It's almost time to go home and I don't feel like working anymore.

So I am starting the Core Story Board for such events - please join in if you feel so inclined - I shall start the story - and anyone is free to add their "creativitiy"

Once upon a time there was a chubby librarian who knew that if she had a makeover she would be a knockout - her plan was to buy lottery tickets and win a huge bundle of money so she could put her plan into effect.

So the next morning off she went to the lottery booth with her money in hand, but on the way a very strange thing happened........

(your turn)

How fun!

...as she was crossing a busy intersection, she felt someone slip something into her pocket. Glancing back she could not tell who it had been. Slipping her hand into her pocket, she pulled out a slip of paper. "Madame Bouffle, Fortune Tellar. Before you make a mistake, come and visit me. The librarian was stunned. Could this be a personal message for her? The librarian stood on the corner of the busy street, then turned and went...

How fun!!

purposefully toward the lottery booth. Then she paused. What kind of opportunity was she passing up? Wasn't she just telling herself in the mirror today that she needed to take more risks? She didn't want to be a chubby librarian forever.

She glanced at Madame Bouffle's card again. The address, strangely enough, was just a block from the library where she worked. If she hurried, she could visit before she was expected at work.

As she headed to her bus stop, she felt a giddy sense of excitement she hadn't felt in a long time. "Maybe things are finally looking up!" she thought.

Wow, I'm impressed. I'm not good at this but I'll keep reading!

[B]As the bus approached, there was Madame Bouffle on the side of the bus. She must be good! Her ad is on the side of the bus. Her heart felt as though it would burst out of her chest. She boarded the bus and headed toward Madame Bouffle's. When she arrived Madame Bouffle seemed to be waiting for her. She ushered her in and..........

said something to her in a hushed tone. In all her excitement, the librarian tripped and fell face first onto the tile floor. She saw stars -- and then he was there with her again on the beach. It was the day before the fourth of July and they were walking hand in hand along the shoreline. It was the day he'd asked her to marry him -- and the happiest day of her life. She was young, beautiful and in love, with her future stretched out before her.

Yes - that's what happened - right before that giant shark flew out of the water and attacked him - until there was nothing left.

Why oh Why did that have to happen? If only she had been able to save him. But alas, it was not meant to be - and since then she had become a bit of a recluse and refused to enjoy life as it should be lived.

As she came too - and opened her eyes - she realized that Madame Bouffle was not who she was supposed to be - in fact she was really.....

the shark who had ripped Gary, her fiance, to big, bloody shreds! "You!" she gasped, too taken aback to make sense of all this craziness. "Yes," the shark said, with a strangely mournful expression. "I've done nothing but search for you all these years," he said.

"What?" she cried.

"Yes," he said. "After I ate Gary, I realized that I had done you a great disservice. You had true love, and a shot at the kind of happiness most of us only dream of, and I took that away from you with a cruel snap of my blood-thirsty jaws. And now that I've found you, I mean to repay you in the only way I can..."

i love this. ya'll keep going.........

...her father said from somewhere above her.

"Daddy??" she exclaimed as she managed to look away from the shark. This was all too weird since she'd lost her father many years ago. But then again, Daddy would have loved this -- he loved crazy stories almost as much as he loved . . .

banana splits - yes her father used to own the local Dairy Queen and had a great love of all things cold and sweet.

And there he was - was she just dreaming? Where did her father come from? And what about Gary and the shark?

She was so confused - so the Shark told her to have a seat and he would explain.... it seems.......

..."that all of those years ago there was a terrible misunderstanding. I was sent to attack someone on the beach. The King Shark showed me a picture of my intended victim. The only problem was that my eyesight was very bad back then, before I had these," he said, pointing to the glasses he was now wearing, "and I couldn't get a good look at the picture. So instead of choosing the correct victim, I attacked Gary. I am so sorry."

"But I just don't understand," said the librarian, looking wildly between the shark and her father. "What in the world are you trying to tell me?"

Her father replied, "Well sweetie, what he's trying to tell you is that..."

The shark interrupted. "I am your father." He nodded solemnly. "Yes, I know it's hard for you to believe right now, with all you've been through, but you have a shark for a father. This man," the shark gestured with his flipper, "is actually an actor. I paid him with fish all these years to give you some sense of normalcy."

The libarian shook her head slowly. It was all coming together. "So," she began, "that's why we had all that free seafood when I was growing up!"

...and that's why I had to have that "special surgery" when I was younger cuz you said my legs were congenitally fused together for some inexplicable reason?

It all makes sense to me now! But I still want to go on with my life and I still need and want that makeover more than ever!

What should I do?, she asked Daddy Shark....and what exactly have you done with mom?

"Your mother is an amazing woman - used to dive all the time." A kind of wistful look came over Daddy Shark. "After you were born, we did everything we could to make you fit in. You starting winning swim competitions as a child and your mom used to leave me messages in bottles along the southwestern current with your picture."

Was that a tear in his eye? "But your mom, she couldn't handle the shame of being married to a fish, so . . . "