I was in a mountain cabin near “the city,” and I could see them approaching from below. A band of survivors came and took over my place as a home base.

I didn’t like their techniques, so I hatched a plan to escape and strike out on my own (like an idiot).

It was the dream of a 12-year-old boy, but it felt SO real, and I woke up in a panic.

I’m not vegan. Nor am I remotely a vegetarian. I just occasionally take advantage of other people’s dietary principles to find something light and low-calorie, but filling and delicious, for lunch.

I would have taken it cold, but the girl at the cafe had thrown it on the panini grill so resolutely, so automatically and with no room for questioning or debate, that it seemed unthinkable to say anything against it. Anyway, once something has started heating, you don’t want it to take it half-heated. You might as well go all the way.

When I unwrapped it at my office and took the first bite, a dried-up chickpea fall onto my desk. It left behind an indentation in the tortilla, so I guessed it had been stuck to the outside and likely had cooked on the grill that way. Probably the order directly before mine had come undone or lost a few bits and pieces as it was removed.

I picked up the chickpea and ate it.

Then I was surprised by a dried cranberry. It was stuck to the tortilla like a jewel. I took it with a bite as if it belonged there. Could I really say it didn’t belong there? No big deal.

I don’t like to be particular, but I amused myself with fantasies of a different me — one who might be bothered by a stray chickpea in his lunch and an errant dried cranberry encrusted on his tortilla.

“It’s a good thing I’m not allergic!” I might shout after marching the three blocks back to the cafe to complain. “But I could have been! Are you this careless with everyone?”

The barista might look back at me blankly. She might shout back. She might call the manager over. She might ignore me. She might cry.

But I would never do such a thing.

“You know, I have half a mind to demand my money back!” I might declare. She’ll gasp.

“But I won’t,” I’ll finish. She’ll be so relieved.

And then after a pause, I’ll say, “Well, the least you can do is offer me something for free. A coffee or a sandwich or something. A bagel? A cookie?” And then I’ll throw up may hands and storm back out.

Of course I’d never be able to go back there after such an episode. It would be too embarrassing. Such a come-down. They’d spit in my food. And I would be driven into the arms of the pizza place at the corner or the more-expensive gourmet shop across the street selling locally sourced sandwiches and self-righteousness. Or even worse (for my tummy) — Chinatown.

Well, they do have a nice courtyard at the gourmet place. There’s a tree that rains down these lovely purple blossoms to scatter in the gravel among the handbags and table legs. Maybe that would’t be such a bad thing.

But how could I be bothered by the “special features” of my lunch that day? Even if I were allergic.

There was one person that day, however, who was particular. You might say picky. She was a couple places in front of me in line. She was in her mid-20s with her hair neatly tied up but threatening to unravel. She wore a loose-fitting summery dress, heavy glasses and ironic shoes.

She made it very clear to everyone within earshot that she was a vegan by asking questions each of the half-dozen items on the menu that she was considering.

“Are there any dairy products in your bread?” she asked. “Do you know if the quinoa is certified organic?” And ”You’re sure the caesar dressing is vegan? Because a lot of caesar dressing has anchovies in it.”

The barista patiently answered all her questions while pouring coffees, making change, calling patrons to pick up their orders, swiping debit cards. Eventually the vegan visitor determined that the vegetarian salad was sufficiently cruelty-free and took a leap and ordered it, to go.

When the girl stepped away to gather the order, the vegan called after her, “Oh, hi! Hi. Um — and what do you serve it in?”

“Huh?” She stopped in her tracks and peeked back around a stack of bagels.

“The container. What’s it made out of?”

“The container.”

“Yeah, is it styrene? I’d rather not have a styrene container. If you could, like, use something else — or wrap it up in paper or something …”

“Styrene?” said the girl. “ Like styrofoam?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Polystyrene. Heh, you know, you might remember me. I’m the one responsible for stopping the city from using polystyrene containers in the cafeteria at City Hall.”

She paused to let that information settle in. She got no response.

“No. Yeah,” she continued. “We petitioned the mayor. Remember? We fought for a year. It was a landmark victory in this municipality in the war against petro-chemical-based food service containers. So, I can’t take anything out of here in a polystyrene container.”

“No, we use plastic,” said the barista.

“Plastic, huh?” said the vegan. She seemed disappointed. Maybe she was deflated by the early shut-down of her anti-styrene diatribe. Maybe she hated plastic just as much. “You don’t have any paper products?” she continued. “I mean, that’s not great either, but at least it’s not plastic.”

The barista wearily, silently, held up a large, clear plastic clamshell that every patron recognized as their standard to-go setup.

“Oh, no,” said the girl gravely. “I can’t do that. Can’t you just give it to me on a plate? You have plates, right?”

“Yeah, we use plates,” she said, gesturing around the room toward all the customers who were eating sandwiches, poking at salads and spooning up soup from several varieties of mismatched ceramic crockery, “but not for takeout.”

“Oh, yeah. Well… But I promise I’ll return it. I work just around the block. I’m in this neighborhood all the time.”

The girl looked dubious.

“I swear. I’ll take it around the block. And then I’ll wash it, and then I’ll bring it back.”

Ugh, this was all taking so long. I just wanted to make a quick stop. I felt a kinship with my fellow patrons, shifting as they were from one foot to the other. Woe betide the poor soul who just stopped in for a coffee or an Orangina!

I couldn’t argue with Miss Vegan 2011′s choices, but her timing was supremely annoying. There is no styrofoam here, lady. Just take the plastic and go. Recycle it. Reuse it. Make art out of it. We were not so much anxious to leave the cafe as we were for her to leave the cafe.

The barista called downstairs to the manager, who eventually gave the vegan permission to take a ceramic plate away — temporarily — after some pointed questions, a few sighs and some eye-rolling.

“I mean it,” said the manager. “You bring that back, OK? OK. Alright. Goodbye.” Her Israeli accent gave her voice an authority missing from the middle-ground American accents of the rest of us.

And that was it.

If she kept the plate, they would recognize her the next time she came in. We would all recognize her, we regulars, having now witnessed so intimate, yet public, an examination of her culinary preferences.

She left. I never knew if she returned the plate or not. I’ve never seen her since. But I bet she washed that plate with bio-degradable soap.

MDNA might stand for "most definitely not awesome."

Since my first listen on Monday, I have been dying to kvetch about Madonna’s new album MDNA. I’ve been listening all week, and I am having a hard time with it.

Don’t let the title or the parental warning label fool you. There is nothing subversive or edgy about this album.

The allusion to party drug MDMA made me hope this would at least be a solid dance album, a Confessions on the Dance Floor mark II.

Nope.

I think of two things now when I listen to her new stuff:
1.) What would it be like recording this song? Would it be embarrassing to be in the studio? Before all the production, is the song just empty and meaningless and dumb?

2.) What would Kylie do? How would Kylie Minogue have done this song? Would she have done it?

For most of this album, Madonna fails or comes close to failing.

At first I hated the first two singles, “Give Me All Your Luvin’” and “Girl Gone Wild,” but they got stuck in my head, and they grew on me. Generally I think the album’s mindless, bubblegum pop tracks work the best. At least they have the advantage of being danceable.

I think it’s funny that she’s still so hung up on the Act of Contrition, which she quotes at the beginning of “Girl.” At least it shows some thematic consistency throughout her career. Or maybe it’s just a broken record that I’m hearing.

And the nod to Cyndi Lauper — her proclamation of “Girls, they just want to have some fun” — simultaneously tickles and annoys me.

The ballads work, too, more or less. At least they showcase what has developed into actually a lovely, controlled — sometimes too controlled — voice. Her tone tends to go a little too light, too airy and girly (listen to “Turn up the Radio” and “Give Me All Your Luvin’“). I desperately miss the husky, throaty days of “Like a Prayer.” That was some honest, real emotion.

Then there are moments on the album where Madonna tries to get a little more thoughtful, and in those moments the album totally fails. Songs like “I Fucked Up” and “Best Friend” are clearly meant to be among the more deep and meaningful attempts, but they’re actually just crap. (“I’m sorry/Je suis désolé.” High school French. Oh, how sophisticated.) They are unpracticed, unlistenable middle-school poetry. This is the stuff that makes you cringe when you look back a year later.

“Gang Bang” starts out with promise, but it quickly descends into idiocy and ends in embarrassment. It could have been a breakthrough track, but it’s weirdly violent without any context or story. It’s nothing more than a string of cliches and nonsense about a gun and driving and “if you’re gonna act like a bitch, you’re gonna die like a bitch.” Uhm, ok, Madonna.

It brings to mind the beautiful and weird kidnapped-grandma-on-the-run video for “What it Feels Like for a Girl,” but it’s nowhere near as slick. Ironically, that video was directed by her ex-husband Guy Ritchie, the object of all the supposed anger being unveiled on this album.

Most of the songs are riddled with cliches: “like a drug,” “fits like a glove.” Tracks “Superstar” and “Bday Song” are painfully insipid, both musically and lyrically. I feel no compulsion to listen to either of them again.

Throughout the album I’m astonished by the crippling lack of imagination in her lyrics. The rhymes are worn out and tortured and offer nothing surprising. How many times is she going to rhyme “girl” and “world”? (Indeed, how many times is she going to refer to herself as a girl?) It gives me the feeling like I’ve heard it all before — mostly because I have.

Notable exceptions are “Turn up the Radio,” “I’m a Sinner” (though I could do without the litany of saints at the end), and “Falling Free.” These are thoughtful, interesting, and still fun.

This album is not at all innovative musically either — not in the way “Ray or Light” and “Music” were (in their time), though you can tell it wants to be. Even “American Life” had its share of clunkers, but I can at least respect her spirit of experimentation. This album just feels lazy to me. Sterile. Boring, empty and emotionless.

The first song that feels like it’s going anywhere interesting is “I Don’t Give A.” It picks up the themes of manic modern life where the song “American Life” left off. The Nicki Minaj guest vocal is a nice addition. But at the end, the self-worshiping “the only queen is Madonna” comes off as a tacky add-on.

I almost completely love “Love Spent,” with the exception of the “if my name were Benjamin” line. Apart from that lame rhyme (and maybe the clunky-sounding line about opening a joint account — ok, let’s just replace that whole verse), this song shows some skillful song craft. The banjo is unexpected, provocative. In fact the “acoustic” version is better than the regular album version and will replace it in my rotation.

The ballad “Masterpiece” is beautiful — or desperately wants to be — but that opening line kills me. “If you were the Mona Lisa, you’d be hanging in the Louvre” is merely a fact. It doesn’t express anything figurative or poetic about the person she’s singing to. It’s like singing “If you were a stop sign, you’d be a red octagon.”

She would be better off saying something like “If you were a painting, you’d be the Mona Lisa,” because that at least expresses something qualitative.

Also: “I’m right by your side like a thief in the night”? A thief in the night is there and gone without being seen. So: I’m right by your side … like someone who’s not there? Maybe that’s what she means. And that could be interesting. But it feels more like she’s just stretching for a rhyme.

Lately with her, as I think through each song I do like, there’s something in each case that stops me from loving it completely. I like the song … but. There’s always a but. I’m very hard to please when it comes to Madonna, because she is capable of such greatness. I have no patience for mediocrity from her anymore, and she has no excuse.

After my first listen through the album, I was just mad at her. Actually angry. What a waste. I’m so embarrassed for her. I used to worship this woman. The second listen softened me a little bit, and I was able to pick out some likes and dislikes. It may continue to grow on me, but I decided a while ago that life is too short to waste time trying to convince myself that I like a Madonna album.

I’m getting ready for work, rummaging in the closet, talking softly to myself — wallet, keys, phone — thinking of the first things I have to do when I get to the office. I am totally lost in my own head, totally alone.

I back up with my jacket in my hand. I am about to close the door, and manoeuvre an arm up my sleeve, and—

rrrrrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaoooooorrrrgh! 

She swipes her tail in my path as if she is baiting me. “I dare you,” she says. “Rrrrreow.”

It is the single most terrifying, electrifying, bone-chilling sound I have heard in my life. In half a second, I feel frozen, I feel hot. My heart stops, my pulse jumps. My skin prickles, every hair on my body flexes outward like quills poking through from the inside, darkness closes in from all sides and my field of vision narrows, and sparks and stars dance in front of me. The sound is a roar, an assault. Every sense is overwhelmed; every cell feels mortal danger. My mind is wiped clear, and my only thought is to hit something. To hit something and run.

Only then do I notice the soft mass under the heel of my shoe. I have accidentally stepped on the cat’s tail. And quicker than I can lift my foot, she is off like a shot. In that half a second, she has transformed from sleepy, lazy and obese to wild, alert and fast as lightning.

She stops halfway across the room, her back arched, her head turned toward me, ears pinned down, tail bushed out to three times its normal size. She has run away, but only halfway, stuck somewhere between retreat and attack. She looks up at me with enormous eyes, completely silent, as if searching for some kind of … I don’t know … reassurance that I’m not about to kill her.

And I am beside myself with anger, shock, embarrassment. I yell, “Well, get out of the fuck-ing way, goddammit!” I wave my arms wildly to scare her to keep running. I just want her to keep running. Just go. Just never come back. It’s a muffled yell, though. Jeff is still asleep upstairs. Well, he was. I think I can hear him stirring now. I wave my arms again.

So now the poor creature is doubly cursed. Not only have I just utterly betrayed her by inflicting swift, sudden and intense pain in a totally unexpected, quiet moment, but now I am also threatening her further with my yelling and flapping. She must be comprehensively terrified of me in this moment.

I see myself, a monster, and I stop what I’m doing. I take a moment to cool my blood. My skin stops buzzing, but my heart is racing. I slowly finish dressing. Hat. Jacket. Scarf. Breathe.

I walk over to her. I must apologize, give her some reassurance that she’s ok. I’m ok. She has crossed the room completely by now, and she is still very aware of exactly where I am in relation to her.

I approach slowly. Will she accept me? Will she run? Attack?

But she doesn’t move. She just keeps staring at me. Is it fear? Contrition for … whatever she’s done to deserve this? Is it just how a cat looks? My unassailable guilt imposes a dozen emotions on her.

“It’s ok, kitty,” I hear myself say. “It’s ok. I’m sorry.”

I slowly reach out to stroke her. She allows me to touch her gently under the chin. I can’t imagine what sense she is making of this, this combination of body-wrenching pain and tenderness.

I stroke her neck and work up to the back of her head. “It’s ok, kitty. I’m sorry,” I repeat. She doesn’t move. I wonder if she is about to swat back at me — or if maybe she is just desperate for me to love her again.

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry,” I say. She softens a little and begins to give in to my scratching. She seems to trust me again.

I really dig in to her fur and soft flesh now. She must understand my regret. She must feel it.

“I’m so sorry.”

I kept the earbuds in, but I turned the volume down so I could hear myself speak. Also, if he said something, I could avoid the embarrassment of tugging them out of my ears to ask him to repeat some pleasantry or other that would only sound awkward and unnecessary in the repeating.

“How are you?” he said.

“Ok,” I said. Then I thought to say more, and I lingered slightly. “It’s Friday,” I added. “So that’s good.”

My voice sounded especially nasal. Is it always this bad? It was almost a whine, weak, hesitant. I talk too much out of my head and not my chest. Far too much of my life is spent in my head.

“Yes it is,” he said.

He had an intensity in his eyes, a directness, that I wished I’d matched in my tone. It was nothing, just his way. And this was my way. It was only a “good morning,” but it was all I would have occasion to say, and I felt like I’d blown it.

I ordered the usual iced tea and lemonade. I still could not bring myself to ask for an Arnold Palmer. And I grabbed a granola bar from the bowl on the counter and silently added it to the order.

Thinking about Monday morning, I watched him pour from both pitchers.

I would have to go to the 7-11 instead of the Rite Aid, I decided.

All I saw at first was a quick burst of isolated action among a loosely gathered crowd of people. I thought two kids were rough housing, joking and shoving. And people were always loitering on that block. I thought of maybe just making a wide arc around them to get to the front door. If I minded my business, they’d leave me alone.

But then I noticed one of them had his belt in his hand, doubled up, and as he backed away from the other guy, he took swipes at his head.

That’s when I decided to turn around.

In fact, the loose crowd was almost all people standing around watching. A girl who had been video recording the proceedings with her cell phone jogged away as the two young men, circling each other like two sparring lions, approached her, oblivious of her and likely anyone else in the audience. She looked over her shoulder and held the camera toward them the whole time during her retreat.

For a second, I hoped she would get caught up in the mess. Maybe they’d bump into her, knock her down, knock the phone out of her hand to shatter on the sidewalk. Oops. YouTube would have to wait. I was annoyed by the sudden and unwelcome change in plans. And I was annoyed by the girl and all the other people treating the fight as entertainment. But a moment later I had turned the corner and was heading toward the 7-11 a few blocks away.

Notably, I was doing nothing, either. But there’s an important difference, I think, between staying out of it and spectating.

I noticed a cop car, lights flashing, rounding the corner. At least it’ll get broken up soon, I thought, if it isn’t already.

Walking toward 7-11, I counted four more cop cars, blaring their horns to get traffic out of their way. I turned to watch them streaming down the street, throwing reflections and sharp, quick shadows against the buildings around us. And I saw at least one more car coming from the other direction, too.

Six cars, maybe more, to break up one fight.

I proceeded to the 7-11 to pick up some chicken soup, ginger ale, Kleenex, cat food and frozen pizza rolls. Jeff was sick and hungry, the cat needed provisions for the weekend, and I was anxious to tell the story.

I knew I was going down. No way to stop it. No time for anything graceful. Just minimize the damage. Oh, shit. My phone.

And then I heard myself say it, casually, calmly—”oh shit”—as I landed on my right knee (There’s the tear.) and my left hand, scuffing the palm. The right hand swung out and landed somewhat more lightly, just to steady me and stop me from rolling forward, the corner of my iPhone scratching hard against the ground. (Its just the case. It’s just the case.) And my gym bag pivoted around my body on the strap across my chest and slammed down on the sidewalk behind me. I heard the combination lock, in an outside mesh pocket, rattle against the concrete.

The high school kid in front of me, on is way to school, looked terrified and suddenly wide awake. My headphones were still in my ears, but I heard the panic in his voice: “Oh, god. Are you all right?”

I stood up. His reaction seemed a little dramatic. I only fell. Was I bleeding? Oh, man—is he seeing something I’m not seeing?

I turned back to see what tripped me. Some plastic straps sat there a couple of yards away, probably the remnants of some stacks of the shitty South Philly Review. I must have gotten one foot in a loop as the other stepped on the other end. That’s South Philly: The garbage swirls like a cyclone, as Ani DiFranco once sang. Stupid, selfish, littering neighbors.

I checked my left hand. My palm looked cheese-gratered, but there was no blood. Just raised flakes of skin like scales on a half-scaled fish.

“Are you all right?” he asked again.

The phone was fine, too. Just some scraping on the corner of the case. The NPR News app I was loading right before I fell—I shouldn’t have been looking down at my stupid phone. Uh! So dumb!—kicked in with the WHYY pre-roll support message: “This is Terry Gross. I know you’d like to listen to WHYY online, but before you do…”

I didn’t want to lend any further gravity to the situation by taking my headphones out of my ears, so I just spoke up over Terry.

“Yeah I’m fine,” I said.

I was touched by the kid’s concern. What if I had been hurt. He was the one person in a position to do something about it.

“I’m fine,” I said again. “Thank you.”

Poor kid. He didn’t wake up thinking he’d have to help some old guy off the sidewalk.

I walked off at a normal pace. Nothing to see here. I became aware of other people around me.

I’m not usually the type to get overly embarrassed about accidents like these. I don’t pretend they didn’t happen, but I don’t dwell on it, either. You can turn a light misstep into a little jog to the corner, but a full sidewalk body slam? There’s no hiding it, so why bother? I happens to everyone.

Usually I find some comfort in imaging friends of mine doing something similar. What would so-and-so do? It surprises me who I think of. I suppose it’s because I somehow think of them deep down as the most poised and composed of my friends.

I shouldn’t have been playing with my phone. I shouldn’t have been going to the gym: I woke up feeling ill, congested, sneezy. My head was clouded, clumsy, and I wasn’t 100% awake yet. But those seemed like excuses to me at home. I’m not talking myself out of going to the gym again.

I rounded the corner before I stopped to check anything else. I examined my knee for a good 15 seconds. Miraculously I did not tear anything. Not even a mark.

Now that I’m on my way, I’m not turning back. 

Sooner or later you reach a point where you have to sink so much money into your car to make it sellable that it’s worth just as much or more as a trade-in. And even if that’s not precisely true, it’s worth something to have someone else take it off your hands.

So Jeff and I drove to a suburban car dealer in a 1997 Jeep Wrangler, and we drove home in a 2011 Honda CR-V.

When Jeff bought that Jeep in 2002 he joked, “It makes me look 30% sexier.” And he was right. It was true for anyone. It was a hot little number. Now we’re lulled into a need for reliability and comfort, room for groceries and, one day, room for a kid. Sturdy. Sensible. Soccer mom.

The new car is lovely. But it sure is hard to say good bye to the old friend who saw us through three moves and three cities.

There was just one catch: Because we hadn’t counted on trading in the Jeep so quickly, and it had so many accessories, we had to keep it for two more days to gather up all the various pieces, including a hard top that was being stored in a warehouse in north Philly.

Here are some pictures from the last day of our acquaintance.

I snapped this photo on my block the morning we traded her in. This is when I started to really feel sentimental. It took some effort to hold back some tears on this one.

We stopped at the warehouse, where the hard top was being stored, before continuing on to the dealer.

I harassed Jeff to take one last photo with his baby.

It started to lightly rain as we were installing the hard top. When we were done, I captured Jeff with the new car in the background. Is it too late to change our minds? (Yes. It definitely is.)

Jeff's last drive. I followed him to the dealer in the Honda. Stopped in traffic, I tried to capture a puff of cigarette smoke pouring out of Jeff's driver-side window, but I was not quick enough. This route reminded me terribly of Queens.

It’s been a few weeks, and I can still hardly believe the old girl isn’t sitting out in front of the house. Some part of it lives on: The Honda is red. Not the bright, bold, sporty red of the Wrangler, but a rather more sober, adult, guarded maroon. Better than the black or gray model we expected. The red one was the last of its year on the lot. A sign.

Still, the Honda at least has the good graces not to pretend to be the Jeep, and we make no comparisons. This newbie has some big treads to fill. I love the new-car smell, a fully functional driver-side door lock, reliable brakes, air conditioning and heat, a quiet engine and transmission, ignition on the first turn of the key, a decent stereo system, no leaks in heavy rain. But I still grope for the stick shift when I approach a stop sign, and I still feel with my left foot for the ghost of the clutch.

Jeff still wants to wave at other Jeep owners as they pass on the road, but that just doesn’t make sense in a Honda.

It’s so easy and almost embarrassing to over-sentimentalize a car, but it does see one through a lot. There’s so much between the first trip and the last.

The day Jeff drove it home from Lake Mille Lacs, Minnesota, about an hour and a half north of the Twin Cities, we had tickets to see Heart perform at Mystic Lake Casino. That day must have been like a dream for him: his first real car—with an option to go topless—and “Crazy on You” in the same day.

We drove out to Trout Lake, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, for Thanksgiving with Jeff’s family one year—my first experience with a deep-fried turkey. Four-wheel drive came in handy on that trip, driving from frozen waterfall to frozen waterfall, as it did through two Minnesota winters.

After Jeff accepted that job in New York City, and our lives changed indelibly again, we drove around Lake Calhoun, site of so many hazy summer afternoons, one last time. I cried quietly but inconsolably as we listened to Bloodletting, Concrete Blonde’s greatest-hits album.  Hey, hey, good bye. Tomorrow Wendy’s going to die… It just happened to be in the CD player that day. But seven years later, I still don’t have the heart to listen to it all the way through.

The Jeep started acting up during Jeff’s drive from Minnesota to New York, and he got stranded just short of the border in Niagara Falls, Ontario. After getting little but shrugs from the mechanics, he got a huge phone bill the next month, thanks to international roaming charges.

We drove it far less in later years in favor of the mass transit of these East Coast cities. But I did learn how to drive a stick in Queens—out of necessity. We risked getting a ticket (or worse, a tow) if we didn’t move the car every week (sometimes twice) to make way for street sweepers.

We took day trips throughout the summers to Jones Beach, the wind of the filthy highways tangling our salty hair and cooling our sunburns. We often drove through Manhattan with the top down, and I loved to throw my head back and watch the skyscrapers whip past us. And at how many rugby matches did that Jeep make an appearance?

After Jeff accepted a career move to Philadelphia, I helped him pack as much as we could into that Jeep after he moved from temporary accommodations into our first apartment in the city. The back seat came out, but there wasn’t as much room back there as you might have imagined.

My driving lesson was complete when we moved from West Philly to our first house in South Philly. Jeff got called in to work, and I had to carry on with the transfer.

I paid for a new transmission later that week.

I still maintain it could have happened to anyone; it was just its time to go.

The first rule of Christmas morning was to wait until everyone was awake before digging in. Whoever was up first, usually me, and in later years, the younger ones, would be forced to sit back from the tree, bright with promise and the buzz of electricity, regarding it like a ravenous, wild thing, chained, silent and steady, waiting for the first chance to strike.

And we did look wild, clothes twisted and unformed, hair standing up in all directions like ruffled fur, eyes still pink and swollen and crusted from sleep, smelling faintly of sweat and bad breath. When the priority is a tree laden with brightly wrapped boxes, there is no time for a glance in the mirror before greeting one’s family.

Mom made coffee in the kitchen and had her morning cigarette. Every time she tried to speak for more than a few seconds at a time, she lost herself in a loud and painful-sounding fit of coughs. (My dad was reading something. We tried to keep the TV off until after the Christmas orgy.)

Grandma was in the same spot on the couch where she had slept over the night before, her legs drawn up beneath her in what I called “Indian style” at the time. She was surrounded in blue smoke, tapping ashes from her cigarette into a large ashtray in her lap and making remarks about all the presents under the tree that we didn’t deserve.

She was probably right. It was usually an embarrassment of riches. We were very lucky.

“Would you look at that. What is all that stuff? Where’s it all come from?” she said, the lights of the christmas tree reflected in her eyeglasses. “You kids don’t deserve all this, do you?”

I knew she was teasing us—unless I misunderstood. Anyway, she paid for much of it. But should I say so, or should I wait until someone told me I was a good boy? I nodded quietly. Um. Yeah. I deserve it. I think.

“You do?” she said with a sly smile. “Oh, ok.”

“It’s a little different from when you were a kid, isn’t it?” she said to my dad. It was as if from a script. I think we all followed the same routines every year, told the same stories, shared the same memories. “No,” she decided. “You kids did ok, too, didn’t you? Yeah, your father and I always did pretty good by you kids.”

I always liked to drag out some leftovers from dinner the night before and poke around or slice myself a hunk of egg nog cake and a bowl of fruit cocktail—a prime time for breakfast with the other kids still in bed, I could always mine as many cherries as I wanted from the murky, fruity depths.

Eventually the family would coalesce around the tree and wait for Mom and Dad to start passing around packages.

Is it time yet? Is it time yet?

It’s time.

My dad understood his special role on Earth to be torturing us with scotch tape. He thought it was the greatest thing as we struggled mightily with the paper and the boxes, cutting out fingers on the cardboard.

“How d’you like that wrapping job?” he said. “How d’you like that taping job?”

Secretly (and not so secretly) we all hated it. But it was his thing. Let the old man have that much, right?

“You kids open it all up so damn fast. It just goes by so fast,” he said. “So sue me if I try to make it last a little longer.”

Over the years, I began to feel more and more guilty about the wasted paper and packing materials. I made it my custom to open everything as slowly and carefully as I could to keep the paper from ripping and pull it off in one solid sheet. It was a subtle and almost unintentional response to my dad’s plea for slowness.  But he took it for mockery, so eventually I’d start tearing through it like everyone else. And we never saved the paper anyway, so my delays were not helpful.

My dad always loved Christmas. I think spoiling us kids beyond his means made him feel prosperous.

Tearing into Christmas, we all descended into a sort of a idiotic cheer. It bordered on manic. Every reveal was amazing, every toy exactly what we wanted, every item of clothing just want we needed—or at least I wanted it to be. I knew as a young kid that part of the fun depended on the gift recipient really, really liking what you gave them. It was better to give than to receive—as long as they showed a little bloody gratitude, eh? And I had no reason to disappoint my parents.

I think I picked it up from my mom. She has a compelling enthusiasm. When she really turns it on—widens her eyes, lifts her eyebrows, raises her voice—you are the most important person in the room, and whatever is happening to you is just … amazing. An ugly sweater gets a perceptual makeover: “Well look at that. Ooh, that’ll be nice and warm, won’t it? Let me feel that. Oh, yeah. That’s nice.” A boring-looking book becomes an adventure: “Now weren’t you just saying you wanted something to do in the car. You can read this on the way up north this summer. Oh, that’ll be ideal.”

Never mind that reading in the car gave me a headache and an upset stomach. I was rendered helpless and joyful by her charm.

And if any one of us kids seemed unhappy or insolent or ungrateful, it put Dad in such a sour mood—which in turn put me in a sour mood. I hated people to be unhappy on the holidays.

After the kids opened their presents, we gave mom, dad and grandma their gifts. The toys and trying on of new clothes would wait until Dad had his new power tools and cologne and mom had her new fuzzy slippers, jewelry and kitchen appliances.

And then the frenzy faded. We were spent, surrounded by the carnage of consumerism: fragments of boxes, ribbons and bows, bits of clear plastic packaging, cardboard, wrapping paper, styrofoam peanuts, tissue paper, tags and gift receipts. It sure does go by quickly.

And then it hits you like a sack of oranges in the gut: Christmas is over. A whole year of waiting, and this is it.

One contents oneself with thoughts of a happy few months playing new games, trying new toys, wearing now clothes to school. And there’s always next year.

While Mom and Dad surveyed the wreckage, one of us got a garbage bag.

“Be careful!” we were always warned. “Don’t lose any pieces mixed up with the paper.” There were always so many pieces.

Christmas was our day for visiting family, after presents. But until then, and while we each in turn got ready to leave the house, I busied myself with assembly and applying decals and reading through new instructions. I had always so much to show off to my cousins and aunts and uncles. What would I bring with me to play with in the car?

Mom and Dad had some presents under the tree early, the ones from them and Grandma and Uncle Dennis and Aunt Kay, but they were off limits until Christmas. The ones from Santa, of course, came later. I didn’t have to worry about those, but these were there to taunt me.

Most of them were clothes. Who cared, right? But some of them, the smaller ones, probably—the strangely shaped ones, right?—those were toys.

If I was good enough (if I begged and pestered my parents enough, nicely, gently), they would let me open one present—just one—before we left for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. I don’t think they for one second expected me to not beg. I don’t think I ever convinced them of anything. I think they always had one intended for Christmas Eve. But it was one of those child-and-parent games we played.

Usually it was a toy of some sort. Something small. A taste. A Transformer or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, maybe, or a CD or a movie on VHS. If they let me open a Nintendo game, it was even worse torture: knowing what it was and not being able to play it until the next day.

My uncle and aunt and grandma stayed at home while we went to church. They weren’t churchy. I was inclined to think it weird in those days, but for a few years, we weren’t churchy either. Like most of the midnight mass attendees, we were Easter and Christmas Catholics. The regular Sunday routine was the only Catholic mystery in our lives. Church got harder once the twins were born. As they got older, we started going more frequently.

The church was always full. Parking was scarce. The adjacent chapel was opened to make room for more people. If we got there late, we had to sit in folding chairs, which seemed cheap and uncomfortable and embarrassing compared with the upholstered pews in front of us. (Though didn’t we deserve the punishment for being late? If Jesus died on a cross, I figured we could deal with folding chairs.)

I always loved midnight mass. They pulled out all the stops for special occasions. Usually there was a lone organist playing on Sundays, but at Christmas, there was a pianist, as well, sometimes a guitarist, and a full-size chorus. Music was always the best part of church. The songs at Christmas were the same, plus a few Christmas hymns, but everything sounded so much more beautiful, fuller, richer—classy—in three-part harmonies and diatonic chords.

I sometimes was able to smuggle my early gift out of the house. Keeping it in a pocket or wrapped up in my coat was encouraging somehow. It was naughty to have it. And sometimes I could sneak a peek. But keeping it hidden and secret felt delicious. It was a talisman, powerful, titillating. If I kept it from distracting me too much, I felt almost virtuous.

When I was older, Mom and Dad let me help Santa stock the tree from their stash in their bedroom. Set out the cookies, the milk and a carrot. And mom always procured the thank-you note from Santa, in Santa’s special handwriting—indisputable proof (at one time) that he was real.

Then it was off to bed. I always worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep, that I would sleep in the next day and wake up in the afternoon and miss Christmas morning. But mom and dad never let me sleep in.