“The claustrum was the most theological object in the box. Everything else I understood. The lock I had to trust.”

D. P., Thunder Bay

“I bought the alb. I washed the alb. I still do not have a parish council, but I have an alb that can go in the machine, which is more than I can say for my last committee.”

M. S., Des Moines

“Declared as juice. Arrived as juice. Became, later, not juice. I have closed the file.”

A border official who asked not to be named, and then was anyway in spirit

“His Holiness has a kind face in the portrait and a very firm opinion about packing peanuts. Both came through.”

The R. household, near Halifax

“I only wanted crackers. They sent crackers. I respect a catalog that can do one thing.”

Anonymous, on a Tuesday

“We used the stole as a table runner the first week and as a stole the second. Nobody at brunch asked for our faculties. They asked for the recipe, which we did not have, because it was a packet.”

Two cousins in Tucson