Every teenaged girl goes through her awkward phase before she blossoms — but then, some never blossom, and go straight from awkward to haggard without one good weekend in-between. Our culture provides ample consolation for those difficult years: reassuring every ugly duckling that she will be a swan and each toad that he will become a handsome prince. But I can't help wondering if that does more harm than good. After all, some worms turn into butterflies ...

... but most are just plain worms.

Sure, everyone comes back from their high school reunion with a story about the horse-faced chick who grew into a bodacious babe or the pencil-necked twerp who evolved into a Cassanova (and these days, it's mix and match: that gawky girl could show up as a stud) - but there are many more stories they don't tell, about the ones who didn't change, or soured in the ripening process. The vast majority of ugly kids are going to grow into fugly adults, and all that fairy-tale nonsense will just make them more miserable as time goes by and the magic never happens.

... without a whole lot of surgical assistance.

For the fast majority of humankind, life is a lot more like Hans Christian Andersen than Mother Goose: the ugly ducking and frog-prince grow into an gruesome duck and a great fat toad — and both get gigged and served up in a steaming bowl of jambalaya. But if you insist on holding onto the illusion that, one sunny day, you'll wake up to find that you've sprouted breasts and grew into your nose, it would be wise to set the snooze button on your reality alarm to age thirty.