Henry the donkey has a very long piece of pasta. He takes a number of bites of pasta, each time eating $3$ inches of pasta from the middle of one piece. In the end, he has $10$ pieces of pasta whose total length is $17$ inches. How long, in inches, was the piece of pasta he started with?
$\textbf{(A) } 34\qquad\textbf{(B) } 38\qquad\textbf{(C) } 41\qquad\textbf{(D) } 44\qquad\textbf{(E) } 47$
If there are $10$ pieces of pasta, Henry took $10-1=9$ bites. Each of these $9$ bites took $3$ inches of pasta out, and thus his bites in total took away $9\cdot 3 = 27$ inches of pasta. Thus, the original piece of pasta was $27+17=\boxed{\textbf{(D) } 44}$ inches long.
~wamofan