100 rolls of holiday gift wrap

Sometimes my children ask me why I keep a hundred rolls of Christmas wrapping paper under my bed. I explain to them that I have a phobia about wrapping paper. They just laugh at me, but that laughter is a good thing in this house.

It was several Christmas Eves ago that caused me to develop the phobia. My husband, James, and I were students living at University Village. Finals were over, so we could breathe a weary sigh and begin wrapping for the children, ages 2 to 13. At 10:30 p.m. they were finally asleep thanks to a dose of cough syrup.

We tiptoed into our bedroom, where I just assumed we had enough leftover paper from last year. But as we searched under the bed, in the closets, desk, and through the linen cupboard, it dawned on us . . . we had NO PAPER! Not Christmas, not birthday, not wedding, NONE, NO PAPER!

Not to panic. The one-stop shopping store on south State Street was open till midnight for the holidays, so if we hurried, although we would be tired, everything would be just fine. Or so we thought until we pulled our Datsun into the dark, empty parking lot at midnight. Always the optimist, James drove to a miniature market in Murray. Relief . . . they were open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

But the clerk laughed and informed us that "none of the all-night markets carried wrapping paper." Outside the snow began to drop softly, and the giant flakes stuck to the frozen pavement as we walked hand in hand to the newspaper machine. "Of course Santa wraps with newspaper . . . he is the ultimate recycler," we would convince the children.

But the yellow news box was as empty as the black space under our bed had been. A frayed man leaned against it, stomping his feet to keep them warm. We looked into each other's desperate eyes. His breath echoed alcohol, mine worry as we softly spoke "Merry Christmas." James handed him the coins intended for the newspaper, and we again began to drive on the now icy roads. And it was now that we found time to talk, really talk to each other for the first time since autumn quarter.

As we neared the campus area we bought two cans of cola from the red machine that never closes, and I wondered if I should drink it so late. I would later wish I had four cans.

I don't know if it was the caffeine or the panic, but we began to communicate as we had not done before. We wondered where we would be in 10 years. We imagined the lives of our children and made wonderful plans and shared our hopes for them. We dreamed of the home we would someday build after we graduated.