Smiling Box Monster

Bennington Slipdale, III is ridiculously overqualified and underskilled. With the tsunami of the global pandemic threatening, right before the shut down of the Chicago Public Schools, Bennington abandons his AP Calculus position and flees for higher ground. Now he stands on unfamiliar turf, with jobs hard to find in the new COVID-driven economy. Bennington, or preferably Benny, has no choice but to deliver boxes for the mega e-commerce empire of the universe. The problem is, Benny's painfully slow, fumbles with the evil box scanning device oddly called a Rabbit, and is under constant threat of losing his job where "calculus doesn't get boxes to stoops." Everything he's learned before now is of no use. To make things worse, Benny struggles with an acute fear of failure, or atychiphobia. Slinging boxes is his only chance to redeem himself and not just become another dime a dozen atychiphobe: convinced he was never good at anything and never will be. Will becoming a master box slinger of the wild, wild midwest conquer his fear?

Bennington Slipdale, III is ridiculously overqualified and underskilled. With the tsunami of the global pandemic threatening, right before the shut down of the Chicago Public Schools, Bennington abandons his AP Calculus position and flees for higher ground. Now he stands on unfamiliar turf, with jobs hard to find in the new covid-driven economy. Bennington, or preferably Benny, has no choice but to deliver boxes for the mega e-commerce empire of the universe. The problem is, Benny’s painfully slow, fumbles with the evil box scanning device oddly called a Rabbit, and is under constant threat of losing his job where “calculus doesn’t get boxes to stoops.” Everything he’s learned before now is of no use. To make things worse, Benny struggles with an acute fear of failure, or atychiphobia. Slinging boxes is his only chance to redeem himself and not just become another dime a dozen atychiphobe: convinced he was never good at anything and never will be. Will becoming a master box slinger of the wild, wild midwest conquer his fear?

Constrained by traditions restricting their movements and speech, the Maithil women of Nepal and India have long explored individual and collective life experiences by sharing stories with one another. Sometimes fantastical, sometimes including a kind of magical realism, these tales allow women to build community through a deeply personal and always evolving storytelling form. In Maithil Women’s Tales, Coralynn V. Davis examines how these storytellers weave together their own life experiences--the hardships and the pleasures--with age-old themes. In so doing, Davis demonstrates, they harness folk traditions to grapple personally as well as collectively with social values, behavioral mores, relationships, and cosmological questions. Each chapter includes stories and excerpts that reveal Maithil women’s gift for rich language, layered plots, and stunning allegory. In addition, Davis provides ethnographic and personal information that reveal the complexity of women’s own lives, and includes works painted by Maithil storytellers to illustrate their tales. The result is a fascinating study of being and becoming that will resonate for readers in women’s and Hindu studies, folklore, and anthropology.

As children, many of us have had dreams and aspirations of what we hoped to achieve in our future. But for some of us, we only hoped that our tortured lives are nothing but a mere dream. However, for Kelly Anderson, this hope is too much to ask because her nightmares are indeed real. As long as she can remember, Kelly had been surrounded by violence and dysfunction. Having a mother who was emotionally unavailable and a father who was a violent alcoholic, it is no wonder Kelly felt abandoned and alone the first time she was raped. But Kelly would soon learn that her only escape from her torture is by death. This is the true story, based on actual events, of a childs struggle to cope with the pain and confusion of physical and sexual abuse. In this disturbing story, you will experience life through the eyes of the victims as well as the victimizers. You will follow Kellys quest to find love, freedom and serenity amid so much turmoil. You will feel Kellys pain and understand what really lies beneath: THE TORTURED SMILE