September 24, 2010

I was driving my 15-year-old daughter to her bus stop, frantic over whether we’d get there in time. She was digging through her backpack for the bus pass that too often seems to go missing. She snapped at me, and I took a deep breath and asked her as kindly as I could not to address me that way.

I was drunk just twice when I was a teenager, and the first time was purely by accident. I lost my teetotaling virginity to four cups of Manischewitz (vintage 1974 — an excellent year), at what seemed at the time like an exceptionally long Pesach seder. Somewhere between Elijah’s visit and “Had Gadya,” I stood up, felt the ground shift and realized I wasn’t in Egypt anymore.