Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

I bought Tom a gift online at Fab.com .   Thursday Morning: A kind of large box arrives and Tom pounces on it with a pair of scissors and single-minded intent. He loves a gift. In short order, Tom reaches into the box and pulls out one pair of electric purple underpants on a hanger. He takes the hanger, with the dangling underpants, up to the closet and hangs it next to his work shirts. Friday Morning: Tom forgets about his new hanging underpants until after he's already pulled on an old pair and has both legs in his jeans. Go-to drawer habits are hard to break. Tom decides he will be late for work if he disrobes to switch up his underpants. But he wants to wear his new ones at the first possible occasion-- meaning Saturday in new york city. So he unclips the underpants from the hanger and throws them in one of the bags we take with us to the city. Saturday Morning: Tom cannot find his purple underpants. He settles for an old pair after finally conceding that he

My nephew Jackson and I were hanging out by a garbage truck. Watching it parked by the curb. Its dusty green exterior not glistening at all in the sunshine. This is how we roll. Every five minutes or so, a very African American twenty-something guy walks by us carrying a bunch of empty produce boxes and tosses them in the back of the truck. He wears I-work-in-a-kitchen checked pants and a white T-shirt. At some juncture, I have about enough of the starry-eyed garbage-truck gazing, so I suggest to Jackson that we consider moving on. The kid looks up at me and asks, "Can we just stay here until the white guy goes by one more time?" I am momentarily confused. Only one guy keeps going by and he is most assuredly not white. Then I realize the guy has on a white T-shirt.

All I hear is a huge crash. Like huge. Some thrashing around and Tom shrieking like a little girl with a vile potty mouth. I sprint into the livingroom. Tom stands amidst an explosion of broken glass. Some blood trickles off his cheek at a non-fatal velocity.  Alex the Cat hovers nearby, puffed up like one of the more gigantic Uggs spaceboots. It all began innocently enough. Apparently, Tom was just lushing on the sofa watching the prequel to Planet of the Apes , starring James Franco. Alex nestled on his lap, sound asleep. Suddenly, an Ape lets out a wild Ape wail. Alex, in a singular apoplectic freakout, pops straight up in the air and lands on top of Tom's head. His claws cling to Tom's face and he perches up there like a demonic hat. With some quick battle reflexes, Tom yanks Alex off his head. The cat lands on a glass bowl and smashes it into a million pieces. Luckily no one was injured beyond:  the Lord, whose name was definitely dropped in vai