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

I promised my 11-yo niece Ella I would buy her one thing from the Harry Potter merch shop. It's mid-December and we've just spent half an hour talking about all the Pusheens Ella hopes to get from Santa. Ella believes in Santa, by the way. There are many reasons to clutch the jolly old man close to your heart. To let go of him is: to let go of childhood to disappoint her dad, who loves how much his kids love Santa a definite gamble. What if you say you don't believe and you turn out to be wrong and then you don't get any presents? There's a lot on the line here. It's like Pascal's wager but with much more immediate stakes. So we go into the Merch booth and Ella beelines to a sales lady in the magic wand section.  "How much are the wands," she asks. "$45," says the lady. "45 dollars?!!!," squawks Ella. "I don't think so!!!" She whirls around and stalks off. I scramble to follow in her indignant wa...

We took the niece and nephews to Harry Potter on Broadway for an epic 8 hour day of back-to-back theater. As we were walking in the super crowded lobby during the first intermission, I turned to my niece and said, loudly to cut through all the background noise, I said "Are you able to see?" I asked her this question because she's 11 and therefore short and a tall guy was seated in the row right in front of us in the theater. Suddenly, a woman whirls around and gives me a brutal stink-eye. I notice she has a blind-person cane. It was awkward.