“So, you’ll pray to Saint Anthony for me?” she asks for the billionth time, as your hand lingers over the door knob. You have been idling in her foyer for the past three minutes while you find excuses to not say goodbye to one another. Despite an extensive search of her bedroom, during which she uncovers her middle school yearbook (you laugh at her frizzy hair and braces; she snatches the book back and snaps it shut), a lacy black bra (which she quickly hides away in a drawer, cheeks furiously pink), and twenty dollars (to her delight), her diamond earring is still missing. After promising to spend the rest of the day praying to the Patron Saint of Lost Things you optimistically remind her that at least she has one earring left. “Yes…” she starts reluctantly, “but some things are meant to be a pair.”

One day, the irony may very well kill you.