It was the night before Christmas.

As we got ready for our trip to Canada, I told the boy to pack his green notebook ... and a pen. He did so but innocently set them on top of his bags instead of inside.

Early the next morning, as we prepared to drive to the airport, he casually moved the notebook to the bench in the hallway as he took his bags out to the car.

Just before I locked the house, I saw the green notebook left behind, grabbed it, and handed it and the pen to the boy as I got in the car. He had a sheepish look on his face.

At the airport, as we were scrambling to fill out baggage tags for our suitcases, the boy asked, Does anyone have a pen? I turned quickly and looked at him. What? he asked. I accidentally left it in the car.

Now as it happened we had plenty of time, so before we went thru security, I asked Trudy to watch all the bags, and I walked with the boy back out to the car to get the notebook and pen.

So he went to Canada equipped with a notebook. Now a quick question for you. How many pages do you think he wrote while we were on the road?

Oh that poor lonely notebook.