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race. The probability of a driver ever locating a missing hubcap is remote, of course, which is precisely what makes hubcap-propping such a poignant act. These anonymous pedestrians have propped hubcaps because they know if they ever lost a hubcap, they would want someone else to prop it. It’s the foundation of all moral philosophy. Then, as Abbott nears his house, he notices his neighbor has returned home from a weeklong trip in his new car. He notices, furthermore, that the wheels on the driver’s side are missing their hubcaps. The car, so sleek just days ago, now looks dilapidated. Considering the possibility of a design flaw, Abbott drives around the block in order to examine the car’s passenger side, and he observes then that those hubcaps are also missing. Whatever he might wish to believe, Abbott knows it is statistically unlikely that all four hubcaps fell off this new car. He stops just past his neighbor’s driveway, stares back into the black nothingness at thecenter of the tires. He feels that he is within a drama of contending moral forces, as we find in Hawthorne. Is it unreasonable, Abbott wonders, to want to live and raise children in a land where the number of propped hubcaps (PH) exceeds the number of stolen hubcaps (SH)? He imagines a list of industrialized nations, ranked according to a hubcap index—the ratio
PH:SH
, expressed as the average number of propped hubcaps per one stolen hubcap. An index of 2 would be righteous indeed. Really, anything above 1 would be an index of virtue, as it would indicate that the citizens’ noblest instincts were prevailing, by however slight a margin. The USA, Abbott speculates, certainly has an index no greater than the 0.5 he has recorded this afternoon. Sweden’s ratio is probably the best. Sweden’s or Norway’s.

23 Abbott RSVPs
    Regretfully, again, Abbott cannot attend. The timing is inopportune. Checking his calendar, Abbott finds that he has a prior engagement on the day in question. On that day, he needs to rise early with his daughter to play in the family room with buttons and beads for two or three hours. Some of the smaller buttons fit inside some of the larger ones, and quite a few of the beads are sparkly. It’s just not something he can miss. He cannot, he regrets, even
stop by for a minute to say hi
because he needs to go the Big Y to buy $117 of groceries, even though his wife went shopping four days ago. He needs to leave in the car the snack he lovingly prepared so that his ravenous daughter, who is somehow never hungry at home, will have to eat food from the grocery store, which means that Abbott will end up purchasing an empty box and an empty bottle in the checkout line for $5.58. When, later, he puts away groceries, he’ll just dump the box and bottle directly from the shopping bag into the recycling bin. He’s going to be busy securing the string of the helium balloon from the bank branch inside the Big Y tightly around the handle of the shopping cart because his daughter will absolutely flip out if the balloon floats away. He hopesyou understand. The invitation sounds great, and three or four years ago Abbott would have been the first to arrive and the last to depart, but regretfully, Abbott needs to hear from both the checker and the bagger at Big Y about how much milk he’s buying. Three different kinds! While his daughter naps, Abbott will unfortunately still be occupied so he can’t
sneak away
or
sneak anything in
. He promised his wife he would install a plastic locking device on the toilet-seat lid to prevent his daughter from dropping pennies in the bowl and laughing. Moreover, the veterinarian needs a urine sample from the dog and, if Abbott is reading his wife’s note correctly, the cat. Regretfully, Abbott must also, throughout the day, construct and then dismantle the grandiose conviction that he is unappreciated, and this cycle of self-pity and self-reproach tends to be