Rebecca Gaffron |
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The Drawer of Unknown Possibilities "What is this?" my 9-year-old son asks, rooting through a plethora of junk in search of who knows what. I like to imagine that not every household has a drawer of unknown possibility. Only bastions of chaos and disorder are blessed, or cursed, depending on the day, with drawers like these. "Get out of it," I call back. It's like Pandora's box, not to be opened casually by anyone. Or at all if you're under 30. "I think there are previously unknown life forms in here," my son replies, jamming recycled plastic bags and incomplete decks of playing cards back into the morass. "I've just discovered Everton Bugs." "What bugs?" his brother asks. "Everton Bugs." The statement falls from his mouth in the frank way one might announce that ice is cold or wool is scratchy. Everton Bugs? I look from one son to the next wondering what important fact I've missed now. Red-tailed hawks have a wing-span of four feet and actually aren't hawks at all, they're buzzards...the earliest chain mail was developed by the Celts but was extremely rare and used by only the wealthiest or most valiant warriors...donkey, donkey, don |