POSTSCRIPT

postscript NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 / DONNA MOFFLY

“Sometimes I surprise myself with what I find in my Surprise Closet.” OF SECRETS AND SURPRISES

Uh oh, it’s November, the threshold of the holidays, time to make a gift list and take inventory. For me that means heading for my Surprise Closet, which is filled with things ungiven—yet. I squirrel them away all year long. Some have been in there forever, awaiting the right recipient.

It’s the only place in our house that’s locked. For good reason, nobody is allowed in there but me. When daughter Audrey was about four and meant to be napping, I found her playing with a baby doll she’d helped herself to from that closet. It was meant for her birthday. So I put them both into the car, drove over to the Goodwill box behind the Cos Cob Food Mart and we popped it in—for some little girl somewhere who played by the rules.

As luck would have it, the Goodwill truck pulled in that very moment, and I asked the driver if he happened to have a little girl at home. He did. I told him there was a brand-new doll in there right in top— complete with box—and we’d like her to have it.

Lesson learned. Closet locked.

So what’s in there now? Before I run out to do some serious Christmas shopping, best I take a look. Among other things, four pocket drones from Hammacher-Schlemmer for the older grandsons. A small Windsor chair from the Winterthur Museum, perfect for a baby girl present, especially with a pintsized Raggedy Ann doll to sit in it. And a 104-piece construction set for making plastic drinking straws, so big brother doesn’t feel left out.

There’s a Wizard of Oz pop-up book, two Klutz how-to books on making paper flowers and foam gliders, bags full of prizes for our annual family fishing contest and three pillows I needlepointed for wedding presents. Oh, and a box of Mickey Mouse golf balls from the time Jack and I went (without children) to Disney World, visited Epcot every morning and played golf every afternoon. Did you know they have sand traps in the shape of Mickey Mouse heads?

From other great trips, there’s a Pinocchio marionette from Prague, a miniature tea set from Vienna embossed with Mozart’s portrait and a souvenir spoon depicting train cars from Rodo Rails in Africa. Closer to home, from the Basin Harbor golf course on Lake Champlain is a bunch of seagull feathers I plan to give the little boy across the street for his collection.

Audrey has always been into pigs, so awaiting her is a pink pig puppet that oinks.

In the political realm are Trump playing cards, a Hillary nutcracker and a tiny tin of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “Judgmints” I’ll slip into a birthday card for a League of Women Voter friend.

There’s a stack of Greenwich magazine baseball caps to give to our fans, and The New York Times from our grandchildren’s birth dates to present on an occasion like a rehearsal dinner.

Sometimes I surprise myself with what I find in my Surprise Closet—like a little framed memento from the Flask & Bottle Club, which Jack and some of his fun-loving friends founded during their college years. It reads: “There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid/ And the love of a staunch true man/ And the love of a baby that’s unafraid. / All have existed since time began. / But the most wonderful love, the love of all loves/ Even greater than the love for Mother,/ Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love/ Of one dead drunk for another.”

What to do with it? A hostess present for over somebody’s bar? Who knows, but meanwhile it gives me a good laugh, which is never a bad thing.

Now it’s about all this other stuff.