Classic Archives – Lisa Scottoline

Classic Column: Mother Mary and the Terrorists

April 26, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

They say that the past isn’t even past, and that’s always true when Mother Mary is around.

It all begins with a call from Brother Frank.

“I got bad news,“ he says. “We’re bastards.”

“Wha?” asks I.

“Well, we went to get mom’s driver’s license renewed.”

So far, I’m following. Mother Mary doesn’t drive, but she carries an ID card that the Florida DMV issues. Her last card expired, which I found out on her last visit after I tried to put her on a plane back to Miami. They wouldn’t let her fly until they patted her down, which she enjoyed way too much.

“The DMV says we can’t renew her ID card without her marriage certificate.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s a woman who’s using her married name.”

“So what?” I’m trying to understand. I don’t see what a driver’s license has to do with a marriage certificate, especially at this point in my mother’s life. My father passed in 2002, and my parents have been divorced for ever. They were married in 1950, a time when people balanced spinning plates on TV. Now that’s entertainment.

“It’s a new law, since September 11^th.”

In the background, I hear my mother yelling, “Those terrorists, they should be ashamed of themselves!”

I nod in approval. That someone should be ashamed of themselves is the worst thing she says about anyone. And when she’s really mad, she’ll shout, “Out of my sight!” I fear for the terrorists if they ever meet Mother Mary. She’ll order them out of her sight, take off her shoe, and throw it at them. She always hits her target. There are missile-launchers with less accuracy.

But to say on point, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Frank, can this be true?”

“Yes. We were in line behind a 92 year old woman whose husband had been dead for fifty years, and they wouldn’t give her an ID card. She had taken two buses to get there, so we gave her a ride home. She said it was a mikveh.”

I wince. “You mean a mitzvah, which is a good deed.”

“What’s a mikveh?”

“Forget it. Tell the story.”

“So we called the hall of records back home, and they can’t find her marriage certificate anywhere.”

“Do the records go back that far?”

“Yes, but the certificate is lost. Or it never existed.”

I blink. “It has to exist. They got married.”

“Yeah, but they’re’s no proof.”

Behind him, my mother’s yelling, “It’s all because of the terrorists!”

I let it go. “So what now?”

“She can’t visit you until we straighten this out.”

Which would be the good news.

Just kidding.

I ask, “What about a passport?”

“She needs the ID card. She’s gonna show a passport to write a check? And we’re illegitimate.”

“Does it matter?” I wonder aloud. In the olden days, they used to call it being born out of wedlock, but I never liked the word wedlock. It has a faintly incarcerated air, which fits my marital history to a T.

“I don’t know if it matters. It seems like everybody’s illegitimate, these days. I feel kind of cool.”

I laugh. “I know, right? We’re Brad and Angelina’s twins.”

“I’ll be the boy.”

“I’ll be the girl.”

Mother Mary shouts, “Bastards!”

But I don’t ask which ones she means.

Classic Column: Which Spices Would You Take To a Kitchen Island?

April 19, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

There’s nothing like home improvement to improve your life.

At least, not in theory.

I say this because I’m adding a garden room to my house, even though I don’t even know if that’s a thing, because I have a garden and I want a room in front of it so I can see it through the window.

Like TV, only without Andy Cohen.

The garden room is attached to the kitchen and since it needed a door, the oven and cabinets had to be moved, and in any event, you see where this is going. Adding a garden room meant that the kitchen got remodeled. Because the thighbone is connected to the leg bone and the leg bone is connected to the wallet.

Anybody who’s ever started home improvement knows that as soon as you improve one thing, you have to improve other things, so that everything is New and Improved, like detergent, only much more costly.

But I’m not complaining.

I feel lucky to be able to make these changes, and since I work at home, I’m spending 24/7 on the premises, I want to premises to suit me. And while we’re turning that frown upside down, let me add that since I’m still terribly single, it’s great to have everything exactly the way I want.

Finally.

And then I’ll die.

My epitaph will read:

HERE LIES LISA SCOTTOLINE

DID SHE IMPROVE ENOUGH?

To stay on point, remodeling the kitchen means that I’m starting to look hard at my priorities, namely, spices. Please tell me that I’m not on the only woman who owns approximately 75,932 spices, accumulated over decades, and that the spices are dusted off every decade, which is the only time they’re even touched.

I’m looking at you, cardamom.

How this came about is that when I moved the oven, I lost the shelf above it, which is where I kept the aforementioned spices, and that meant that I had to find the spices a new home or concede the obvious and throw them out.

So I began to cast a skeptical eye at my spice rack.

And it took me on a tour of my own life.

Let’s begin with Marriage Rookie Enthusiasm.

In that time period of my life, I had just married Thing Two, my daughter Francesca was young and I had two stepdaughters living at home. I wanted to be not only the best mother of all time, but also the best stepmother, so I instantly bought American Mom spices, which you use when you bake apple pie. You know the autumnal array of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

To make a long story short, I made exactly one apple pie.

Divorce ensued, but I got custody of the spices.

Then it was just Francesca and me, and being Italian-American, I decided that I was going to make homemade tomato sauce, or gravy. Mother Mary made the best gravy ever, but she refused to give me the recipe because I was a lawyer.

Don’t ask.

I watched her do it and she always used onion salt, garlic salt, salt salt, and extra salt.

No fresh spices were involved.

Yet it was delicious.

Still I could never make gravy as good as she did, and in time I gave up, though I still have the garlic salt. I feel certain that Mother Mary approves, smiling down from heaven and hoping that the garlic salt has solidified into a sodium bullet.

The next stage of my spice life was Francesca going to college, and that was when I decided I wasn’t going to act mopey because I was an empty nester, and believe me, I got over that fast.

LOL.

But in spice terms, that was the time of my Indian Awakening, an idea I got from a Williams Sonoma catalog. I bought every Indian spice known to man, extending well beyond starter curry into garam masala, turmeric, and vadouvan. They came in round pots full of orange and yellow powders, like nightmare blusher.

These were the coolest spices ever, but I never looked at them again because as an empty nester, I stopped cooking altogether.

Which was coolest of all.

This brings us to the present day, when the only spices I use are salt and pepper.

They require neither shelf, rack, nor cabinet.

They’re sitting alone together on the kitchen island, like survivors of a suburban shipwreck.

Where they’ll stay until the next Williams Sonoma catalog comes in the mail.

Column Classic: Lost and Found

March 15, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

Did you hear the news?

They discovered a new organ.

All this time, it was in your body.

Not even kidding.

Maybe they were looking outside?

Anyway, an Irish surgeon, Dr. J. Calvin Coffey, discovered that we have something in our stomach called a mesentery.

Before now, the mesentery was a mystery.

Dr. Coffey teaches at the University of Limerick, otherwise well-known for its limericks.

Like, “There once was a mesentery from Nantucket….”

Evidently, the mesentery connects the intestine to the abdomen, and as Dr. Coffey explained, “It keeps the intestine in a particular shape, so when you stand up, your intestine doesn’t fall into your pelvis.”

Well, hell. That’s a good thing.

It’s like Spanks for your colorectal system.

Thanks, mesentery!

Meanwhile, I might be in love with Dr. Coffey. He has a way with words. And also if he could find a mesentery, he could find my car keys.

But to stay on point, it turns out that for the past century, medical science had thought the mesentery was a group of disjointed parts, but he figured out it’s a connected organ.

Hello!

So now you have an organ you didn’t know about.

Like a present you got for the holidays.

And it’s just your size!

People don’t understand why medical science didn’t know about the mesentery before.

Not me. I get it. If I were going to lose something in my body, the most likely place to lose it would be in my stomach.

In the folds.

Above the Bermuda Triangle.

You know what I mean.

All ladies have one, and that’s what I call mine. Because any man who goes there is lost forever.

Anyway, if you have stomach folds, you know that they’re the reason God made loose sweaters.

That’s what I wear to hide my folds, or I avoid sitting altogether.

This is my new thing since my last speaking event, when I sat down and my waistband button popped off, then the zipper went town. I couldn’t keep it up. It looked good at the lectern, if you like asymmetrical pants.

Luckily I had on a jacket, which is a folds-hider for special occasions.

And I have other tips for hiding folds.

For example, if you ever see me on the beach, I am lying down. That’s the only way my stomach looks flat. Unfortunately, that’s when my breasts also look flat, but at least it’s a matching set.

Anyway, the thing about folds is that they hide things in addition to mesenteries.

Okay, let’s get real.

I happen to look down after a shower the other day, in a rare moment.

It’s winter, so the shower is rare.

Also the looking down.

I mean, why? I usually can’t see anything over my belly anyway, so who needs that reminder?

Not me.

So when I looked down, my folds smoothed out, and you know what I saw sticking out of my belly button?

Dog hair.

I recognized it because there’s dog hair all over my house, and since I have dogs that have yellow, brown, black, and white hair, in every corner is multicolored canine tumbleweed.

But in my bellybutton?

Who knew?

Yet, there was, sprouting like a little furry fountain.

I started pulling it out, and the more stuff I pulled out, the more stuff there was, like a magician starts pulling scarves out of a hat.

Not only dog hair, but lint and little shreds of tissue paper.

Who knew what was in there?

Could the Bermuda Triangle be spreading?

Are you horrified yet?

I was. I even got out a tweezers to do the job right, extracting every last foreign object like a surgeon.

In fact, like a surgeon finding a mesentery.

Dr. Coffey, call me.

We have so much in common.

Column Classic: A Woman With a Plan

March 8, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m not a planner.

But I got a letter from my local funeral home, asking that I plan a funeral.

For myself.

I tried not to be insulted.

I mean, do I look that bad?

I might, since I just finished a draft of my next novel, and the truth is that daily showers, nutrition, and grooming go by the wayside when I’m on deadline.

Of course, deadline takes on a whole new meaning when your funeral home is sending you love letters.

The letter offered to save me 44% on funeral or cremation costs.

This would be the ultimate final sale.

But to take advantage, I have to decide right now if I want to be buried or reduced to ash.

Are we having fun yet?

The letter said that the sale price was “guaranteed, no-increase pricing.”

To which I thought, You’re darn tootin.’

Try and collect after I’m dead.

Oh, wait. Maybe you can.

The only things guaranteed are death and taxes, and there are taxes after death, so why not a price hike?

I just wish they’d hike me out of the ground.

Maybe that should be my epitaph:

GET ME OUT OF HERE.

How about, I GOT THIS 44% OFF. ASK ME HOW.

Or, I’D RATHER DIE THAN PAY FULL PRICE.

The letter said I should take the deal because it would “protect positive memories” for my family.

That’s my kind of sales pitch.

In other words, buy this, so your family won’t be pissed that you left them holding the bag.

You old bag.

The letter called it a Prearranged Funeral Program, which I have to admit, appealed to my vanity.

It’s not a funeral, it’s a show!

The Bye-bye, Lisa Show!

Unfortunately there’s only one episode.

The premiere and the finale are the same thing.

Bring a lot of popcorn.

It’s not a surprise ending.

You might even cry.

At least, you’d better.

You guys, when I die, I want you all there, sobbing your eyes out. Saying how wonderful I was. And also what a smart shopper.

“Her books are great, plus she got a deal on the casket!”

But I’m not sure I want a half-price deal on a casket.

Maybe you don’t get a lid.

You get a tray.

Or maybe you only get a lid and they flip you over like a cake you just took out of the oven.

If you follow.

None of these jokes apply to cremation, which is inherently unfunny.

I don’t even like hot water.

Or a sunburn.

Ouchie.

Cremation goes against our natural instincts, doesn’t it?

We tell every child, “Don’t put your hand in fire.”

But someday you’ll get a letter that says, “See that fire? Jump in!”

Really, the letter is offering a fire-sale price on an actual fire.

How meta.

This is the best part of the letter: “In short, don’t put it off. As more time passes, the more your loved ones could end up paying for this kind of security.”

HAHAHAHA.

Tick-tock, Scottoline.

Don’t delay because you could die any minute.

And it’s gonna cost somebody 44% more.

You selfish bitch.

I mean, that puts the fun in funeral.

But in the end, I’m going to take advantage of the offer.

I can’t pass up a sale.

And I like to clean up after myself, so to speak.

So maybe I’m a planner, after all.

I’ve become one, after a lifetime.

Literally.

Plus I have loyalty to the funeral home, since they buried my father and mother. And when they came to pick up my mother the morning she passed, there were tears in their eyes, and they actually said, “Is this the famous Mother Mary?”

Aw.

So you know they have my business, from now on.

Because they read me.

People who read my books are my second favorite people on the planet.

My most favorite are people who buy my books.

Why?

Who do you think is paying to put me in an ashtray, at a date yet to be determined?

I sincerely hope it’s you.

You’ll be happy to know I got you a deal.

Thank you for your support.

Now, and later.

Classic Column: Technology Hag

March 1, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m not old, but I’m getting older.

I know this because of technology.

Meanwhile, where do I even begin with the story?

Let’s start with the time a few months ago, when I trip over a dog gate, go flying, and can’t walk.

I’ve been hobbling around since then.

Seriously, I’m bent over like the old witch in Snow White. Plus I have stringy gray hair and a big nose.

All I need is the carbuncle.

Oh, wait.

Never mind.

Check.

But not the point herein.

I hobble around for about three weeks, barely able to straighten up, much less sit or drive, and so I finally get my butt to an orthopedist, who takes an MRI and tells me that I have a labral tear in my hip.

At first I thought I heard him wrong.

I didn’t think my labral was in my hip.

I got it mixed up with another body part, which should give you an idea of how good I was at sex.

Kind of not very.

But honestly, who cares anyway?

I’m great at writing!

Anyway, it turns out that a labral tear is a tear in the ligament that’s somewhere in your hip joint, and when I leave the doctor’s office, he gives me a DVD of my MRI.

Like a party favor for the middle-aged.

I take it home, and the first thing I want to do is look at my MRI.

Which is when I realized that I don’t have a DVD player in any of my computers.

What?

I don’t even know when that happened.

I seem to remember that I got new computers a year or so ago, because I like to have a nice big screen. And I don’t mind spending the money, because all I do all day is stare at a computer, and the least I can do is have a nice one. But I never really noticed that they didn’t have a slot for a DVD player.

So I went over to my big TV, figuring that I could watch my MRI on TV, like a medical reality show, maybe one called, YOUR LABRAL ISN’T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS

I managed to locate my DVD player underneath the TV, but it needed to be hooked up, since I am addicted to Netflix and haven’t watched a real DVD in a long time. It took me a full hour of struggling to hook it up, and even then, I couldn’t get it to work.

Which is when it struck me.

I am so ancient that I have lived through several stages of technology, like the Jurassic and Pleistocene era of dinosaurs.

I remember when there were VHS tapes because I still have them.

I remember when there were camcorders because I filmed Francesca when she was a baby, plus static scenes of my feet, with me saying, “Is this thing on or off?”

Now I have lived through DVDs, which sucks, because I have an entire set of operas in DVD that I was saving to watch in my retirement, and by the time I retire, operas will be transported telepathically into your brain.

Plus I paid to have those camcorder tapes of Francesca transferred onto DVD’s, and now there’s no such thing as DVD players.

So you’re getting a fairly complete picture of what life is like as me, which I’m hoping is like life as you, too.

Who here remembers actual records?

I do.

Who remembers little 33’s?

I do.

Who remembers cassette tapes?

I do.

How about trying to rewind them and having them unspool out of the slot like brown tinsel?

I know. Me too.

So there you have it. Many of us live a life measured in obsolete technological stages.

It’s enough to make your hip hurt.

Column Classic: Handbag Time Machine

February 22, 2026

By Francesca Serritella

I was going through a closet at my mom’s house when I spotted an old handbag I felt worthy of rescuing and bringing back to New York. Upon opening it, I found a folded piece of yellow paper inside. It had a list of questions written on it in my handwriting, but that I didn’t remember writing:

“In whose house was he raised? Yours or Barbara’s?”

“How much does he eat, how often?”

“Introducing to other dogs?”

I pulled out the next items: two tickets to Dressage at Devon 2008.

Suddenly, my heart swelled at the memory.

I was transported to September 2008, when I first met Pip as a puppy. I had written these questions down, because I was so nervous and excited, I was afraid I would forget to ask them.

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

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.

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.

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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