The dread was building up inside me, like an internal balloon filling up. The house loomed before me, looking so innocent, with its twinkling lights and happy little plastic reindeer frolicking in the snowy yard. Some would even call the scene picturesque. Ha.

But I knew better. Inside that happy looking home there lurked a monster: a holiday sweater wearing monster with a camera and an endless barrage of questions revolving around my love life and my weight.

The feeling of cold snow melting into my shoes alerted me to the fact that I had stopped in my tracks, my breath billowing about me in little panicked clouds. God, I hated Chicago winters.

A shadow passed in front of the window and instinctively I ducked down, trying to make myself as small as possible. Really, this was ridiculous. I was a grown woman, not some teenager sneaking in past curfew. Picking up my bags, I plucked up my courage and made my way to the door with Dante’s immortal lines taunting me, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”