I used to work for a corporation. In my old cubicle, you can still find claw marks and fingernail bits like that scene in Silence of the Lambs, where the girl tries to escape from her well.

Mostly I'd yearn out the window for earthquakes, floods, the Rapture -- any reason to go home. Sometimes I'd catch eyes with the window guy across the street. We'd stare at each other till the pain grew too rich and we both drew the shades.

I should have fled on my first day, when the boss led me to a snarly filing cabinet and said, "Welcome aboard, Jason. Your job is to figure out what the hell happened here."

But I kept the job for fear of interview fallout: Why did you leave your last job? Where will you be in ten years? Do you even know who you are?

My interviews were especially tough because the HR person would say things like, "I see you've been doodling Ziggy here on your application."

I've been attracted to fire from an early age, when dad caught me "mowing" the lawn with a blowtorch.

"I don't care if it is a controlled burn; you get your butt inside."

Only recently, when firemen trained in my area, did I learn what dad already knew: Fire is evil.

Training took place at five houses condemned to burn because they were built sometime during the Mesozoic Era. The battalion chief, who oversaw the drill with a stoic air, Constantine at war, said something about PSI, GPM, NFL. From all accounts, they'd be burning things.

The men paired off for assignments: ventilation, support, and -- gulp -- lying down inside a house WHILE IT BURNED! That person was properly called the "dummy." So it goes.

The captain's face turned grim: "It is not macho when someone melts their helmet. Injuries do not impress me. I want you on your bellies."

You can see why Prometheus, having stolen fire from the gods, was sentenced to have his liver eaten out daily while Mariah Carey played in the background. And why did Prometheus take the blame when, in the same book, we see fire-breathing dragons? I hate plot holes.

When I was a boy, my family summered at the beach, where we ate peanut butter, jelly, and gritty sunblock sandwiches (PBJ&GS's). I thought the sand was why we called them sandwiches.

I have since learned that sand is not composed of magic, self-purifying crystals from the mines of Etch A Sketch. Beach sand covers up all kinds of corruption. Children may as well play Frisbee in a giant ash tray.

I don't fare well in confinement. Mom and Dad couldn't even put me in a crib without my crying and gnashing and running my sippy cup along its bars.

"Nobody knows the twubble I've seen ..."

With a claustrophobic heart, then, I saw a friend in prison. I won't say what he did or how long he'll be there or where we hid the body. Ha!

I thought when O.J. walked, we all gave up on the whole "justice" thing. I still expect to turn on the TV one day and hear something like this: "Tempers flared when neighbors protested the arrival of O.J. Simpson at his new uptown estate. The situation was later resolved when O.J. killed them all."

Some lawyers plea NGRI -- "not guilty by reason of insanity" -- but I think they should go with NGOJWG ("not guilty because O.J. wasn't guilty").

My folks had me the old-fashioned way: on accident. It didn't come as a total surprise because they were both taking a fertility drug called Budweiser.

"Warning: Consumption of alcohol may cause and subsequently complicate pregnancy."

Mom strollered me around as one might the Stanley Cup, announcing my age to strangers: "He's 52 months, 3 days, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds ... 13 ... 14 ..."

You can imagine my separation issues down the line. We lost our fourth and final babysitter when I threatened to stab her with a fork. Plastic. Mickey Mouse.

Is it just me, or do "special occasions" happen every week? Parent's, Valentine's Day, National Pet Week. Here's one: Boss's Day Isn't that Monday through Friday?

And the birthdays just keep comin'. My nephew starts the countdown two months in advance: "Fifty-four days till my birthday. Have you started savin' up?"

And his mother -- my sister -- just giggles. So I do save up. I save up and buy drum sets, police sirens, sonic-boom zappers. As a courtesy, I include batteries that keep going and going and going.

I even carry presents in my car just in case. Maybe that's how Santa got started, toting gifts around until he finally said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There will be one day a year when everybody gets one present ... if they're good."