My Ghost of Christmas Past

I think it is funny how small things can haunt you. Every Christmas, after opening all my presents, I am always scared to throw out the wrapping paper. I gather it all to one side carefully. Not careful in the way of a grandmother that doesn't want to ruin such lovely paper and wants to reuse your dollar store gift wrap. No, careful more like a customs official. I scrunch every bit of discarded wrap like I'm patting down a known criminal. I'm paranoid that I'll throw out a gift with the garbage - a baby with the bath water so to speak. All because one year I killed C3PO.
As a kid I remember getting a pile of Star Wars action figures while staying at my grandparents and for some reason in my gift frenzy I neglected to take C3PO out of his package. My grandparents lived on the third floor of high rise and before I noticed I had a man down, the empty packages were jettisoned down the garbage chute. The irony of C3PO landing in a trash compactor was not lost on me, even then. The horrible twist being that it was an incinerator.
Funny how it's small things that stick with us.