A month of birthdays can’t help but remind me of the time we tried to surprise my father with an unexpected gift, a camera, and I tried to throw him off the scent with the unmistakable misdirection, “It’s not a camera,” which caused my mother and brothers to guffaw in familial laughter but no matter because my father didn’t hear me anyway, and he opened his present with the surprise intact the lesson of which, if there is one to be gleaned from this incident, is No matter what you expect No matter what may be in store If you stop listening, or just get distracted It’s always, and never, not a camera.
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