On my third — or is it my fourth — trip to the mall, I start composing a dark little tune about running into Christ. He’s shopping, too. For Christmas? Why should Christ have to shop for Christmas? I’m working on the next line when I run into a friend, and we stop to talk. He says he’s there to buy some sexy underwear for his wife, and we joke about it, with that obligatory cleverness men usually bring to the subject of sex. Then we talk about his health, about which people hardly ever joke.