Leafs Nihilism

Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty ImagesImagine your dad is a failed comedian. He comes and goes, disappears to go do standup at places named The Chuckling Beaver for weeks at a time, and he routinely flakes on promises to take you to baseball or Chuck-E-Cheese. Whenever he’s confronted with yet another of his myriad broken promises, he feigns surprise and tells you that he was just kidding. It wasn’t a promise; it was a joke.

It’s your birthday in May. Dad says he’s going to take you to Wonderland.

Are you going to circle the date on the calendar?

Christmas Is Cancelled

The drift of the little pop-psych intro up there—for the record, my dad was always great about putting in fatherhood time and to…