15 years ago when receiving her graduate degree in criminology at Emporia State University Gabriele got cards of congratulations that were not at all palatable to her. Reading the writing on these weighty bits of paper should have been just more insipid clogging of one's time and shouldn't have made much of an impression on her unfavorably and yet she couldn't help resenting this intrusive attitude of "Read me! Read me! Take moments of your life and read me!" She believed that the factory produced clichZs contained therein were not congratulations of past academic accomplishments but more the prompting of those who advocated that post-graduates utilize ideas for pragmatic pursuits. These were mass produced clichZs of ignorant professionals in bondage to the idea that worth was wealth secured in slavish development of commodities or services, which were the means of affluence. Such people erroneously believed that, if well compensated financially, a life spent planning a product to develop an artificial and insatiable thirst or governing men so that they did not founder totally in their base instincts, as all earlier predecessors had done, was a constructive engagement of one's hours on the planet. Among others, there was a card from her aunt and uncle and another one from her perfidious and mutinous parents. She opened and read the other rubbish before putting it in the rightful place but she let these particular envelopes lay on the counter, near her toaster, for a day or two before stabbing her foot against the ribbed lever and guiltlessly opening the trash can's jaws. "Saccharine for the alligator--gotta feed 'gator," she thought and then pitched the envelopes and their unopened content into the trash. It was such an American gesture, which was an alloy of a disposable culture and the independence by which one might extricate herself from the visceral, vitriolic virulence of a dysfunctional family. And when she got her Master's degree in psychology in Houston there was a pleasant absence of this driest of sentimental tripe until one day Peggy sent a belated card and letter with "Urgent" marked on the envelope. Gabriele opened it begrudgingly. It was one of those half- hearted apologies of "If I've done anything that has made you wrongly perceive..." or "If I've done anything that has made you believe..." with something like "that you are unloved" or "that you weren't wanted." Now she couldn't remember the exact details even if there was that indelible impression of one who would never apologize or admit that there was anything to be sorry about.