The power of myth

Smiling, his mother knelt outside his door to pray; then, with her “Amen,” pressed her lips to the bronze door-knob; and went silently to her own apartment. – Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons, Chapter 13

My mother wasn’t quite as slavish as Isabel Minafer, and I wasn’t quite as self-absorbed as her son George, but one of my father’s favorite drolleries concerned the box in their bedroom where she kept every diaper I’d ever pooped.

No such box existed, of course.

At least, none that I’ve been able to locate.