When I was eight I lost my wallet—a purple Ninja Turtles pouch made of plastic vinyl available only to those with a membership in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan club—in a carpet store. It had twenty dollars inside. It was all the money I had. I don’t remember the details. I think my mother was buying blue carpet for the kitchen. She said, “No one ever puts carpet in the kitchen.” I don’t know what this meant.

The lamp was sleeping alone in my bed. It did not like sleeping alone. It enjoyed sleeping with things like arms and heads and feet. The lamp was alone in bed. There were no arms or feet or heads under the covers. The lamp couldn’t sleep. It thought of things like: cable television, soft drinks, and old carpet in hotels from the seventies. These things helped the lamp not think of how empty the bed was. It did not feel any better though.