WEBVTT
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Hey, guys, it's Joe. Good evening. I will say that
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I love all of the stories that we tell here
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and that you guys send in, but this one is
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This one's especially sweet. And we do say add anxiety
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addicts that good writing is meant to make you think,
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and this is the opposite. But this might make you
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think a little bit in a good way. I spend
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a lot of time looking at various blogs and books
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and podcasts telling me how to chill out and how
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to stop the spiraling. And one of the things that's
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repeated over and over is that a gratitude list is
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how you help yourself go to sleep at night. And
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I don't think a gratitude list and ten milligrams of
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ambient are on the same level. But I do think
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as part of a winding down habit, it's it doesn't
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hurt to list the things that you have in your
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life that you're really simply grateful for. This story made
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me think of those things. So I'm not telling you
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how to live your life or how to engage in
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your bedtime routine, but this is here for you.
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To the restless, the insomniacs, the stressed out, the overwork
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the doom scrollers, the worried, and the board. This is
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for you. Good writing is meant to make you think.
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This is the opposite. Sure funny and unfortunately true stories
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that have mostly to do with nothing to help you
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turn off your brain and turn on your ram. All
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names have been changed to protect the guilty. These are
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anxiety addicts bedtime stories.
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Some lives just don't start out super exciting, especially when
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you're an Italian girl in a suburb of northern New Jersey.
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But then maybe you get lucky. Maybe your mother's brother,
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uncle Philip, moves to town. This story is about Andrea
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and her quest to find a real life that could
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measure up to her dreams, and also about her uncle Philip.
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More on him in a moment. Andrea's mom and dad
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immigrated through Ellis Island from Sicily right after the Second
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World War. Her mother became the neighborhood's most sought after seamstress,
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at one point working in the most exclusive wedding dress
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shop on Madison Avenue. Her father worked as a welder,
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joined the Union, and managed to retire with a pension
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and nine fingers. In a lot of ways, it was
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the American dream, but it wasn't Andrea's. She tried to
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make every day more interesting in grade school. That landed
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her in the principal's office. In middle school, it was
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three days of suspension. By high school narrowly avoided booking
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charges only because well, she was really, really pretty. And
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that was nineteen sixty six, and that was when Uncle Philip,
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her mother's youngest brother, moved into the city. And that
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was when and how this whole thing started. From what
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Andrea was told, Philip enlisted in the navy and spent
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years in Europe. The way her parents discussed him, occasionally
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in hushed voices and then as a warning to their
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mischievous teenage daughter. Military service was not a great fit
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for her uncle. She had heard once from a distant
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cousin at Thanksgiving that he had tried to throw the
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ship's captain overboard and was discharged due to mental health
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issues or whatever they called it back then. Instead of
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buying a home with a white picket fence upon his
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return to American soil, Uncle Philip used his gi bill
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money to study ballet with the late and very famous
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choreographer Jacques d'Amboise. Andrea was told, with genuine pride by
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a great aunt that her uncle had the highest leap
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of anyone in class. When she heard he was moving
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close by, Andrea was rightly convinced that this family member
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was going to be her ticket to a significantly more
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colorful life. Andrea became a regular fixture at her uncle's
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apartment because, for one thing, Andrea's downtown public high school
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was so overcrowded and understaffed that teachers mostly didn't bother
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with attendance. This was the second reason that Andrea stopped going.
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The first is that she was a very bright girl,
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and thusly in those tightly packed classrooms a very bored one.
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Uncle Philip's apartment was one Marlborough cigarette breakaway. Andrea would
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arrive at the door of his third story walk up
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knock twice and then let herself in, as Philip had
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lost his key a week after he signed the lease
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and had never bothered to replace it. What are burglars
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gonna take? He'd ask Andrea, shrugging his broad shoulders and
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raising his dark unibrow, so he looked a bit like
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Ernie from Sesame Street. His pensiant for widely striped sweaters
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only furthered this illusion. Yet it was meant to be
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a rhetorical question, but not to Andrea. Uncle Philip allowed
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her to open all the drawers in his pantry and
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take what she wanted, and only one of them had cookies.
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As far as she was concerned, there was a whole
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heck of a lot in Philip's apartment that a burglar
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might want to take. On his shelves, where there should
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have been jars of sugar and flour were instead lots
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of seventies drugs, weed and hash and valume and queludes.
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These were the kinds of treats she and other visitors
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would randomly uncover while foraging for a bag of potato chips.
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And he was generous with them, so very generous. And
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he was always game to roll a joint and light
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up in the middle of the afternoon while his niece
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should have been in the fourth row of Classroom Sea
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of Abraham Lincoln High School learning calculus. No matter how
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stone they got, Uncle Philip would insist that they sit
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down and do her homework together. She got to B
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plus it could have been an A, but her teacher
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noted her lack of class participation. Andrea began to bring
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her friends over to Philip's apartment, where everyone would get
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high and listen to war stories and vinyl records. This
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went on for a few years. During that time, Andrea
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memorized the Beatles catalog as well as the doors and
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sly in the family stone. She learned about the war
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and the Old Country, and met many many of Uncle
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Philip's friends and girlfriends, who all seemed to be comfortable
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pushing open his unlocked door at any time, day or night.
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In retrospect, Andrea learned more on those smoky afternoons about
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history and the world than she ever would have in
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a classroom. And even though she managed to pull her
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grades together her senior year and then get into an
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Ivy League school, the one in Pennsylvania, she still looked
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to Philip to fill that void of excitement, a feeling
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that would creep up and overtake her no matter how
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much she tried to shut it out. When she was
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married and divorced with two children in her twenties, hold
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up in a tiny apartment on the Lower East Side
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where she worked on her dissertation, Easter rolled around sneaking
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up on the young mom. She was exhausted, broke, frazzled,
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and newly single. It was too much, and it could
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have been a breaking point. The moment she realized that
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she hadn't bought chocolate or eggs or confetti was when
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her phone rang. It was, of course, Uncle Philip. No
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sooner had she tearfully explained her situation when she heard
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the words that she hadn't known how badly she needed
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to hear. Don't you worry, sweetheart, I'll be right there.
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And right there he was, but in true Uncle Philip's style,
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he was not alone. Yes, there was a woman on
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his elbow, dressed in head to toe daytime sequence, but
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there was also a large box, and the large box
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was wiggling. Inside were nineteen baby chicks, yeah, nineteen, and
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in his arms a bunny, Yeah, a bunny. Before Andrea
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could protest at the sight of farm animals in her
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New York City one bedroom apartment, her girls were at
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the door, shrieking in absolute joy. Andrew was outnumbered, and
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she knew she couldn't turn away her uncle or his
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chicks or the bunny. As she closed the door behind
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the menagerie, she simultaneously cursed and thanked Philip because even
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now with her totally chaotic life, Andrea still craved excitement.
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A few years later, he invited her and her girls
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and her new boyfriend to his new home on Long Island.
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Andrea was grateful for the break in the day to
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day life of work and studying and raising children. At
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his invitation, she looked forward to something different to do
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on a Saturday night and an excuse to get out
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of the city. When they arrived, Uncle Philip gave them
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a tour of his new digs. On the phone, Andrea
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had noticed her uncle becoming increasingly eccentric, but she hadn't
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understood the extent of it until she stepped foot in
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his living room. Everything everything was covered in tinfoil, every surface,
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every sofa, every lamp, every table. Only the shag carpet
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under her white boots had been spined. The girls thought
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it looked like a palace. Andrew was terrified. The new
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boyfriend tried unsuccessfully to run out the back door. What's
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going on here? Andrea tried to keep her voice, even
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it was a challenge. Uncle Philip gestured with a huge
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smile to his magnetic seating area. Isn't she lovely? I
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did it all myself. Andrea hadn't actually considered whether he
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might have hired an interior decorator to design the metal
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covered mess. She didn't know whether or not to be concerned.
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She'd relied on this man for a decade and a
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half to bring the drama and fun into her world.
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Isn't that exactly what he was doing? Was he going
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off the deep end? Possibly? Quite possibly, but maybe he
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was genuinely flexing his interior design muscles. Still, all that
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crinkling when she sat down on the couch was hard
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to ignore. It was only a year or so after
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that visit when Andrea got the news that her uncle
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was diagnosed with cancer. We'll have a big Christmas, declared Andrea,
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hanging up the phone with her sister, and she immediately
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invited Philip. When she'd put her mind to something, nothing
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was going to get in her way. She spent the
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next five weeks scouring the city for the most over
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the top Christmas decorations that she could find. She invited
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family from all over the Tri state area. She prepped
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and chopped, cooked and baked. When people walked through the
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door of her new three bedroom apartment, there were lights
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and sweets and tinsel. She had to pause before that purchase,
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since it reminded her of his apartment and candle overload.
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Everyone was wowed, especially Uncle Philip and the new woman
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in Purple who trailed him from room to room. Even
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in his last season of life, Philip still had it.
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The wine flowed freely in the room. Other things flowed
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from Philip's pockets. Andrea felt herself turning into a child,
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continually glancing at the stacks of presents underneath the tree.
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She knew that this was most likely the last Christmas
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with her chin irished uncle, and she couldn't wait to
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see what he'd concocted for what he probably understood too
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might be his parting gift to her. She sunk into
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a velvet chair, a newly acquired piece purchased on layaway
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that she'd shop specifically for this night. She took in
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the noise and chatter and smells and chaos of her
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cozy new home, filled with people she both loved and tolerated.
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She took a brief trip down memory lane, listing all
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the incredible gifts that she'd received from him. There were,
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of course, the joints and the music, the concert t shirts,
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and the impromptu trips to Atlantic city. There was the
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jewelry of unclear origins, and once a red convertible that
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he had to take back after a month. This man
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and his presence were, as far as Andrea was concerned,
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the stuff of legends. She felt like a little kid
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when her cousin herded the family to the tree after
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dinner for the gift giving part of the night. She
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scanned the big and little boxes for her name scribbled
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and Philip's shockingly perfect script. She tried to wait patiently
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as the kids opened their dolls and remote control cars
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and new blue jeans. She reminded herself that she was
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an adult. The presents were silly. She chastised the butterflies
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swimming around her stomach as she watched her uncle a
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hand out shiny boxes wrapped with ribbon. She held her
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breath when he approached her with a shoe box and
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a shit eating grin. Andrew took her time on wrapping it,
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savoring the moment. She felt him hover over her shoulder
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as she gingerly slid her finger through the paper, her
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palm becoming just the tiniest bit sweaty. The plaid, iridescent
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paper fell to the carpeted floor. Inside was a box
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that had once contained mouse traps. Somehow that made the
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possibility of the contents even more intriguing. She looked up
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at the man who had done so much for her,
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who had saved her for more than he would ever know.
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She glanced at her daughters, who also gazed at him,
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at clearly also anticipating a gift for their mother. Andrew
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moved slowly, drawing out the moment as much as she could,
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feeling surrounded by love and warmth and that special holiday feeling.
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She lifted off the top of the cardboard mouse trap
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box and allowed her eyes to look inside, where there
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was a very very large rubber band ball. Yeah, a
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ball of rubber vands. There could have been thousands, but
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the plummeting of Andrew's heart took all her attention, and
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she didn't bother to count or estimate the number. She
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looked to her uncle. His smile was one of pure joy.
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There wasn't even a glimmer of a prank. Thank you
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was all that she could muster. The fumes of her
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disappointment gathered in her heart and condensed in her eyes.
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It wasn't that she was expecting the hope diamond in
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the mouse trap box. It was that Uncle Philip's magic
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was something she'd been counting on for weeks and dreading
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losing forever. The heavy, oversized rubber band ball sat like
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a dead weight in her laugh. She watched as the
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younger kids ripped open their trainsets and barbie dolls. She
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smelled the pie her aunt had just pulled out of
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the oven, and listened to a few of the teenagers
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bang on the old piano. One of those senses pushed