OPINION: Why a 10-year-old fruitcake is better than a new pair of inline roller skates

In November, your kindly old aunt gives you a holiday fruitcake. You put it in the freezer intending to thaw it out for the holidays. But you forget about it that holiday, and for 10 more holidays. Cleaning out the freezer, you find the fruitcake. Even thawed, it’s hard as a rock.

Well, it is 10 years old.

Your kindly old aunt, who’s also 10 years older, doesn’t remember she gave it to you. She doesn’t remember much of anything anymore, everybody’s happy.

And it makes a funny doorstop — a great joke about fruitcakes.

Now, you buy a pair of inline roller skates. Your wife says you’re insane.

“We’ll see,” you say.

You put them on, intending to try them out in your driveway. The slight downhill slant of your driveway has you skating much faster than you expected. There were no instructions on how to stop, so you grab the mailbox at the end of the driveway to try to stop yourself. It was poorly installed and comes off the post. You remember back when your wife said, “You should use longer screws.”

You didn’t listen.

So, now you’re skating down the street with your mailbox in your hands. Screaming doesn’t seem to slow your speed at all, if anything you’re going even faster. You reach the end of your street traveling at great speed. It feels supersonic.

Your screaming has alerted the children gathered around the Good Humor ice cream truck that’s stopped to sell them popsicles. The crash into the Good Humor truck breaks your nose.

The children are terrified.

Your mailbox sails through the open freezer door—postcards, letters and bills are scattered among the popsicles, fudge bars and waffle cones.

The Good Humor man is not happy, he has a bad sense of humor.

With one hand holding your broken nose and the other hand trying to retrieve your mail from the freezer, you simultaneously try to fend off the Good Humor man. He is screaming that no one is allowed to reach into the freezer box except him. You scream that it’s your mail. He screams that it’s Good Humor regulations.

The neighbors call the police.

The police arrive a few minutes later and arrest you for messing with the U.S. mail, a federal crime, unauthorized reaching into a Good Humor freezer, a misdemeanor, and cruelty to children — they had to watch.

In court, you explain that it was your mail, and you had every right to retrieve it — Good Humor regulations, or not. The judge is amused and lets you off with a fine.

You never do get your mailbox back.

Later that week, your nose still in traction, you get a letter from the homeowner’s association suggesting you move — for the sake of the children.

They threaten to form a committee.

Oh, God, not a committee.

And that’s why a the 10-year-old fruitcake is better than a new pair of inline roller skates.