Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - May Contain Gravel - Rashida & Amir and the Great Gift-Giving & Polly Anderson’s Christmas Party

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

“Come and get me, copper!” We’ve got to know Dave and Morley’s neighbours well over the years. This week, two stories about the neighbourhood at Christmas. Holiday gift-giving gets a bit out of hand in our first story, while a punchbowl mix-up livens up the party (for some) in our second.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We have two Dave and Morley stories for you today. Two stories about Christmas in the neighborhood. We're going to start with this one. It's a story we call Rashida, Amir, and the Great Gift Giving. But I've always thought we should call it May Contain Gravel. You'll see why. In the middle of November, Jim Schofield was cleaning out his attic when he came across a box of children's books he neither recognized nor remembered. He brought them downstairs,

intending to do what he always does with books he doesn't want. He was going to take them to the library and push them through the return slot. By Friday afternoon, the books had made it as far as his front hall, which is where Jim happened to be standing when he spotted Rashida Chudry pushing her daughter Fatima up the street in her stroller. Rashida and her husband Amir moved into the neighborhood last winter. Everyone took great delight in helping the Chudrys through their first winter in Canada. When it snowed, people woke up all over the neighborhood wishing they could be at the Chudries to see their reaction. Jim grabbed some wrapping paper from where he keeps it,

under the sofa, and he quickly gift-wrapped the books and then he ran outside. An early Christmas present, he said, handing the children's books to Rashida and pointing at her daughter. Jim said the thing about the books being a Christmas present so Rashida wouldn't think he was odd running out like that. He gave her the books and then he went inside to fix dinner and he forgot about them completely. Rashida didn't however. Rashida went home and freaked out. Rashida and Amir are from Pakistan, and this was going to be their first Christmas in Canada. Jim clearly said it was an early Christmas present, she told Amir that night when her husband arrived home. Do you know what that

means? Amir shook his head disconsolately It surely means this whole neighborhood gives each other presents Amir and Rashida spent November in a frenzy of preparation They assembled elaborate gift baskets for everyone in the neighborhood Each basket had little packages of aromatic rice and tamarind and homemade chutneys. They stayed up late sewing little cloth bags for the spices. Now things at Dave and Morley's house were more comfortable in the run-up to Christmas. Morley has been paring back her Christmas responsibilities over the years. She has pruned her shopping list. She doesn't do as

much baking as she used to do. Dave cooks the turkey every year now. So this year, as Christmas approached, Morley felt uncommonly sanguine about the season. She felt like she was floating above it, like a swimmer floating in the ocean. She felt such a sense of control that she even sat Dave down one night, and they sent Christmas cards to his Cape Breton relatives. On an impulse, Morley sent a card to Rashida and Amir. By a terrible coincidence, it arrived the morning Rashida and Amir finished making their neighborhood Christmas packages. Oh my golly, said Amir, not cards too.

Unlike Morley, Dave had been preoccupied with Christmas since the end of November. The neighborhood arena holds an annual skating party every December, and this year they were trying to raise money for a new Zamboni. Dave went to an organizing meeting, and when he went, he knew he wouldn't leave without some responsibility. Before the meeting began, Dave overheard Mary Turlington talking to Polly Anderson. He flips a few steaks on the barbecue and he thinks he's cooked a meal, she said disparagingly. She was talking about her husband, Bert. Baking, said Polly Anderson, that's the final frontier. Show me a man who can bake a cupcake and I'm all his.

They both cracked up. At the end of the meeting, the chairman passed a tight list of jobs around the table. Dave looked down the list and without a second thought put up his hand and he said, I'll bake the Christmas cake. He said it for Bert Turlington. He said it for all the men in the neighborhood. Said it for men everywhere. And that is how, on a Saturday in the middle of November, Dave came to be in his kitchen,

surrounded by brown paper bags of sultanas and currants, and lemons and figs and dates and prunes and nuts and glazed cherries and a giant jug of bourbon. He was wearing a Santa Claus hat. Autumn dimmed and the rains of November arrived and the streetlights went on earlier each night and the wind came up and the leaves blew off the pear tree in the backyard and it was good to be inside. And inside at Dave's house, life was sublime. Dave had his cakes wrapped in cheesecloth and aging on a shelf in the basement. Two or three evenings a week, he would

head downstairs and sprinkle them with a soaking mixture he made with the bourbon. It's a very European thing, he said one night. It's like having a goat down there. I don't pretend to understand everything he says. Sometimes on the weekend, Kenny Wong came over and they'd go into the basement and sprinkle the cakes together. On Grey Cup weekend, Dave and Kenny watched the entire game without touching one beer. They sucked on half a fruitcake each. By the middle of December, Dave was ready for the arena, big time. His remaining cakes were moist and mature and truth be told, delicious. Dave had eaten two of them. He had nibbled them both to death.

He had the remaining dozen lined up like gold bars in a vault. Amir and Rashida had their gift baskets ready to go too, wrapped in cellophane, tagged and waiting in the front hall. But a sense of anxiety had descended upon the Chutteries. Amir and Rashida didn't know when the neighborhood gifting would begin. Knowing nothing about Christmas traditions, they didn't want to jump the gun. It wouldn't be right, Amir, said Rashida. We must wait. And then there was a party at Fatima's daycare and all the children were given presents. And that night Rashida said, I am thinking, Amir, that the gifting has obviously begun.

We have not been included because they do not want to make us uncomfortable. If we're going to be part of this neighborhood, Amir, it's up to us to make the first move. Amir thought otherwise and they had a steamy argument about what to do. But in the end, Rashida said, I am going tonight and that is it. If you are coming with me, Amir, you must come tonight. And so they set off after supper, pulling their wagon full of 28 gift baskets. When Rashida handed Morley her Christmas basket, Morley was seized with a spasm of guilt.

She was ashamed of herself. She had been working so hard to minimize the hassle of Christmas, and these new neighbors, these new Canadians, had so clearly been embraced by the spirit of the season. had so clearly been embraced by the spirit of the season. She invited them in and she put their basket under the tree and then she said, I have your present upstairs. And she flew upstairs and in a panic she grabbed a lovely glass bowl that she had picked up at a craft show. It was already wrapped and she'd been planning to

give it to her mother. See, said Rashida to Amir 15 minutes later as they pulled their wagon along the sidewalk, they were waiting on us, Amir. It took Amir and Rashida three hours, but when they finished, they had left baskets all over the neighborhood. The next morning, Morley noticed a tiny rash in the crook of her elbow, a spot that often flares when she's feeling pressured. While she was drying her hair, she told Dave what was bugging her. I gave the Chudrys that pretty glass bowl. We've lived right next door to Maria and Eugene for 18 years and we've never given them anything. And Gerda too. If I give something to

the Chudrys, surely I should give something to Gerda. She could feel the muscles in the back of her neck tightening. As she headed downstairs for breakfast, she was trying to figure out when she'd have time to shop. Morley went to a flower store at lunch, and she bought two bunches of holly. She was planning on taking one to Eugene and Maria next door and one to Gerda. She was planning to do it after supper. Before she was ready to leave, the doorbell rang, and there was Gerda, standing on the stoop beside a wagon full of presents. Christmas cookies, she said. I baked for everyone in the neighborhood.

There was a tiny muscle ticking under her left eye. Christmas cookies, she said. I baked for everyone in the neighborhood. There was a tiny muscle ticking under her left eye. On the weekend, Morley dug through her emergency stash of presents looking for something to give Mary Turlington. I wouldn't want Mary to learn I'd given something to Gerda and not to her, she said. She found a pair of hand-dipped candles. They were warped. She took them downstairs thinking she could straighten them out if she warmed them in the microwave. You've tried this?

After she had scraped out the microwave. Morley dashed to a neighborhood store, arriving just before closing, and she bought a gift basket of herbal teas for Mary. On her way home, she bumped into Diane Goldberg, who was pulling a wagon up the street towards her house. Wagon was full of presents. Morley couldn't believe it. Everybody knew the Goldbergs didn't celebrate Christmas.

Morley said, what a coincidence. I just put something under the tree for you. By the Friday before Christmas, Morley had received ten gifts from neighborhood families, including two baskets of herbal teas identical to the ones she had given Mary Turlington. One of them looked like it might have been the exact same basket. Her rash had extended down to the wrist. With only three shopping days left, she came home from work and she found a small bottle of strawberry-flavored virgin olive oil from a family down the street she had never met. She stood in the kitchen staring at it, scratching. Damn it, she said.

scratching. Damn it, she said. Unfortunately, unfortunately, that was also the afternoon Dave closed the vinyl cafe and came home early to ice his Christmas cakes. His plan was to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle and seal them with a sugar paste. And when he finished, he realized his cake was now far too big to fit into the fridge, which is where the baker told him it belonged. The only place Dave could think of that was both cold enough and large enough for his icing to set was in the garage. Ever so carefully, he picked the cake up, and he struggled out backwards using his elbow to push open the door. And on the way into the garage, he stumbled against the door frame and he knocked one end of the cake and a piece fell off. And Dave headed back into the kitchen and set the cake down on the table and went outside to fetch the broken bit.

But the piece was not where it had fallen. Dave looked around the yard and there, bird had fallen. Dave looked around the yard and there, heading up the pear tree backwards, was a squirrel dragging the broken bit of cake in its mouth. Dave squeaked and leapt in the air. The squirrel squeaked and leapt in the air. It dropped the cake and disappeared up the tree. Dave retrieved the piece of cake. He bought it inside and he cut off the bit that he thought had been in the squirrel's mouth. And he tried to set it back in place. But the more he fiddled with it, the more the piece refused to fit.

It was rapidly losing its shape. Eventually, using a mixture of honey and icing sugar, Dave made a sort of cement and glued the hunk of cake back on. Used the last of the sugar paste to cover the joint. It was easy. It was just like doing masonry. And then he carried the cake carefully out to the garage, the squirrel nattering at him as he walked under the tree. And he set the cake on the roof of the car. My Buddhist friends would tell you to stay in the present moment. He set the cake on the roof of the car And made sure the garage door was tightly closed On his way back inside It was an hour later

That Morley came home And found the strawberry-flavored olive oil Every night, she said, every night I come home and someone else has left a present. What is wrong with these people? She was scratching her arm vigorously as she left the room. Dave was sitting at the kitchen table making little marzipan snowmen for his Christmas cake.

Morley came back into the kitchen with her coat on and she looked at Dave and said I'm going to the drugstore anyone else who shows up here is getting chocolate and as she flew out the door she said those look more like mice than snowmen you can't put marzipan mice on a Christmas cake Dave waited until she left and then he flattened the ball of marzipan in his hand and he threw it across the room for Arthur the dog and then he saided the ball of marzipan in his hand and he threw it across the room for Arthur the dog. And then he said, uh-oh. This is where I catch up to you.

And he jumped up and he ran out the door. And he got to the driveway just in time to hear a squeal of tires, just in time to see the red lights of his car disappearing down the street with his Christmas cake on the roof. He began to run down the street, waving his hands wildly, calling to Morley. He was running and waving when she hit the speed bump and the cake flew off. He was still running and waving when Morley glanced in the rearview mirror and spotted him. Now what, she muttered. And she jammed on the brakes.

And the car skidded to a halt. And she threw it in reverse. And Dave stopped moving. And he watched in horror as she reversed over his cake. And he started running again. But he wasn't running alone anymore. Pounding along the pavement beside him like a racehorse stretching for the finish line. Matching him step for step in a rush for the cake.

You got it. The squirrel. Get out of here, bellow Dave. Morley thought he meant her. She gunned the car and went right over the cake again. Dave carried his cake home the way he would have carried a dog who had been run over by a milk truck. You need professional help. He set it down on the kitchen table. He picked a piece of gravel out of the squish part. He got a screwdriver from the basement and a flashlight. He held the flashlight in his mouth and leaned over the cake like a surgeon. It took him 20 minutes to flick out all the gravel he could find. He went into the basement and poured himself a glass of soaking mixture.

He came back a half hour later with a solution. He would cut the cake into individual servings and wrap each serving in cellophane like at a wedding. No one would have to know a thing. He got out the cake knife. When Morley came home, Dave had just finished the job. Morley was carrying a large cardboard carton. At first, Dave thought she had gone grocery shopping, but she hadn't. She had bought every box of chocolate miniatures left in the drugstore and a bottle of cortisone cream.

The skating party was the next night. Dave took his cake up to the arena an hour early and set it out on the refreshment table by the skate sharpening machine. He wanted to hang around and serve it to people. Fortunately, he had to go back to work and close his store. When he returned an hour later, there was a man standing by the arena door who didn't look at all happy. He was holding his jaw. Are you okay, said Dave. Man shook his head.

Some idiot baked a fruitcake and left the pits and the dates. You're kidding, said Dave. When he got to the table beside the skate sharpening machine, his cake had hardly been touched. Someone, however, had altered the sign he had carefully lettered before leaving home. May contain nuts, it read. Someone had scratched out the word nuts and written a new word in its place. His sign now read, may contain gravel. He was going to go home, but he spotted Sam waving at him from the ice, and he thought, who cares? And he waved back, and he held his skates up, and he headed toward the changing room.

Christmas Day was a little strained in Dave's neighborhood this year. Gertie Loebier raided her freezer of all her Christmas baking for the cookie plates she gave to everyone. On Boxing Day, old Eugene from next door realized he had given away the last of the year's homemade wine. Mary Turlington, who prides herself with her detailed Christmas record-keeping, got so flustered with the neighborhood gift-giving that she completely forgot to buy a present for her husband Bert. I can't believe it, Mary said, scrolling through her Palm Pilot on Christmas I must have deleted you. The only house where Christmas went without a hitch was Jim Schofield's.

When Jim's mother arrived, as usual, a few days before Christmas, she was amazed at all the festive flourishes. The candles, the home baking, the Christmas CD. It's all from people in the neighborhood, he told her. I've never seen a Christmas like it. People kept coming to the door with wagon loads full of presents. On Christmas Day, Jim and his mother went for a walk and ran into the chudries in the park. And they stopped and they talked for ten minutes. And ran into the chudries in the park. And they stopped and

they talked for 10 minutes. And Jim's mother made a fuss over Fatima. As they said goodbye, Jim looked at Rashida and said, what are you planning for New Year's? New Year's, Amir said as soon as they were alone. New Year's, Rashida, don't these people ever stop? It will be all right, Amir, Rashida said. Inshallah, her husband replied. Inshallah, God grant that it be so. Thank you very much. That was the story we call Rashida, Amir, and the Great Gift-Giving.

That story first aired back in 2002. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another Dave and Morley Christmas story. So stick around. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is Polly Anderson's Christmas Party. Dave received his new driver's license in the mail at the beginning of October. It was accompanied by a letter which began, Dear Sir, we were pleased to note that you're no longer required to wear corrective lenses. Dave's never worn glasses in his life. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach he felt a queasy twinkle, like the birth of a star in a galaxy he felt he

should be able to name. Before we can change the category code on your driver's license, the note continued, we must receive confirmation from an ophthalmologist of this change in your vision. Dave's vision hasn't changed in 20 years. The star in his stomach was burning brightly now. Ah, thought Dave, I know the name of this galaxy. It's the galaxy of bureaucratic horror. With a sinking heart, he finished the note. We have reissued your permit subject to the following conditions. At the bottom of the letter, it said driver must wear corrective

lenses. Somehow Dave knew this wasn't going to be easy. That was two months ago. And Dave still hasn't even made a half-hearted attempt to make a doctor's appointment. Truth be known, he's been too busy these last few weeks to think about his license. This is the busiest time of the year if you work in retail. And although things never get out of hand at Dave's record store, it has been busy enough. Busy enough that last Saturday morning when Morley reminded Dave that they were going to Ted and Polly Anderson's annual Christmas at home, Dave gave her a look which said, please say I can stay home and watch the hockey game.

And Morley said, don't look at me like that. We have to go. And Dave said, okay, but let's go early and get out early. And that's how Dave came to be standing impatiently in his driveway, yelling at his nine-year-old son, Sam, on Friday evening at 5.30, just come without your jacket, he said. You don't need your jacket. The car's warmed up. Just come. Just hurry.

They were, as it turns out, the first to arrive. They actually rang the Andersons' bell 10 minutes before they were invited to, which was early enough that Polly Anderson hadn't finished setting things out. I told you so, said Dave's daughter, Stephanie, who's 17. It's okay, said Dave. We'll help out. And that's how Dave came to be standing over two identical bowls of eggnog, holding an open bottle of rum, helping out. The Lalique crystal is for the adults, called Polly Anderson from the kitchen. The glass bowls for the adults, called Polly Anderson from the kitchen, the glass bowls for the kids.

Dave took a step back and peered at the two bowls. Crystal glass or glass crystal? Which is the Lalique, he called, and then the doorbell rang, and Polly said, The Lalique's on the left. Can you get the door? And Dave said, Just a second. And then the doorbell rang again, and Dave frowned and said to himself, Glass left and crystal right, or crystal left and glass right. And from the dining room, Morley said, Dave, get the door. And he ran for the door. And Polly said, Dick, will you take the eggnog downstairs for the kids? Morley has always left Polly Anderson's Christmas at home feeling

defeated and inadequate, defeated by Polly Anderson's spiral staircase, by her Lalique crystal and her bonsai collection in the hall, which this year she decorated with miniature lights she had pried out of her son's electric train set, defeated by the moment at the end of each year's party, a moment that was not unpleasant, but just so perfect. When everyone gathered around the Anderson's Christmas tree, which was always taller and straighter than any tree Dave and Morley had ever found, and Dick lit the real candles, and they turned off the lights and they sang carols, defeated by these things that the Andersons seemed to do so effortlessly. Their kids were so polite and well-dressed and most galling so clean. It all made Morley feel inadequate, all of it,

but the thing that really ground her down was the mountain of food that Polly produced every year. This year it was Christmas sushi. Pieces of salmon twisted into the shape of fir trees. Little tuna wreaths. Monkfish angels with oyster shell wings. And in the middle of the table, a seaweed manger with a baby Jesus made from salmon roe. And three wise men with pickled ginger robes and wasabi faces. And crackers. Crackers with exotic spreads. Polly Anderson's crackers were better dressed than half the people at the party.

It was as if Polly Anderson had Martha Stewart working for her in the kitchen. Like Martha Stewart had gone berserk back there and any moment now was going to march out carrying something on a silver platter. Like a stenciled roast beef. Or maybe something endangered like flaming brandied seal flippers with minced whooping crane and penguin sauce. The last time that she had entertained the Andersons, Morley was so determined to measure up that she'd gone to the library and checked out a pile of Martha Stewart's magazines, and then she'd come home and rolled cylinders of salami in a soft cream cheese dip and stuck toothpicks at each end of the rolls, and it didn't occur to her until Sam pointed it out that the tray she had just carried into the living room looked like a plate of miniature

toilet paper rolls. She went right back out to retrieve it and saw Polly Anderson looking at the plate quizzically. And then watched Polly Anderson pick up one of her miniature toilet roll hors d'oeuvres and watched her bring it toward her mouth and then watch it slide off the toothpicks halfway there. It landed in her drink. Morley went right back into the kitchen and stayed there until Dave forced her to join them in the living room As Morley stood in the Andersons' hall last Friday night staring at Polly Anderson's crackers She was thinking of the days following her party For days she kept coming across little piles of her toilet paper hors d'oeuvres all over her house

Under the couch, in the drawer where she kept her checkbook, in the bathroom garbage can, on a windowsill. All of them had one bite missing. Morley was standing in the hall watching Dave, who seemed to be following a plate of shrimp around, when Dick Anderson came up behind her and made her jump. He said, Are you all right? And Morley thought, Was I talking out loud? And Dick said, Can I get you a drink?

Gliding through his house in a gray suit jacket and one of those collarless shirts buttoned to the neck. Morley looked across the room at Dave. He was wearing the blue sweater his mother had knitted him for Christmas last year. It had a map of Cape Britain on the front. With a large red dot marking his hometown. One side of his shirt was hanging out from under the sweater.

Morley had already had three cups of eggnog, but she just couldn't seem to relax. Sure, she said, holding out her cup. The party seemed stiffer than usual. Though the kids seemed to be having a whale of a time. Sam had wound by her a few moments ago with a plate piled with bread and salmon mousse. You'd never eat that at home, thought Morley, not saying it out loud. This is the mousse, said Sam exuberantly, pointing to the orange spread.

And this, he said, pointing to the gelatin, is the mousse fat. And he snorted and wheeled back toward the basement where the kids were. And when he opened the basement door, the sounds of children singing Christmas carols came wafting boisterously up the stairs. Dave caught Morley's eye across the crowded living room. He smiled and shrugged, and then he turned and followed Polly Anderson, who was carrying the plate of shrimp into the library. Jim Schofield, who was coming the plate of shrimp into the library. Jim Schofield, who was coming out of the library as Dave was going in, punched him in the shoulder and whispered into his ear,

You cooking the turkey again this year, Dave? The ghost of Christmas past. Dave abandoned the shrimp and headed back to the punch bowl and poured himself another glass of eggnog, his fifth. He couldn't seem to loosen up. Forty-five minutes later, Bernie Shellerman lurched by Dave on his way upstairs. Bernie looked like he was being chased by wolves. He was holding his five-month-old daughter in his arms. The baby was howling.

Every night, said Bernie. When you try to put her down, said Dave, she screams for two hours, said Bernie. And Dave, who was looking for any excuse to leave the Andersons, said, get your coat. Now, Sam, Dave's son Sam, came out of the womb screaming. And every night at bedtime, for the first two years of his life, he'd lie in his crib and he'd scream.

And Morley and Dave would sit in the kitchen as rigid as a pile of lumber and listen to him and say things to each other like, we're not going in there. We're not going in there tonight. Sit down. He has to learn. Come back. Other parents from the neighborhood would find excuses to drop in on Dave and Morley around bedtime

because listening to Sam always made them feel better about their own kids. If mothers were becoming short-tempered with their children, fathers would say, could you nip over to Morley's and see how they're coming with Ida? He'd just make something up. And the wives would go because they knew it would do them good. People who didn't have children were horrified the way Dave and Morley could offer them coffee and carry on a conversation as if nothing were happening. They'd keep glancing toward the stairs and look at each other. And then when they left, they'd say things like, that was unbelievable. Our children

will never do that. And on the rare nights when Sam stopped crying in, say, under an hour, Dave and Morley would look at each other nervously, and someone would say, maybe I should go and check him. And of course, Sam was usually faking. And as soon as they opened the bedroom door, he'd start crying again. Once Dave crawled into Sam's room on his belly and pulled himself up the side of the crib like a snake, only to come face to face with his kid. And then Dave slid back down the bed again. And Sam smiled and waved. and Sam smiled and waved and waited until Dave had made it halfway across the room before he started to cry. They lived like this for a long time

before Dave discovered the car. He took Sam with him to the grocery store one night and Sam drifted off to sleep in his car just like that. Dave came back and said, I'm going to try that again. And he did the next night. And Sam drifted off to sleep in his car, just like that. Dave came back and said, I'm going to try that again. And he did the next night. And it worked again. So every night, Dave loaded Sam into the car and he drove him around the neighborhood until he fell asleep. He had to drive less and less each night. Soon Sam was falling asleep within a block of the house. And then one night he nodded off before Dave got out of the driveway. It actually got to the point where Dave could put Sam in the back seat,

start the car, and just idle it in the driveway for a while. And goodnight Sam would be gone in five minutes. Sometimes it helped if he revved the engine. It was something about the sound of the motor. And then one night, instead of putting him in the car, Dave put Sam in his crib and he said to Morley, watch this. And he got the vacuum cleaner out. And he carried it into Sam's bedroom and he turned it on and he left the room and shut Sam's door behind him and five minutes later when they opened his door, Sam was out cold. By the time he was 14 months, they could put him to sleep by waving the hair dryer over him a couple of times. Bernie Shellerman was standing on the stairs at the Anderson's party,

listening intently, nodding. Get your coat, said Dave again, you'll see. And then he said, I'm going to bring Sam. He was thinking after all those years, he's thinking his son should see what he put him through. Dave went down to the basement. All the kids, there were about 20 of them, all the kids were at the other end of the rec room,

pressed around the Andersons' upright piano, all of them, including Sam, who to Dave's astonishment had his arms draped frat house-like around the shoulders of a girl Dave had never seen before. Dave couldn't see who was at the keyboard, but he recognized the tune. It was the North Atlantic Squadron. Away, away with fife and drum, here we come, full of rum, looking for women. Suddenly someone noticed Dave, and the piano stopped, and Sam said, hi, pops.

And he jumped towards his father and caught his foot on the edge of the piano stool and came down hard on middle C with his face leading. And all the kids applauded, and Sam bowed, blood dripping from his nose, and said, our family motto is, there are sewers aplenty yet to dig. And then he wiped his nose, smearing blood across his face and shirt, and Dave said, You're coming with me.

And then Dave said, Where is your other shoe? And Sam said, Beats me. And Dave said, Forget it. And he picked his son up and carried him out to the car. And it only took 20 minutes before the Shelterman baby was snoozing comfortably. Bernie said, geez, I'm going to have to buy a car. And then from the back of the car, Sam said, it's the physics of baseball that's always fascinated me. Dave looked at his boy in the rearview mirror.

Sam waved absently at his father, and then he pressed his face to the window and started to sing something that sounded like opera. Carmen, thought Dave. Two crazy kids at odds with a world they never made, said Sam. Dave slammed on the brakes and the car squealed to a stop by the side of the road and Dave twisted around in his seat and stared at his son and said, what have you been drinking? And Sam said, eggnog. And Dave said, from which bowl? And Sam said, from the little leek bowl in the basement, of course. And Dave thought, uh-oh. And Bernie Shellerman said, Dave?

And Dave looked at Bernie, and then he looked at Sam, and then he looked at Bernie again, and Bernie pointed out the front window, and Dave squinted into the darkness and spotted the three police officers standing on the edge of the road a half a block away. They were manning one of those roadside checks for drunk drivers and Dave had just fishtailed to a stop in front of them. The cops all had their hands on their hips. The street light shining from behind them made them look like stormtroopers from a Star Wars movie. The only thing Dave could do was put his car into gear and creep towards them. Sam pulled himself forward so his head was beside his father's. This, he said, is an area of jurisprudence that has always interested me.

This, he said, is an area of jurisprudence that has always interested me. Dave pulled up beside the police and rolled down his window and smiled soberly. The cop didn't try to engage in small talk. He said, let me see your license. Then he said, where are your glasses? Then he handed Dave a little machine and said, blow. It's hard to say who was more surprised to find there was no alcohol whatsoever in Dave's bloodstream. After all, he'd had six cups of eggnog.

The horrible truth was slowly dawning on him when Sam joined the conversation from the back. Can I blow too, he said. And Dave said, maybe that's not a good idea. And the cop, who was being a lot friendlier now, said, it's okay, I don't mind. And Sam blew into the little machine. And the cop pointed at it and said, see, son, if you'd been drinking the lights, and then his voice trailed off. And he squinted at his machine, and he took a step backwards, and he looked at Dave, and he took a step backwards and he looked at Dave

who shrugged and smiled and the cop said, son, I want you to get out of the car. And Sam slid over to the far side of the back seat and said, come and get me, copper. And then he threw up. By the time Dave got back to the party, the Andersons' house was dark and locked up.

He slowed down, and then he drove by it twice. But he didn't stop. Just kept going. Sam was asleep in the back seat, just like the old days, thought Dave. He didn't stir when Dave got him home and carried him upstairs. Morley was waiting in the living room. At first he didn't see her.

The whole house was dark, except for the colored lights glowing on the Christmas tree. I love it like this, she said. Dave poured two drinks. It took them a while to piece their stories together. It took me five minutes to get Sam out of the car, said Dave. And when I did, I put him down beside the cop, and he had blood all over him,

and he didn't have a winter coat, and he was missing a shoe, and he was drunk. Sam and Stephanie were upstairs, safe in bed. Everything was going to be okay. Morley and Dave felt like they could laugh about the night now, had to laugh about the night. Morley told them everything that he had missed. It was like a frat house on a homecoming weekend, said Morley told him everything that he had missed. It was like a frat house on a homecoming

weekend, said Morley. Told him about Pia Cherbanovsky, four years old, who'd got herself into and halfway up the Anderson's Christmas tree. No one had noticed Pia until Dick Anderson had begun to light the candles for the carol song. Pia had blown them out as fast as Dick could laugh. At one point, said Morley, there were ten adults around the tree trying to coax her down with candy. Then she told him about the McCormick baby. He was missing for half an hour. He finally turned up asleep in a laundry hamper with the youngest Anderson boy squatting beside him.

Bobby Anderson had wrapped himself in a large green terrycloth towel. I'm the three wise men, said Bobby, and that's the baby Jesus. Sam was never able to tell Dave the name of the girl. He had his arms around in the basement. No one seemed to know who she was. She was in a red dress, said Dave. When I left, said Morley, there was a girl in a red dress standing at the top of the Anderson Spiral staircase

singing Don't Cry For Me, Argentina at the top of the Anderson spiral staircase, singing, Don't Cry for Me, Argentina, at the top of her lungs. The only child who wasn't sick, singing, or passed out was their daughter, Stephanie. I told her I was proud of her, said Morley. It wasn't until much later that the truth of that dawned on Dave. Stephanie was the only kid drinking from the adult bowl. Dear God, said Marley. Merry Christmas, said Dave. Peace on earth. God bless us Marley. Merry Christmas, said Dave. Peace on earth. God bless us, everyone.

That was Polly Anderson's Christmas party, and that was recorded, I think, at the second Vinyl Cafe Christmas concert back in 1997 at the Glenn Gould Studio. It's so relatable for new parents, you know, driving around desperate to get your newborn baby to sleep. But also for parents of teenagers. I love that section where Stephanie's the only sober kid and they can't figure it out until they realize she was the only kid drinking punch from the adult bowl. And it's also relatable for us grownups, the insecurity that comes when you realize you're never ever going to be that perfect. So relatable and so funny. There were kids and

adults in the audience at those Christmas shows who you could tell were just waiting for the moment when Sam says, come and get me, copper. We have to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. And this is a clip from one of my all time favorite Dave and Morley stories. Stick around. All right, that's it for today, but we will be back here next week with two more Dave and Morley Christmas stories, including the one where Dave and Morley spend Christmas with the Turlington's. In an effort to show Mary that he appreciated her hospitality, Dave sunk his hand into a bowl of gourmet snack mix that was on the hall table. As soon as he popped the stuff into his mouth, he knew he had a problem.

He glanced down at the bowl. There were dried cranberries in there and what looked like bits of cinnamon stick, but what he thought were tiny potato chips were now looking suspiciously Dave's teeth grinded away. That what he now realized were cedar shavings. And it dawned on him that he was eating Mary's Christmas potpourri. When he looked up to see if anyone had noticed, he saw Mary staring at him from the other side of the living room. So instead of spitting into his hand, which is what he wanted to do, Dave smiled gamely and swallowed.

That's next week on the podcast. And next week will be our last Christmas show and also our last show of this season. So I really hope you'll join us. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Greg Duclute is our jingly jolly recording engineer. Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and this show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week, last show of the season. Until then, so long for now.