My wife and I took a break from the bills and the bosses and the bombs to visit Magic Mountain, an amusement park much like Disneyland only it's enjoyable. Roller coasters abound!

Yahaira and I were meandering in our loop d' loop afterglow when we happened on a rock climbing wall. Who would have thunk? I beheld the facade with boyish eyes. Ooh. Rock climbing.

The cliff was two stories high and spattered with footholds. People were falling off left and right. Once you let go, your turn was over. I had to do it.

The kid directing the show was 20 years old but hadn't graduated high school mentality. He was trapped in the Cocky Stage. He looked at Yahaira like he could have sex with her if he only wanted; he regarded me as the man in his way. We'll call him Jeremiah.

Jeremiah swaggered over and asked me what level I preferred.

"Advanced," I said.

He smirked at my confidence.

"You sure?" he said.

Not anymore, I thought.

"Very," I said.

Jeremiah strapped me in and sent me on my way. Standing at the bottom of this thing, you realize that it's not only vertical but slants back toward you like the inside of a ball. Does that make sense? Are you with me? I'm moving on.

The first few yards were easy, but then the holes grew shallow and scarce. I stopped making headway and got dizzy instead. My knuckles turned white; I began to shake. My brain knew that I was safe, but my body panicked anyway. And at that moment, for the same reason one picks at an open wound, I pictured myself dying on a real mountain.

My hands let go without even asking. I dangled in the air for all to see.

Jeremiah pulled me down slowly. When I hit bottom, he shook his head and said, "Not as easy as it looks, huh?" I hated that kid.

Yahaira and I roamed the park for new thrills, but part of me was still hanging from the rocks.

Yahaira couldn't take my silence: "For heaven's sake, go back and do it again."

...

The beast loomed ominously on the horizon. I eyed the summit, the promised land. A sense of implication swelled in my stomach. The Wall had become a rite of passage, a symbol for everything I stood -- er, climbed for. It was the journey of the hero and the SATs all wrapped into one.

It was My Second Chance.

Jeremiah double-took when he saw me. A loser had never resurfaced before. Strapping me in, he said, "Sure you don't want to try the Beginner?"

"Very," I said.

Punk, I thought.

This time I climbed as if my dignity relied on it mainly because my dignity relied on it. I conquered the first half in no time. Then I reached the tiny hollows, which forced me to claw with my fingertips. And as much as a guy visits the gym, he just doesn't have much finger brawn. The vertigo returned. My forearms trembled.

Don't you dare! God is watching. Yahaira is filming!

A crowd developed below. They didn't give a hoot about me; they just wanted their turns. I got the sense that I was taking too long.

I thrust myself to the next ledge, and my heart began to race. Again the fear. My body wouldn't obey my command to move it, sissy. The pain of clinging overwhelmed me, and with toe-curling anguish I finally let go of the dream.

So I hung there in my disgrace. And hung. And hung.

I looked down at Jeremiah, and he was waving me on.

"Keep going?" I yelled.

He gestured more emphatically. Go on, go on.

Jerry! My man! Who would have thunk?

I gripped the rocks with renewed finger brawn. The crowd sighed for having to wait. I climbed like Spiderman. As I neared the finish, Jerry yelled, "Hit the top!"

The thump echoed off the magic mountains into my eternal memory. Yahaira smiled behind her camera. It warmed me like a casserole marinated in capers and vinaigrette. I was on top of the world.

Leaving the park, I gnawed on the poem...

Just when I surrender, a guy like Jeremiah steps in to offer his hand. The rules change. Everything works out. So it goes on the wall of life. The funny thing about miracles is that they never happen the way you plan them.

A pack rat is any of various rodents that collect in their nests a diversity of objects. Pack rats have soft brown fur and resemble squirrels with large ears. They have been found as far south as Nicaragua but, more problematically, living as wife in my home!

Let's investigate, shall we.

My wife Yahaira just purchased her fifth computer. We still have the first four, stacked in an otherwise useful closet. Yahaira goes through so many computers because she has never, ever deleted a file. She came close one day last April but chickened out when Windows asked if she was sure.

When Yahaira opens her e-mail, the processor begins to smoke on account of the 600,000 messages in her inbox. One time I set the program to archive e-mails that are 6 months old. She didn't talk to me for a week.

Yahaira has kept every ticket stub, postcard, receipt, packing slip, and baggage claim sticker since the first grade. And notes -- the woman could restore the forests of Oregon. She keeps them in her just-in-case files. I'm not sure what case that would be.

My wife does not abandon relationships either. Her ex-husband calls once a month and always inquires about me. "How's that poor guy doing anyway?" Yahaira keeps addresses of people she can't remember save through hypnosis. Last month, her third-grade teacher came over for board games!

Whereas I always thought that true friends were the ones who survived transitions between phone books, Yahaira taught me that we can always buy bigger phone books.

She doesn't even part with empty containers. Last week I was devastated to find an empty box of Corn Flakes and could only be consoled by the fact that if I had poured the cereal, the milk would have been empty anyway. So it goes.

The garage, however, is where the real cramming takes place. Lift up the tarps and you will see hair supplies from high school, sporting goods that no one can recognize, gifts that my wife has been meaning to send for several Christmases. There are piggy banks, 8-track tapes, clocks with hands, Barbie dolls without hands.

Then there are the clothes awaiting sentence. Yahaira doesn't wear them, but she also can't give them away. I believe they caused a short circuit in her brain. If you inquire about the clothing, she says, "They're not hurting anyone out there, are they?"

From personal experience, I find it best to move on at that point.

Then we have the broken appliances: vacuums that don't suck, fans that don't blow, lamps, hairdryers, space heaters, cram, cram, cram. Next is the friends and relatives section, where Yahaira stores things for others. There is Blake's luggage, which itself is storing toiletries. There is Dania's third-string bed set. Wait -- There's Uncle Tony! He's not missing after all.

You can hardly blame a guy for wanting to purge. I mean, how many incomplete decks of cards can a family need?

I picked at the nest, careful to maintain its infrastructure. My strategy was to discard only items that could be replaced in case of emergency. That toaster, for instance. If Yahaira inquired about it, I could buy a new one, drag it home through the gutter, and none would be the wiser.

Before long I acquired a handsome heap of rubbish and only needed a container to carry it (surely I wouldn't use our own trash bin). I spotted a grimy, blanket-like item that must have been used to wipe dipsticks. You couldn't even read the logo: minican something or other. Must have been mechanic jargon.

I delivered my package and returned from the dumpster lighter, fresher, cleaner. I had taken one giant step toward unmucking my home.

It would be a week before Fate finished the chapter...

Yahaira returned from work with that baby glow:

"I've been thinking of all the things I want to give our baby. I picked out the cutest little crib. I want to fill it with toys and hang Mom's afghan over the side."

"Afghan?"

"Yeah, it's in the garage. Have you seen it?"

Oh, God, no.

"It's yea big and says Dominican Republic on it."

Minican. The one thing I can't replace.

I won't share what happened next because it involves a lot of words you don't find in the Bible. Let's just say that I promised on my privates that I will never -- never ever, if I remember correctly -- remove anything from the garage ever again. Ever. I also surrendered my car space and now park on the street.

Yahaira has since redoubled her pack rat behavior to compensate for the loss. The only difference is that I don't have any smart aleck comments. Between you and me, though, I think the clouds are going to open up someday and we are going to witness a whirling mass of wreckage disappear into the sky.

It will be Yahaira taking it with her.

I like football. There's grunting and shouting, and more important, a man has to be dragged to the ground before a play can end. It preserves the holiness of Sunday.

The more I watch, however, the harder it is to overlook an unforgivable flaw in the game: the field goal.

Consider this. A football team grunts and shouts its way 60 yards upfield until it faces fourth down. Then, at the moment of truth when dreams are made or stayed, out trots a little man to kick the ball through two posts that have nothing to do with the game. Even in sudden-death overtime!

The field goal is as relevant to football as...thinking...archery. Why not have an archer shoot at the Goodyear Blimp for three points? It makes as much sense and is equally anticlimactic.

The place-kicker doesn't even look like the other players. He is half the size, wears a helmet only to fit in, and is rarely, if ever, dragged to the ground. He must feel awkward telling people he plays football.

"Well, I don't actually play football. I kick field goals mostly. And watch."

At the risk of libeling our beloved goal posts ... to hell with 'em. They're a headache for wide receivers and only serve the kickers who, as we have established, ruin the game anyway.

Where did these posts come from and why do they keep deciding the outcome of football games?
While we're here, what is an extra point? A team plows into the promised land for six points, and the same arguably heterosexual kicker comes on for a 15-yard chip shot, a formality. My grandpa could hit extra points without spilling his scotch. So it goes.

"So, Mr. Smart Aleck Football Expert Guy," you say. "How would you do it?"

I have answers.

Option 1: When a team penetrates the opponents' 20-yard line, ban the field goal. Fourth and ten from the 18? Too bad. Throw for the end zone. I'm holding a $7 hot dog here. Entertain me!

This shall be followed by the mandatory two-point conversion. The scoring team has to get back into the end zone for its bonus point. Or better yet, let's award the seven points and move on. I will also consider projecting the kicker through the posts from, say, a canon.

Option 2: To preserve conventional scoring, we will confer 3 points to the offense for penetrating the 10-yard line but falling short of a touchdown. That portion of the field will be colored teal and called the Almost End Zone. I like teal.

Option 3: An archer shoots at the Goodyear Blimp for one, two, or three points, depending on where he hits the bulls-eye.

I understand that these changes will effect the heritage of football -- records, tactics, career options for displaced soccer players -- but we must abolish place kicking to make the game watchable for discerning viewers. Games will not end because one team got "close enough," but will end like Super Bowl XXII, with one man squirming for the end zone as the final second ticks away.

Which reminds me. There is one more change I'd like to suggest: To make the Super Bowl more interesting, we should have the losing team kill themselves. Think of the drama.