Fruitcake

I am working on submitting my will to God's. I am working on being obedient. I am trying to do what's right and be good and be unselfish and give service. Whenever the Christmas season rolls around I feel like I need to make penance of some sort for an ancient act of revenge and retribution. And what is the dirty little deed I carried out so long ago?

When I was in Kindergarten my best friend told me the "truth" about Santa Claus. I couldn't believe her. I couldn't forgive her. That memory is still so very clear and burned into my mind. And I knew at that point I would get her back. I didn't know how or when but I knew, someday, some way, I would return the favor.

And I did. The next year, after a little conversation which my mother initiated and to which I was sworn great secrecy, I promptly told my friend, standing there at the corner of Fairmount and Ashbury Avenues in El Cerrito, CA, about how babies were made.

And I have felt moderately guilty ever since that I was such a cruel force in collapsing her world, as she knew it, just as she had destroyed mine the year before. I suspect almost 55 years later she never gives this a single thought. But I am still tortured by it.

So I try to be good and give to the poor and feed the hungry and clothe the naked and shelter the homeless.

And then I take my grandson to the mall to see Santa Claus. Just to reassure myself that, really, I was right all along, and my friend was, well, just plain nuts!

I'm feeling better, once again.