A Girl...

Totally Sorta Kinda (Non)Ironic

I say I don't believe in a higher power, but then you'll catch me bargaining with him/her/it when I really really want something. I say I don't believe in fairies, but then why are my knees wet from peering under toadstools during rainstorms? I say I'm not superstitious, but then how to explain my preflight routine--the step-by-step procedure I perform before air travel to ensure our plane stays aloft? I mean, I don't really believe any of that stuff, not "officially," but there's must be a little part of me that at least wants to believe it, else why the furtive prayers, the wet knees, the airplane voodoo?

And then there's Santa. Oh, Santa. Remember that one year I found the empty box with a picture of our Fisher Price record player on the front? How strange, I thought, since when we found the gift under the tree on Christmas morning, it was just sitting there, unboxed and unwrapped. However did its box end up in our basement pantry alongside all the boxes that our non-Santa presents had come in? Should I be suspicious? Are you testing me?

Santa, you really threw me for a loop that year; good thing that at that age my faith in faith was stronger than my faith in reason. And good thing the Tooth Fairy was still loose with her change or I might have doubted her too.

***

Yesterday on the way to work, a mom boarded the train with the cutest four-year-old twins ever (the Chinese make the best babies, you know). At the next stop, an elderly man got up from the seat across from me and stumbled over to the boys. Stumbled might be the wrong word considering that he almost smashed into them when the train lurched and, in trying to catch himself, his umbrella popped open and flourished like a pissed-off peacock, thwapping him in the face, and everyone in the car turned to stare.

One he'd gotten his footing, though, he turned to the boys with a smile and, out of nowhere, produced two candy canes, one for each pair of their mittened hands. They took the candy and stared up at him with slack-jawed awe, and then he headed for the doorway and stepped off, turning to wiggle his fingers at the boys as the sliders closed between them.

Now, I don't want to make too much out of this, but the man, HE HAD A LONG(ISH) WHITE BEARD! And isn't that just the sort of thing a twenty-first Santa would do? Ride the commuter train in his brown trenchcoat with his twitchy umbrella hooked onto one wrist, giving candy canes to little kids who didn't first climb all over him and demand a Wii and then scowl or cry or pee when the photographer-dressed-as-elf asked them to smile? Seriously, why bother with the fuss of a heavy red suit and a big fat belly and a hohoho when you can escape the malls and the parent paparazzi to go incognito?

So yeah, this year, again, I totally sorta kinda in a (non)ironic way believe in Santa. (And the Tooth Fairy too, even though I haven't seen her in a while.)