Frank enjoyed the TV program—it featured Don Knotts—and was feeling so amiable that he continued to sit on the sofa for another hour, through a bad "Bewitched" (wrong Darren) and the first half of "Medical Center".

At ten-thirty he decided it was time to get moving. He made one last scan through the hundred cable channels hoping for a suggestively filmed exercise program, then turned the box off and went back upstairs. He dressed in his standard "crazy old man" outfit: out-of-fashion shoes, no socks, wrinkled khaki slacks and a turtle-neck shirt two sizes too small. Topping it off with his favorite Woolworth's "dollar-day" hat, he headed for the garage.

He checked the mailbox as he stepped out the front door. It was full of the crap he got everyday. There were five solicitations from crooked life insurance companies using aging TV stars as spokesmen, a local community newspaper (the "Marville Marketplace"), and a dollar-off coupon from a neighborhood pizza parlor. There was also the crap he got once a year—a birthday card from his sister, now approaching seventy-nine. The "cute" card wished him well on the outside; on the inside, it urged him to join the Jehovah's Witnesses immediately. He had always hoped that when "rapture" came, it would take her in a particularly nasty manner.

Frank was feeling very calm and clear-headed as he opened the manual garage door. He moved slowly and surely, so as not to strain himself, and then stood and stared at his "girl".