Chick Wit Archives – Lisa Scottoline

Column Classic: The Off Switch

February 15, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

Do you remember a commercial that used to say, “Reach out and touch someone?”

If you do, you may also recall that the product they were advertising was a telephone.

Because back in the day, people needed to be encouraged to use the phone.

Let’s pause for a moment of silence.

Not necessarily to mourn, but to consider how times have changed.

Because these days, you have to encourage people not to use the telephone. In fact, you have to beg them not to use the phone. You have to put up signs in hallways so that they won’t use the phone, and you have to designate special railroad cars so they won’t use the phone, and you have to pass laws so they won’t use the phone while they’re driving, because everybody uses the phone all the time, twenty-four seven, nonstop.

In other words, we’re reaching out.

But we’re not touching anybody.

We’re too busy on the phone.

We have priorities.

We’re also watching TV all the time.

Do you remember when you used to have to wait a week for your favorite show to come on? The commercials called it “appointment television” and they encouraged you to “make an appointment” with your television to see your show.

Between you and me, it wasn’t that hard an appointment to get.

Try and see my gynecologist.

Next year.

But to stay on point, somewhere along the line, the appointment book got thrown out the window. And we started watching TV all the time, one show after the other, all the time, twenty-four seven, nonstop.

I do it, too.

Last night, I was watching a new television show, and as soon as it finished, a commercial came on saying that I could get the second episode right away.

But it was already midnight, and I should have been asleep by eleven.

I pressed the On button and started watching.

I watched the whole entire second episode, half-asleep and half-awake, so that not only am I tired today, I didn’t even see the stupid show.

I cannot be trusted with a TV in my room.

I’ve done the same thing when I watch shows on Netflix, where you don’t even have to press the On button to watch the next episode, thus eliminating that single volitional act, that tiny moment when you have a choice about watching another episode or returning to your life.

Nah.

Plus I have been known to combine these nonstop activities, and undoubtedly so have many of you, so that you can be watching your 303rd episode of The Whatever Show, while you’re texting nonstop on the phone or cruising Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter nonstop.

When was the last time you were on the phone with somebody and you suspected they were scrolling through their phone during the conversation?

Or:

When was the last time you were barely listening to somebody while you were on the phone with them, because you were scrolling through your phone during the conversation?

Okay, guilty.

On both counts.

Anyway it’s very clear what the problem is here.

It’s not our fault.

It’s never our fault.

You could’ve guessed I would say that, if you have read me before.

I never blame me, or you.

This is a place where you can come and I will reliably tell you how to solve problems in your life without changing anything you do.

Leave the diets and exercise to everyone else.

This is the true judgment-free zone, and all that we need is an Off Switch.

That’s the solution, right there.

If the television manufacturers would start making televisions with a big red Off Switch right in front, we would have a fighting chance.

It’s their fault.

In fact, the other day, I couldn’t find my remote, so I went to the television to turn it off and I couldn’t even find the Off Switch. I spent fifteen minutes looking for the Off Switch on the front of the TV, then ran my fingers along its sides, feeling up my TV.

The TV enjoyed every minute.

This is what I’m telling you, it’s TV manufacturers conspiring with TVs to get felt up.

With the phones, it’s easy to turn off the phone, but that’s part of the conspiracy.

Here’s how it works:

The phone turns itself off, in that the calls “drop” all the time.

And what happens every time a phone call drops?

We become frenzied and call back instantly.

You could’ve been ending a phone conversation with somebody, but if the call gets dropped, you’re going to call back instantly and spend even more time on the phone.

See, another conspiracy!

More shenanigans with the Off Switch.

Sometimes they don’t give us one, and sometimes they work in mysterious ways.

It’s just not our fault.

I Was Today Years Old

February 8, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

I’ve discovered something that changed my life.

No, not divorce.

I knew about that already.

I’m talking crampons.

You probably already know what crampons are, but I didn’t.

It’s like those online memes that say, “I was today years old when I learned that…”

I love those memes, like I was today years old when I learned that a loofah is the inside of a gourd.

Or I was today years old when I learned that mayonnaise takes water stains off a table.

Or I was today years old when I learned that genuine leather is the lowest grade leather available, not the best.

I never knew any of those things, either.

By the way, I don’t know if any of the things above are true, they’re just things I saw on the Internet as examples.

But you get the idea.

Usually it’s household tips.

Like, how does your box of Saran Wrap work?

God knows.

I’m not today-years-old enough.

To return to point, this is the winter of our discontent, and I still have tons of snow around my house. I slip and slide all day long and I’m getting to the point when I’m worried about falling.

This is not age-related, it’s annoyance-related.

Like I fell off my bicycle last summer and broke my arm and it really messed up my work schedule. Bottom line, I don’t have time to get sick.

Also it hurt and was no fun.

I never want to see another orthopedist again, unless he’s single.

Anyway, there’s a lot of snow and ice on the top layer, so it’s really slippery, and when I walk the dogs, I slide around, and it occurred to me that if I fell and hurt myself at night, I might have to lie there in the snow until morning, cursing.

Best case scenario.

Worst case scenario, I’m in one of those commercials that says, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

By the way, I used to think the person meant they couldn’t get up because they broke something.

But now I realize that there is a certain age when it’s not that easy to get off the floor.

In other words, I was today years old when I learned that “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” could be me.

Which sucks.

I’ve always been pretty strong, but I have to confess, lately if I’m sitting on the floor with the dogs, I have to get on all fours before I stand up.

For a moment, the three of us are on all fours, looking at each other.

Then one of us rises to a stand, with a little grunt.

Also, again, profanity.

I don’t know when this horror started but it’s only one of many that I happily pay as a price for staying alive.

Anyway I was complaining to my genius friend Nan about my fear of falling on the ice, and she told me there’s something called crampons.

And they are incredible.

What’s a crampon?

It sounds like a tampon that gives you cramps.

Which would be ironic.

But crampons are cleats on steroids.

It’s a thing that you put over your boot, with a rubber strap over the top and metal spikes on the bottom.

It looks like S&M for people with a foot fetish.

And I’m in love.

The other night I walked the dogs everywhere in the snow and ice, and I felt completely stable in my crampons.

In fact, I felt invincible.

Maybe those of you from the North knew about crampons, but it’s news to girls from the South (of Philly).

Now I look forward to the next snowstorm.

Bring it on, February.

Nothing crampons my style.

Vicious Cycle

February 1, 2026

by Lisa Scottoline

I got plumbing problems.

No, not personally.

In that regard, I’m not sure I even have plumbing anymore.

I’m pretty sure the pipes are rusty.

Like, disintegrating.

But that’s not my point herein.

The problem is my washing machine.

I’m dealing with The Mystery of the Maytag.

This is not to malign a product.

I don’t know if my problem is Maytag’s fault, but I’m going to plumb the depths to find out.

Sorry.

We begin with what just happened, which is that I walked into my dining room, where it was raining.

The dining room is directly below the laundry room on the second floor, and I had just put in a load of laundry, so I raced upstairs to find that the hose on the back of the washing machine was detached and spraying water all over the place.

I got drenched, but I knew what to do because this happened so many times. I found the on-off valve on the wall, moved it, and the water stopped.

And my anger started.

I have had this problem so many times that my dining room now has bubbles in the ceiling from water damage.

And so do all of the books sitting on the floor.

Okay, I admit it, I shouldn’t have books in my dining room, but I do.

Don’t you?

Anyway all the books in my dining room are wrinkled like they were dropped in the bathtub.

Or, like me.

And every time this happens, I call a plumber, who says it’s the fault of the appliance, so I call an appliance guy who says it’s the fault of the water, and then I call a water guy who says there’s nothing wrong with the water.

And we start over.

It’s happened five times already.

It’s not only a vicious cycle, it’s a wet one.

This time I even called an electrician because somebody had the theory that the hose was becoming detached because of electrolysis, which I thought removed unwanted chin hair.

For that, I use a tweezers.

I’m all over the unwanted-hair situation.

I cracked that case.

It’s the washer that’s the problem.

After all, I am one person and I produce a few items of laundry a week.

I can wait a month to do laundry because there’s so little.

Also because I’m lazy.

Nowadays I do laundry less and less, because every time, I know I’m risking an interior thunderstorm.

And there’s no accountability.

Everybody who’s supposed to fix it says it can’t be fixed, and the only solution they have all come up with is to change the hoses every six months.

So I do.

But this time, they came detached at three months.

I could change them every three months, but I would really like to know what the hell is going on.

Normal people don’t have washing machines that wash the room.

I think a better solution would be to throw the washing machine out the window.

Or do my laundry in my sink.

Or beat it against a rock.

Best yet, I can throw rocks at the washing machine.

Column Classic: Snow Job

January 25, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

Today, we discuss regret. Which I have, in spades, of late.

I don’t regret something I bought, which is called buyer’s remorse. I regret something I didn’t buy, and I don’t know what that’s called.

Cheapskate’s remorse?

Or just plain dumb?

I didn’t buy the thing in question because it was expensive and I thought I could do without it, but after doing without it for ten years, I find myself full of regret. I made a mistake. I wish I’d bought one. I yearn for one. I even fantasize about one.

Odd.

I used to lust after men, or jewelry. Thoughts of either could keep me up all night. Men bearing jewelry would be ideal. Men wearing jewelry would not.

But neither of those things is the object of my fantasy, anymore. There’s only one thing I don’t have that would really turn me on.

Nowadays, my idea of a sex toy is a snowblower.

Oh baby.

I want it so bad, it’s good.

But at this point, I’m not sure I can bring myself to buy one. Why?

Regret.

It all started when I was watching the TV news, during the last storm. I love snow coverage, and as soon as there’s flurries in the forecast, I switch on the TV. I wait for the anchorman to stand in the middle of the flakes, like a doll in a snowglobe. Or for him to plunge a yardstick into the drift, like a doctor with a thermometer. Or for the Doppler to creep across the map, inching ominously toward us.

Doppler doesn’t mess around.

It’s radar.

But then the storm comes and goes, and the next day on TV, everybody groans and whines as they shovel out their sidewalks, cars, and driveways. There’s only one happy person.

The guy with the snowblower.

He’s not bent over at all. His hands aren’t cramped, and his nose doesn’t leak.

All he has to do is walk around, with his snowblower doing all the work, parting the drifts like a motorboat in Margate Bay, making a frothy wake.

Oh, yes.

I want one bad.

And I regret that I don’t have one, at the same time that I’m not sure whether I should buy one.

I’ve done without a snowblower for a decade, and I worry that, if I get one now, I’ll get the worst of both worlds. If I’d bought it a long time ago, I could’ve been blowing snow all this time and gotten one cheaper. Because I didn’t, I’ll have done without for a decade, and I’ll be buying one when it cost more.

It’s two for one, mistake-wise.

Regret, regret, regret.

But I kept thinking about getting one, so I went online and studied the websites to make a decision, which is easier said than done. First problem, there’s two types of machines, one called a snowblower and one called a snowthrower.

Who knew?

I read the websites, but I couldn’t figure out the difference between a snowblower and a snowthrower. I have never blown or thrown snow. I have only shoveled it, scraped it, swept it, and cursed it. I’ve gotten excellent at cursing it, and done correctly, it won’t sprain your back.

Only your middle finger.

I bet you curse snow, too. It rarely responds. I suspect its feelings are hurt. It’s used to being wished for, around Christmastime, then oohed and aahed at, even photographed. It remembers when we loved it and called it our winter wonderland.

Then regret sets in, and we regret even the snow.

What happened to those beautiful snowflakes, each one unique?

Who cares?

Die, die, die. Get blown and thrown.

Go away.

The weatherman came on the TV and said there was another storm coming, so I chose the snowblower page and found a grid that let me Shop by Brand, Shop By Type, and Shop By Engine. Then I spotted a category that made it easy:

Shop by In Stock.

Ideal for girls like me.

Who put off buying a snowblower for ten years, and then couldn’t take it anymore and drove to the store, saying:

Gimme what you got.

Sell it to me and stick it in my car.

I don’t care if it blows, throws, or packs the snow into a cone and squirts it with cherry juice.

I want it gone.

And finally, no regrets.

I Can See Clearly Now

January 18, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

It’s the new year, so it’s time to reorganize my kitchen drawers.

Don’t get the idea I do this every year.

I do it every 30 years.

But I do it when the year is new.

So that counts.

I started with the drawer that contained so much junk that I couldn’t open or close it anymore without stuff sticking out, so it was time. Actually what it mostly contained was a bunch of pairs of glasses, and it was quite a spectacle.

I took a picture after I reorganized it because I was so proud of myself, but I should have taken the Before picture so you could see what a goddess I am.

But let’s focus for a minute on the glasses.

I didn’t know how many pairs of glasses I had until I went through that drawer. Part of the problem is that I never throw any glasses away because my prescription has stayed the same. In fact, the only reason I ever get new glasses is because of the horrible things I do to them.

Mainly, sitting on them.

This is easy to do.

Try it at home.

With practice, you can be as good as I am.

All you have to do is take your glasses off and leave them on your couch, chair, or even in bed, where you can roll on them and break a stem.

Voila!

Or they drop off the night table and you forgot that on your way to the bathroom and stepped on them in the dark and broke them in half.

Way to go, Lisa!

There are lots of ways to destroy a pair of glasses.

Just improvise.

Have fun with it!

But now I have a new thing.

Last week I ran over my glasses with my car.

I did a great job!

And just for good measure, I also ran over an empty glasses case.

As I always say, if you want something done right, do it yourself.

They were actually prescription sunglasses that cost a fair amount because I was trying to be fashionable. But somehow they must have fallen out of my pocket when I got in or out of the car, and when I came home, lying on the floor of the garage was a highly costly pancake.

I took them in to get them replaced, and we all had a good laugh at the optician’s office. I’m there so often, we’re friends.

It’s like a bar, where I’m a regular.

Cheers!

Then the next bad thing I did to my glasses was get a puppy.

Her name is Eve but when it comes to eyeglasses, she is Evil.

Because I leave my glasses everywhere, all of a sudden I’ll find them in her dog bed.

Glasses are the most expensive chew toy ever.

For a while I wore them with gnawed-on stems, but they kept scratching behind my ears so I had the stems replaced. Then she chewed off the little rubber tips on my remaining pair of prescription sunglasses, so I had to get them fixed. And yesterday I got a plastic nosepiece out of her mouth, but I have no idea where that came from.

Maybe she has a glasses drawer, too.

Also when I reorganized my drawer, I realized I had three billion pairs of readers.

I’m making a vow never to buy more reading glasses.

I buy them compulsively because they’re not that expensive and they come in a lot of pretty colors.

Pretty colors are my siren song.

And if they’re at the counter in pink, forget it.

I own them.

But now that I see that I have too many, I’m going to stop.

And I’m going to take better care of them and all of my glasses.

I have to.

It’s 30 years until I clean the drawer again.

Post-Holidaze

January 11, 2026January 11, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

We have our phones with us all the time, but here’s the thing:

You can’t call anybody.

Or you can, but they won’t answer.

I say this because I tried to call my bank the other day, but no one picked up. It rang and rang.

Then I called my car dealership, and the same thing happened.

I’m feeling like no one answers the phone anymore.

And if you look on a website to see how to call them on the phone, there won’t be any number.

They used to say Contact Us, but they lied.

I remember when you could call a company and somebody would pick up the phone. It might not be a person, but it would be a message machine with options one through 7. You’d pick one, wait while music played, then a message would come on and say, “Your call is important to us. Please wait.”

Now, the jig is up.

They’re not even bothering with a mechanical message.

You would think that they could put on a fake voice to tell me how much I matter.

This would be my second marriage in a nutshell.

To return to point, the one bright spot was on Christmas Eve.

No, not that bright spot.

We’re not talking the Star-of-Bethlehem bright.

It was Michael’s.

Yes, the crafts store.

Actually to call Michael’s a craft store is to sell it short. Michael’s sells decorations, art supplies, glue, picture frames, and glittery stuff that you didn’t think you needed until you saw it in its vast store. Also there are rows of candy bars, and I always treat myself to a Snickers.

In our family, the holidays mean a trip to Michael’s to get stuff for the tree, and we even bring the two dogs. We all had a great time there, and I treated myself to a Snickers. Daughter Francesca is our tree designer and she picked out the items we needed, among them a spray can of fake snow.

When you spray a tree with fake snow, it’s called flocking.

Who knew?

You have to hang sheets on the walls so you don’t have an interior blizzard.

Otherwise you’re flocked.

Anyway when we got home it turned out that we’d left a bag on the counter.

This is the problem when you go shopping during the holidays with two dogs. You get distracted by the holidays and the dogs.

Okay, you get distracted by the Snickers, but that’s neither here nor there.

So I called Michael’s.

Guess what happened:

They answered!

A human being!

Wow! I felt like I had entered a portal to an alternative universe or maybe the 1950s. I actually said, “You answered!”

And the man said, “Of course.”

So I told him, “Do you realize that no one answers the phone anymore?”

“I know, but here at Michael’s, we always answer the phone.”

And I thought, I might be in love with you.

But I didn’t say that.

And the next thing that happened was even greater, because he said he would look for our bag, which he actually did and then called me back because he could not find it. So I went to the store anyway to rebuy the missing stuff and Michael’s didn’t even charge me twice. They just swapped it out for the stuff that I left behind in my Snickers haze.

And so on Christmas Eve, my faith in corporate America was restored.

A miracle!

Naughty or Nice?

December 21, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

It’s the time of year when it we find out whether you’ve been bad or good.

Unfortunately, my little puppy Eve has been Evil.

She’s a year old now, so her personality has shown itself, and it ain’t pretty.

Simply put, she’s an total alpha female.

Or more accurately, a boss bitch.

Let’s begin with the fact that she doesn’t like to walk.

In fact, she doesn’t like to leave the couch.

As soon as I get the leash, she throws herself on the ground and refuses to move.

With one exception.

If I ask, “Wanna go in the car?” Then she jumps off the couch and runs over for her leash.

As in, she knows car.

She wants to Uber around the block.

I think a sedan chair would work, too.

She basically doesn’t want her feet to touch the ground.

What woman does?

Don’t worry, there’s nothing physically wrong with her. I took her to the vet, and the diagnosis is that she’s a princess.

And that’s not all.

She doesn’t eat out of a bowl.

At first I thought the problem was her food, so I did the whole thing where you order various overpriced ipsy-pipsy dog meals they ship to you, which involves defrosting, cleaning dishes, and special containers.

But she still didn’t eat.

Then one day I happened to drop some kibble on the floor and she started eating.

Which is when I realized that she likes to eat off the floor.

Now, I have to throw her kibble on the kitchen floor to get her to eat.

This isn’t a problem except that she leaves a fine grit of chicken byproducts.

After every meal, I Dirt-Devil the floor.

Because of my dirty devil.

You haven’t lived until you’ve walked in bare feet and ended up with Purina Pro Plan between your toes.

And if your feet are as dry as mine, you’ll end up with kibble in your heel cracks, which guarantees you’ll be single forever.

The other thing about Eve is that she does not play well with others.

I took her to puppy obedience school, and she graduated, but she’s socially awkward. If she sees another dog on a walk, she barks nonstop at them, which is her way saying hello.

It never works.

Other dogs avoid her.

Yesterday she scared off a German Shepherd.

Or gave him a headache.

As far as people go, she’s picky. She loves Daughter Francesca, me, and a few other of my girlfriends, but she can’t be bothered with strangers we meet. She lets them pet her, but she’ll stand there.

She doesn’t wag her tail.

She checks her watch.

She’s rude.

And it’s awkward.

But randomly, she likes workmen.

Any carpenter, electrician, or plumber who comes over, she flirts like crazy.

Who doesn’t love a man in uniform?

She sees that jumpsuit and she jumps.

Yesterday I had a burglar alarm guy over, and Eve climbed into his lap and wouldn’t move.

Meanwhile she won’t sit on my lap.

She’s supposed to be a lap dog, but evidently it has to be a lap with benefits.

So when it comes to the question whether Eve is Naughty or Nice, I guess I have to say Naughty.

But I love her anyway, which if you ask me, is the point of the holiday season.

Let’s not get all judgy.

There’s too much of that going around lately, and we all need a little more acceptance.

Understanding, even forgiveness.

I love Eve for the little dog she turned out to be.

And that’s Nice.

Happy Holidays!

‘Tis The Season

December 14, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I have great news.

Elastic waistbands have gone public!

Let me explain:

The holidays are upon us, which means I have to go to the mall.

Which is outside.

By that I mean, I work at home, so I’m in sweats and fleece 24/7.

My daughter calls it my teddybear clothes.

Because she loves me.

But really, I’m a slob.

And working from home has only encouraged my slobbiness.

I have an entire wardrobe of sweatpants.

I even have dress sweatpants, in cashmere.

They look like 1,000,000 bucks, which is about what they cost.

Worth every penny.

Anyway, since I live in sweatpants, I look at jeans as the enemy.

Because they have a waistband.

And a button.

And a zipper.

Jeans are like a denim chastity belt.

Even though believe me, I’m chaste.

Only Mother Teresa is more chaste than I am.

And she’s dead.

I’m only dead below the waist.

But I digress.

Because jeans feel so confining, I’ve dreaded wearing them, which is a problem for going out.

Meanwhile, let’s pause for a moment and think back to the time when women had a pair of nice pants, usually wool and in navy or black.

Mother Mary called them slacks, but you get the idea.

There was no slack in slacks.

They had a real waistband, usually with the button and a zipper, and they had a crease down the middle. I have them at the back of my closet, but I can’t remember the last time I put them on.

Maybe people still wear them, but I don’t.

Remember I warned you about the slobbiness.

If I have to dress up for a signing, I wear black stretch pants with a nice jacket on top. No one knows my waistband is elastic.

Until now.

What’s funny is in the old days, I wore jeans all the time and dreaded putting on a pair of pants.

Now I wear sweats all the time and dread putting on a pair of jeans.

In other words, I’m devolving.

Unfortunately my waistline is evolving.

To return to point, I had to go shopping for presents, so I stuffed myself into jeans and left the house.

I was walking around the mall for five minutes when I realized that no one around me was wearing jeans.

What?

Every single person was wearing sweatpants or a tracksuit or some kind of teddybear clothes.

Drawstrings abounded, swinging back and forth.

Yes, I stared at people’s crotches.

Men and women, but mostly men.

Bottom line I was the only throwback in jeans.

What?

Since when?

This is great news!

I could’ve been a teddybear, no problem.

Meanwhile I had a vise around my waist, like a do-it-yourself hysterectomy.

The only people not wearing some form of sweatpants were women who had gone in the complete opposite direction, wearing yoga pants showing a midriff.

In December.

Now listen, if I had a waist like these women, I’d probably show it off too.

I spotted abs for miles.

But still, even my chubby tummy was cold.

By the way, no one was wearing shoes either.

Everyone was wearing sneakers.

I looked like something out of the 1950s, with my jeans and loafers.

So bottom line, I bring tidings of great joy.

‘Tis the season for sweatpants in public.

Truly Happy Holidays!

Column Classic: Christmas With The Flying Scottolines

December 7, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

It’s time you knew the truth.

My childhood Christmases were not the norm.

I’m reluctant to tell you because it makes the family look bad.

But I’m a fan of the truth, especially if it’s funny.

Here’s what happened.

When I was little, The Flying Scottolines were a family of four, living in a tract house in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. But my mother had a very large family and she was the youngest of nineteen children.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Nineteen.

I had eighteen aunts and uncles. Their age span was so large that some were dying while others were being born.

Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.

What does this tell you about my family?

I don’t even want to know.

Let’s just say they were good Catholics.

Maybe too good.

What does that tell us about my grandmother?

That she had more estrogen than the northern hemisphere?

Can you imagine being pregnant nineteen times?

It’s like a puppy mill, only with babies.

By the way, my grandmother was married twice. Her first husband died.

You can guess how.

His heart wore out.

Before anything else, evidently.

I would’ve said, Dude, before bedtime, maybe read a book instead?

Anyway, when I was growing up, most of the aunts and uncles would come to our house for Sunday dinner and on holidays. The house would burst with colorful Italian relatives, like in an Olive Garden commercial but not as well-dressed.

Everybody brought potluck, which meant that we had 37 different kinds of pasta.

I adored all of my aunt and uncles, but my favorite was Uncle Mikey, the Fun Uncle.

He drove a convertible Thunderbird, love to sing and dance, and did God-knows-what for a living. He loved to play with me and my brother, tickle us, and tell us dumb jokes. But best of all, he always brought us presents on Christmas Eve, like Santa, only smoking a cigarette.

All the other aunts and uncles would give us a Christmas gift by placing them under the tree for us to open on Christmas morning.

But not Uncle Mikey.

He would bring his gifts unwrapped, so we could play with them right away.

Of course, we loved that, as kids.

Delayed gratification was not in our vocabulary.

I always noticed some tension between my parents and Uncle Mikey on Christmas Eve, and one year, the presents from Uncle Mikey stopped abruptly.

Bummer.

I asked my mother why, and that’s when she told me that Uncle Mikey’s presents “fell off a truck.”

Not that that explained anything.

I remember thinking that Uncle Mikey was the luckiest guy ever, always driving around behind trucks full of toys, just when things started falling off the back.

What a guy!

And he must’ve been the greatest catch, too, because when the toys fell off the truck, he caught them.

Merry Christmas!

Some kids believed in Santa, but I believed in Uncle Mikey.

I didn’t care where the presents came from, only that I got them.

Evidently, Uncle Mikey felt the same way.

Then one day, after I had become an adult, I heard the term “fell off a truck” used in a movie. And I learned that it meant the goods were stolen.

Which is when I realized that Uncle Mikey wasn’t such a good catch, after all.

No wonder Mother Mary made him stop.

And no wonder the presents were never wrapped.

And no wonder they were always the best.

Because they didn’t cost him anything.

The Flying Scottolines were receiving stolen goods.

Luckily we didn’t end up behind bars.

And so you get the idea.

That’s who we were.

Are you impressed yet?

The truth is never impressive.

It’s just real.

And sometimes funny.

Column Classic: Thanksgiving

November 30, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline / Francesca Serritella

Here is a true classic and the first column Francesca wrote while in college, before she became a regular contributor.

Intro from Lisa Scottoline

Thanksgiving is about family, so I thought I’d ask my daughter Francesca for her thoughts about the day. We spend so much time talking to and teaching our children that sometimes it’s nice just to ask them what they think, and listen to the answer. So take a minute this Thanksgiving to ask your own baby birds what they think about the day, and listen to whatever they chirp up with.

Because I bet that the thing that you’re most thankful for is them.

Column Classic: Thanksgiving

By Francesca Serritella

My family is small. Since it’s only my mom and me at home, our Thanksgiving has never been the Martha Stewart production it can be for some other families. My dad’s family has Thanksgiving in New York; my grandmother and uncle have Thanksgiving in Miami. My mother and I buy a last-minute turkey, make up some wacky ingredients for a stuffing, and eat together with Frank Sinatra playing in the background and a lot of warm, furry dogs warming our feet. It has always been nice, and I know we’re lucky to have each other, but sometimes it has just felt small.

Until Harry.

Harry is our neighbor, he’s in his eighties, and we got to know him from running into him when we walked our dogs. He used to go for a long walk every day, waving a white handkerchief so cars would see him. He would stop to chat with us, always cheery and warm, even when the late-autumn wind made his nose red and his eyes tear.

A few years ago, my mom invited Harry to our Thanksgiving dinner, and he arrived at four o’clock sharp, wearing a cozy and Icelandic sweater and graciously removing his Irish tweed cap as soon as he came inside. During dinner, my mom asked him about his hobbies, and to be honest, I didn’t expect this to be the most thrilling conversation topic. After all, my grandmother’s hobbies are crosswords and yelling at my uncle. But Harry’s face lit up at the question.

“I’m a Ham!” he said.

We didn’t get it.

And with that, Harry turned into a live-wire. He talked about his hobby as a Ham Radio operator, a mode of amateur radio broadcast first popular in the 1920s. Harry told us all about using radio technology while serving in WWII, and we sat, rapt, as he described sending a signal into the air, bouncing it off the stratosphere, and bending it around the earth. He seemed like Merlin, hands waving in the air—his fingers had lost their quiver and his watery eyes were bright and shining.

Well-meaning, but being somewhat of a teenage buzz kill, I asked, “Have you ever tried email? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

No, he said. He enjoys the effort—a foreign concept in my wireless Internet, instant-messaging world. Even though Ham radios can communicate through voice, he still uses Morse code sometimes, just for the fun of it. Most of all, he enjoys belonging to the community of Hams. “I get to meet people I would never meet. I have friends around the world.”

That night, it didn’t matter that Harry and I didn’t share a last name, or that we didn’t share the same relatives or the same nose. That Thanksgiving, he was family. He still is.

What Harry and my mother taught me that Thanksgiving, whether they knew it or not, was that you don’t just get your family, you can create your family. We do it all the time without realizing it; we form bonds with the people we work with, live with, learn with. I’ve felt homesick up at college, but I’ve also created my own little family of friends at school. I hope all those brave soldiers overseas have found second families in their comrades, people to support and lean on when they’re forced to be away from loved ones at home.

These second families don’t replace our first one, they just extend it.

It wasn’t until that Thanksgiving with Harry that I really got it: there are no rules for what or who makes a family, no limit on love. The holidays especially are a time when we can reach out and say “thank you” to all the people who make up our many families. And sometimes, if you’re lucky like me, Thanksgiving can even be a chance to set an extra plate at the table.

Looking out the dining room window, I can barely see Harry’s house for the trees. But inside that house is a man who is not alone. There lives a man who is an expert at reaching out to people, whether by angling radio waves around the globe, or by flagging us down on a walk around the block. He has us, he has our other neighbors, he has friends around the world. Even better, we have him.

And for that, I am thankful.

Intro from Lisa Scottoline

Column Classic: Thanksgiving

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