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I grew up in the apartment over my parents' little grocery store in Toronto. As my grade school was only a few blocks away, at lunch time I'd rush home and have a quick visit with my folks, though they were usually both too busy with customers to spend much time with me. But Mother always managed to have prepared my favorite lunch — Campbell's tomato soup and a sockeye salmon sandwich on freshly delivered pumpernickel bread. One very cold day, my Mother greeted me with a warm kiss on the forehead and sent me upstairs for lunch.

As I entered our small but spotless kitchen, I was surprised to see the knob on the back door turn slowly. "Oh, oh!" I thought, "Someone's trying to break in!" I ran downstairs to tell my father and excitedly, everyone in the store grabbed a weapon — Mother a broom; Father a hammer; Eddie, the delivery boy, a baseball bat; a customer, Mrs. Finkel, her umbrella — and we all marched upstairs to attack the intruder.

With my army backing me up, I approached the door, the knob still turning, and shouted, "You better get out of here! We've called the police!" Eddie whispered, "I'll go down and sneak up the back stairs and catch him." Breathlessly, we waited as still the knob turned side to side. Finally Eddie spoke from behind the door: "It's OK. You can open up."

Carefully, my father turned the latch and opened the door. On the outside knob, my mother had hung the all-purpose shmata (dish-towel, hand-wipe, child-swatter) to dry. It had frozen stiff and the cold wind was pushing it to and fro. So much for the terrifying burglar!

To this day, when I go home to visit my family, I think lovingly of this childhood incident every time I ask my Mother, "Ma, where do you keep the paper towels?" and she invariably replies, "Narishe kinde, what do you need paper towels? Take out a clean shmata!"