Sort of like a flu shot for depression

It happens every Christmas without fail: After unwrapping presents, one of the kids figures out his or her load is smaller than everyone else's, and the tears start to flow. Even though you emptied your checking account and stayed up half the night wrapping presents, you do a quick comparison and realize the kid is right; there is an imbalance.

The ensuing depression is contagious. No matter the reason, if your kids are crying on Christmas, you feel like a failure.

This year, however, as it all began to unravel, I wasn't all that fazed. I didn't even reach for a drink. Before the big day, I had tried something different: I consumed a steady stream of Saint Vitus and Charles Bukowski. And while I'm not exactly sure why, that did the trick.

Can you believe this shit?

It's really hard to write about my mom without making her sound like some crazy roommate from hell. For one thing, she's a great liar. Not because she's a believable liar, but because she refuses to throw in the towel.

After she kicked my dad out, my mom really took control of the house. My sister and I could always stay there. We just couldn't use the stove. Or the microwave. Or the toaster oven, the washer, the dryer, or the garage door. Basically anything with moving parts. Personally I think it was her way of kicking us out and keeping us from moving back in. This way, she could spend her days undisturbed and in her bedroom, surrounded by People magazines, throwing back Tostino's pizza rolls, and watching Montel with the ferocity of a heroin addict.

Anyway, because Mom had no idea how to fix stuff and was too stubborn to ask my dad to come over to help, most of the appliances we were forbidden to use eventually broke down. Yet she had a hard time facing this fact.

The kicker came when the sewage line broke and Mom's, ahem, collective fecal output began erupting into the backyard. Fortunately I was gone by then. But when I came back, saw it, and tried to inform her, she refused to acknowledge it.

"Look," I said, having dragged her down to the back porch. "It's spewing shit."

Below us, little burps came from a pond of smooth, greenish-chocolate mud. Sprinkled on its surface, like coconut flakes, were tiny bits of toilet paper. A cloud of bugs circled and landed, as if we were watching the world's tiniest, busiest airport.

"No it's not," Mom said. "I don't see anything."

She turned back toward the house, shaking her head and pointing at me.

"You're seeing things," she added, holding up the bottom of her bathrobe as she climbed the top stair. "I think you need to lay off the sauce."

From the corner of her mouth I caught the edge of a sly grin. Then Mom quickly shut the back door, as if I wouldn't be able to hear her laugh.