When I moved to Seattle from a small town two hours south, I loved looking out my window and seeing evidence of other people: blinking marquee lights, flickering TV screens, the line of cars crawling up and down Queen Anne Hill. The people whom, barring a catastrophe, I would never have to know. I inherited this worldview—that the best neighbors were strangers who stayed that way—from my mom.
When I was a kid, we had chicken for dinner every Friday night. Shortly after my fifth birthday I figured out how these meals worked: your age determined the part of the chicken you ate. As the youngest, I ate wings. My older brother was assigned drumsticks. My much older sister, white meat.
When my twins were toddlers, they fought over me, literally. One time, my son, Dylan, was sitting on my lap and my daughter, Samantha, who was happily playing with a toy on the floor, hoisted herself up and pushed Dylan off my lap as though she was rescuing me from Bigfoot. She then triumphantly climbed on my lap; her toy long forgotten. After soothing a crying Dylan, I took advantage of the teaching moment and explained the concept of sharing.
I walk around the parking lot until I find a plastic shopping bag with the Two Guys Department Store name and logo printed on it. Two Guys sells discount clothes, fake wood furniture, and all sorts of crap – but most important to me, record albums. My dad bought me a compact stereo system as a graduation present ($149 wholesale from a family friend), but I owned no music. So I devised an ingenious plan: The Town of Tonawanda Two Guys Record Heist. It might be relevant to point out that I have plenty of money to buy, rather than steal, records. So why do I do it? Because it’s easy and exciting. And oh yeah, also because I’m an idiot.
At the tender age of six, Mother introduced me to her Poltergeist. I was confused when she described it as a dark energy, but then she said, “Think of it as an au pair!” and I understood that an invisible French caretaker (who probably wore a beret) had joined our little family.