Until last week's story in The Washington Post, I was content I had wrung every drop from my fortuitous genetic make-up--the long legs, big hair and buxomness that scream fertility. I had caught a man--several actually--and had been fruitful and multiplied across the face of the earth. (Well, Axel, anyway.) I enjoyed being a girl and knew how to use it. Wink at the butcher. Free meat. Pretend to get run over at the go-cart track. $600 cash settlement. Pass out drunk before Oprah's over. Pizza night.

Several years ago, even after giving birth, I entered the Miss Goat Head Mall Beauty Pageant, where I was pummeled by the youthful and glamourous Zsa Zsa Bone, the peanut butter heiress. Zsa Zsa mopped the floor with me. She annihilated me. She licked me fair and square. Needless to say, I no longer entertain any hopeless delusions about the pathetic vestiges of my waning good looks. Nor can I fool myself into thinking there is a man alive who would wish to breed with me. As I turn the mildewed pages of the Axel High School yearbook and gaze upon the sturdy Nordic face that concealed a Da Vinci-like IQ, I can't help but bawl a metric ton of tears over my wasted ovarian eggs. My winning lottery ticket--beaten to a pulp in the Maytag of life.

It's in all the college newspapers. "Wanted: superior young females for egg harvesting. Must be over 5'10" with an SAT of 1600. Ability to wiggle ears a plus." Infertile couples are willing to pay thousands, even billions, to create their own Barbi with a brain. Oh, to be young and raking in the bucks. Who needs college when you can sit around and make eggs? There's even an easy on-line egg donor registry.

Like a Neanderthal with the cure for cellulite, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex capable of proving Fermat's last theorem, I was born too soon. Too soon, alas, and now my tubes and ducts are withered, my eggs--which used to be Grade A--as rotten as the pastel Easter eggs under the sofa. I am but a shriveled husk. The husk of an Aryan uber-maiden (and member of Mensa) struck down by the hands of time. Too late to hire on for $50,000 a pop. Nobody would pay 50 cents for one of my crumby old eggs.

Cheated! Time socks us in the nose like the goose that hit Fabio in the face as he rode that roller coaster. I did not get a dime for the eggs which produced Stormy and Destinee. In fact, I lost money on the deal. When I think of my designer originals drenched in burp, the silk Capri pants with their grubby little fingerprints--

But wait. Maybe there's a way to deal myself in. I was conceived for next to nothing. Shouldn't my parents give me the $50,000 they saved by not having to pay for an egg? Or, if Stormy and Destinee sell their eggs, aren't I entitled to a percentage?

No--I've got it. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Could I interest you in a clone of the ultimate female specimen?