Our Christmas miracle

Laurie called me this afternoon and asked, again, if we'd gotten Allen's Hess truck. "Well, no," I answered. Then she tracked the package, and it said it had been delivered to the porch on Dec. 20. "Well, OK," I said. "Maybe I took the box downstairs and forgot about it."

Then she looked up the shipping order and noticed she had written 121 Asilomar Court. "Well, for starters," I said, "we live at 122 Asilomar Court. 121 is the old lady across the street, who I think is now in a nursing home."

So, off I go in my pajamas, four days later, to check Mrs. Fischer's front porch. Lo and behold, there's Allen's Hess truck, under the welcome mat. I banged on the door a few times, thinking that if I was going to steal a package off her porch, I ought to at least announce it. No one answered, and I made off with the box. It brightened Allen's sniffly day. The motorcycles light up when you turn the guys' heads, and the truck makes some awesome rumbly sounds. And we got it! It's our Christmas miracle.