Christmas Story
2022
The dishwasher needed to be run yet again and she wasn’t sure what that puddle on the floor was. From the next room, her thick as thieves family, extended and nuclear, exploded with laughter. She looked around the corner to see what the hilarity was all about and something- the baby’s diaper, or possibly a collective dog fart- assaulted her. Staggering back, unaccustomed to the cavalcade of sounds and smells, she felt the thunderhead of a headache gather behind her right eye, which had begun to twitch. As it was Christmas, she found herself asking sweet baby Jesus quite earnestly what she’d done to deserve this. How was it, that she could be so incredibly lucky?