Where are my elves? In the fable of “The Elves and the Shoemaker,” a poor shoemaker had only enough leather to make one final pair of shoes. The poor guy — let’s call him Harold — cut the leather and went to bed. According to the news report from the Brothers Grimm, when Harold and ...
It is my household duty to take out the trash. I don’t. I let our “trash panda” do it for me. The trash panda is the roly-poly raccoon that lives in the woods outside our rural home. He probably would move inside if we invited him politely. His bags are packed, ready to take up ...
My face didn’t freeze that way. My eyes didn’t stay crossed, either. I tromped around for days trying to freeze my face into a snarling, cross-eyed dinosaur mask of terror, but all that happened was my jaw ached. “No, really, it’s ugly,” my cousin Scott soothed, trying to cheer me ...
During elementary school, the first assignment of every year was to write an essay titled, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” Back then, summer vacation was three months of playing baseball, bicycles, camping and pestering siblings. Somewhere along the way, without meaning to, I morphed ...
I harbor big travel plans for my vacation week. I plan to wander from the bedroom all the way to the living room — but not every day. Some days, I’ll do nothing at all, except maybe take a side trip to the refrigerator. Not that I won’t leave the house at all on vacation. It’s that I ...
Gimme a break, gimme a break, the advertising jingles are jangling creases in my cranium. I popped awake the other morning in mid-jingle: “Fat kids, skinny kids / Kids who climb on rocks / Tough kids, sissy kids / Even kids with chicken pox.” My bride blinked. “Why are you singing ...
