If I now asked you to guess what was in the box, no matter how many guesses you were given, I’m betting you would be wrong.

I tell my parents I admire the life they have created for themselves. They have this great cabin, fun friends and neighbors, they bike all summer, ski all winter and, at the end of every day, they get an extra sunset.

While I’m certainly not wishing for the roof to fall in on anyone, I’m not sure it’s been such a bad thing.

My blessings are poorly disguised. They show up wearing false noses and funny eyeglasses and are instantly recognizable unless I am being completely thick-headed—and it is astonishing how often I am.

It turned out I’d been wasting a lot of good pear, but that stopped under Mrs. Johnson’s tutelage.

The rent was suspiciously cheap, but the reviews were all good except to say that the house was on a road with stairs. There is a good reason for this: the town predates wheels.

Somewhere near the middle of our vacation, usually just after we’d reached our destination, my birthday would arrive.

My parents, who buy little tiny blocks of cheese which they cut into little tiny slices and serve on little tiny crackers at precisely five o’clock every evening, were understandably taken aback by the arrival of twenty pounds of cheese.

I imagined I was sort of a golden retriever mix. I was a cool dog, a chill dog. I am actually nothing at all like this.

I used to take pride in traveling light. I fit all my clothes and everything I needed in a small backpack or a carry-on suitcase and hit the road with little idea of where I was going. Then I met Peter.