Very well, I hope I didn't embarrass miss Riley.
Anyway, if Kathy doesn’t want it I could pick the last of my top ten, that hasn’t been quoted.
Clark surreptitiously scanned her pack with his X-ray vision and rolled his eyes as he readjusted his glasses. She must have been in a rare snit when she went home to collect her things. Nobody as smart as Lois was could have packed so stupidly otherwise. To supplement her chocolate, she had brought a Tupperware container full of what looked like potato salad, a jello cup and a bag of pretzels. The potato salad would be spoiled in a few more hours, the jello would melt and the pretzels wouldn't last the night. He hoped she liked fresh caught fish.
[…]Clark confessed to having with him a change of shirt and underwear, a book, a pocket knife, a brown bag with a grease spot on the bottom and a couple of cans of pork and beans. When Jimmy pointed out that he had forgotten to bring a can opener, Clark felt appropriately stupid. He really had to do better keeping up with appearances.
clue
"Paul, I guess, was mainly about my pride. I really worshipped him, but I never really knew him. Claude..." she closed her eyes against the memory. "That was probably the most humiliating experience of my life." She began to dig into the wet wood with a thumbnail. "I'd only been at the Planet a few months, and I let myself be seduced by the paper's resident womanizer...why, I don't know...except that I knew I was too young for the job and in way over my head. I thought Perry had been a fool to hire me." She was silent for a moment. "Everyone knew afterwards. Apparently all the other guys on staff lived vicariously through Claude and depended on him for a full story of his conquests. They got it." Viciously, she snapped the twig in two and threw the pieces back into the water.
Clark felt a sudden murderous urge toward the unknown Claude. He sincerely hoped for both their sakes that they never met. He could hear her reluctant hesitation as she haltingly told her story. He knew instinctively that Lois was saying these words aloud for the first time and he understood what it was costing her.
Because it so good.
"Well, I've been thinking...I've known you for almost two years now. You're my best friend, but I really don't know that much about you, beyond the obvious things. I mean, I know you like basketball, baseball, the usual guy stuff. I know you eat garbage most of the time, and it doesn't show which means you'll probably die young. You read way too much and you're into the wrong kinds of music. You have a great apartment in a lousy part of town. You like your privacy, you keep people at arms length, but at the same time you let them walk all over you.
"Go on." said Clark, intrigued by her assessment.
"Well, you have a secret love of weird, useless facts. You mow some old lady's lawn every week. You actually seem to get along with your parents. You must have an incredible nightlife, 'cause you're almost never there when I call.
