“What do you want for your birthday?” she asked.

He said, “Nothing.”

“I don’t know of any stores where they carry nothing.”

“Try amazon,” he said.

“Okay, that’s an idea. I’ll try them.”

“It will probably cost you, at least for the shipping.”

“Yeah, no doubt,” she said. “But if I order nothing, they might not even send it.”

“Sure they will – as long as it’s in the right-sized package.”

“That makes no sense. Why would they send nothing in a package?”

He said, “Well, you can’t send nothing without having something to contain it. The Post Office won’t accept nothing that isn’t wrapped properly.”

She said, “I think they might. I bet if I went down to the corner right now and put nothing in the mailbox, they would come by and collect nothing at all, and you’d get nothing by the end of the week.”

“Well, maybe . . .” he said.

She said, “In fact, the Post Office would collect nothing from our mailbox, and also nothing from all the other places where you have friends. They would collect nothing from all over. And then on Friday you’d go to our mailbox and find nothing there. You would see how loved you are by all your friends everywhere!”

(Thanks to William John Shaw for the suggestion.)