A pause while my mother made high-pitched sisterly devotions of gratitude.

Having your back scratched is not the only reason to be married, but it is a good one, especially for those spots that are so hard to reach by yourself.

I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death.

Being an author means, almost by definition, that you make up characters and then complicate their lives. That's it, really. You make up characters and give them problem after problem after problem.

Braiiinnnnssss," we said in unison. "It's both sad and incredibly impressive that you were all ready with that one.

I could envision it all to clearly: Stuart or Debbie finding the dented door off its hinges, lying in the snow. "She came in, ravaged the boy, stole plastic bags, and ripped off the door in her escape," the police would say in the APB. "Probably making her way to bust her parents out of jail.

Proximity doesn't breed familiarity.