So I’m biking to pick up medicine in South Philly a few nights ago, and I find myself behind a slow-moving flatbed truck, tall and wide and crammed with Christmas trees, and spewing vile fumes. And there are cars parked bumper to bumper on each side of the street, so I can’t ride onto the sidewalk and pass the truck. I curse at the truck — no one can hear me in the truck cab, I guess, this vehicle is huge, there are about 150 trees on it — and I picture myself, a curmudgeon cursing dead trees in the dark.

Then I have a vision of the truck jolting forward and all the trees falling off and burying me, and of the headline in the Daily News — “Local Scrooge crushed by Christmas trees” — and this makes me laugh, seeing myself from a distance, getting angry at objects, as if objects are purposeful. You can use up a lot of energy, thinking objects are purposeful. So I decide I’d better get into the spirit of the season, if only to stay healthy.

Or, as Tiny Tim would say, “God bless us, everyone!”