Hello kids, this is Risk.

The show where people tell true stories, they never thought they'd dare to share.

I'm Kevin Allyson and every Thursday we release these special episodes that we're calling

classic, risk singles.

Each of these episodes features just one story from our earlier years.

If you're new to risk, you should know that the podcast can be very uncensored.

This week a story that's really not so old, after all, it's from last year's holiday

stories episode and it's by Sarah Longhandershot.

It's a story we call The Present.

It was a bitterly cold, Rochester, New York, December and the power was out in my apartment.

And it wasn't out because a storm knocked it out.

It was out because I didn't have the money to pay the energy bill.

There were only five more days till Christmas and there was no heat.

There were no lights.

There was no refrigerator.

And this kind of setback would have been not that difficult to deal with if I had been

single.

But I was a single mom and I had this great 11 year old son.

And as a parent, I think especially as the only parent, just way down deep in the core

of your being, you want to give your child a nice holiday.

There's this awareness that these are memories that your kid is going to have for the

rest of his life.

...