Since no one ever uses their god-given talents for their ultimate good, i.e. to create things for me, I asked Faustus to knit me a sweater.

He told me that his dog was knitting me a sweater.

This crushing news brought to mind another traumatic story of my elementary school days.

Picture it: Forest Knolls Elementary School, the late 1970s. Young David’s art class undertakes an ambitious project based upon the portraiture of limners.

If I recall correctly, limners were artists in the American colonial days who painted portraits based only upon written descriptions of the subjects. Apparently, there were not enough painters to go around in the early days of the colonies, so settlers would order their portraits by mail. I suppose a limner was a crude precursor to the police sketch artist.

Each student in my class wrote a description of himself or herself and handed it in to the teacher. The teacher redistributed the descriptions anonymously, and we then had to create portraits based upon them. At the end of the experience, there would be a grand exchange, in which each “limner” would find out who his or her subject was and surrender the portrait for a comparison of likeness in front of the class.

Since the whole thing was framed as a sort of competition, I naturally launched myself into it with gusto, laboring for untold hours at my effort. Unfortunately, I do not recall how close said effort came to its intended target because this revelation was overshadowed by tragedy.

The teacher—poor, misguided soul that she was—decided that I was the most sensitive and understanding student in the class and gave the description I had written of myself to a mentally challenged and severely handicapped boy whose name was also David. The resulting “portrait” of brown and black crayon scribbles was so devastating after all my hard work that I was inconsolable.

Of course, now that I look back at the experience, it was a blessing in disguise that prepared me for a lifetime of disappointment at the asymmetry of my colossal efforts for everyone else, versus everyone else’s meager efforts for me. Not that the other David’s drawing was not the best he could do at the time . . . and not that any of this really applies in this situation, as I have not undertaken much on the behalf of Faustus or his dog that has not been repaid a thousand times over by their valuable friendship.

But when I am presented with a loosely knit sweater with an incomprehensible pattern and four sleeves by a Maltese beaming with pride, at least we all know there is a precedent.

And I will be as sensitive and understanding as I ever was.