MOST NOTABLE MOMENTS OF THE LAST TEN MINUTES

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Year-end reviews are hackneyed. Thus, a somewhat less ambitious look back:

9:45 P.M.: The Anti-Defamation League telephones for its annual shakedown. I wouldn't have answered the phone, but they bypass my usual screening methods by using a fake caller I.D. The fundraiser laughs off my outrage by guilt-tripping me into a commitment for $180. "Don't worry, we're not going to let you off the hook and we'll always know how to find you," she threatens.

9:46 P.M.: During the time I am distracted by my Herculean efforts to get the A.D.L. off the phone, a pot of chicken soup boils over and short circuits a burner on the stove.

9:47 P.M.: The smoke alarm goes off.

9:49 P.M.: Jamming a burnt chicken bone down the garbage disposal turns out to be a-less-than-optimal method of disposing of it.

9:50 P.M.: Despite 4 cans of food piled up in his dish, the cat won't shut up. I put him out.

9:51 P.M.: The smoke alarm is still going off. In search of a hammer, I pull a drawer all the way out and it crashes to the floor revealing a long-lost and highly-treasured Chinese/Lichtensteinian (but mostly Chinese) take-out menu, and also the hammer. Cutting corners by throwing the hammer at the smoke detector instead of standing on a chair to reach it has a predictable result, but I'm pretty a sure a competent person can repair the dent in the ceiling. The vase, however is a goner.

9:52 P.M.: The cat, who obviously never really wanted to go out, is on the patio peering in with his face pressed pathetically against the sliding glass door. I can't hear him, but I can see his silent desperate meows; he is crying frantically, demanding to be readmitted. I open the door and he starts to enter, but is stunned by the piercing shriek of the smoke alarm. He pauses on the threshhold unable to make up his mind. Because it is freezing, I demand that he make a decision, which he refuses to do, so I nudge him with my foot. Naturally, he isn't quick enough, and I close the door on his tail.

9:53 P.M.: The phone rings. It's the Policeman's Benevolent Association reminding me that the pledge I made 9 months ago remains unfunded. So taken aback by the insulting tone of the recorded message, I almost don't notice that the Policeman's Benevolent Association has also resorted to using a fake caller I.D. The cat breaks free.

9:54 P.M.: I realize that the pounding on the front door and the annoying voice that has been ringing in my ears for the past 5 minutes is not, in fact, a daydream, but is an actual Greenpeace indentured servant hollering about global warming. I squint through the peephole waiting for him to give up. As he turns to leave, he slips on the ice on the front walk, which reminds me that it would have been preferable not to allow the home owner's policy to lapse.

9:55 P.M. The power fails and all the lights go out. As Chet Baker so artfully reminds us to do, I look for the silver lining and find it in the discovery that the smoke alarm has, at long last, stopped going off.