Literally (a change of appearance) or figuratively (a mental or emotional metamorphosis)? How and why did it happen?

-- Ann Monroe (monroe@chorus.net), June 06, 2000

Answers

I was once a respectable, upright, law-abiding citizen, happy in my career, fulfilled in my marriage, admired by my children, the subject of numerous sycophantic interviews in the local press.

Then I discovered a forum called Ask A Drunk.

Today, a mere five months later, I’m a gap-toothed, fly-blown, broken- veined wreck of a man, spurned by my wife, libelled by my offspring, fingered by the Director of Homeland Security, shunned by every decent soul. A cardboard box is my only home. I feed myself on bacon rinds snatched from the jaws of rabid dogs.

It’s great! You should try it!

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 23, 2002.

I woke up one morning last week and had an irresistible urge to go skittering under the refrigerator to forage for food among the attractive assorted debris that had accumulated there. I've since moved my lodgings into a small crevice behind the kitchen skirting-board.
I now find that my family and former friends shun me like a cockroach. Is this normal?

-- Franz Kafka (f.kafka@chrysalis.com), February 27, 2002.