Which wasn't fair at all. Kim was the most even-tempered and tolerant companion that most men would ever see. But Curt's behavior was beginning to drive her to desperation.

When they had met at the University seven months before, Kim had seen all her dreams of an ideal family life coming true. She had known a lot of boys in high school, none of whom impressed her as having the mettle it would take to be decent husbands. She had been pursued by the most popular athletes, student politicians, and scholars, and as the prettiest girl ever to have attended the high school, would have been an easy winner in any of the beauty contests. She had disdained all these things and kept with her studies, resolved to becoming a career girl and helping her widowed mother survive the poverty they had always been plagued with. It was at the end of her first semester in college that she had met Curt and the ensuing romance had eclipsed all those wonderful plans of a career.

She had asked her husband-to-be if perhaps she shouldn't go on and finish her degree before quitting to become a full-time housewife, but Curt, an honor student with boundless ambition and self-confidence, had assured her that he would soon be making quite enough money to take care of the both of them and her lonely mother in Kansas. She should stay home, keep herself healthy, and make the house ready for the children they would soon be creating.

It was after graduation that their plans hit a snag when the job Curt had been promised had suddenly been given away to the company president's new son-in-law, leaving Curt with not his second or even third choice, but actually the last choice of all the firms he had applied for.