pumps. This, I figured, is what I got for having no church to go to or any belief in even a smidgen of the optimistic balderdash of any political person, party or platform. I was like a gynecologist who suddenly had his speculum and flashlight confiscated and replaced with a lava lamp and a Serge Gainsbourg 8-track, my analytical understanding of what was unfolding directly in front of me as impossible to conjure as the words water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins, glucose, urea, sodium and potassium to describe the substance dribbling from my tear ducts.