It’s a holiday tradition that the kids get to open a present on Christmas Eve and then the rest on Christmas Day.
It’s fun to watch them picking up and shaking the boxes, figuring out which to open first.
They’ve been asking for a puppy for years, but I didn’t think they were old enough for one.
Until now.
The box was in front of the others, and the puppy kept trying to get out, whining and barking.
They picked the box up, and shook it.
Hard. Really hard.
It stopped whining.
Silence.
Hrm. Maybe they’re not old enough yet.
Tag: childhood
Doctor Santa
Despite being a mad scientist, Doctor Odd did work in the community.
After all, every good community needs science, and every scientist needs lab assistants and test subjects.
Around Christmastime, he’d volunteer as Santa for the orphanage.
He’d ask every child what they wanted for Christmas.
Some wanted bicycles. Others wanted puppies.
Those he could do. Licensing his patents made him extremely rich, and he had Amazon Plus.
But most wanted a family.
That, he couldn’t help.
One girl in a wheelchair wanted to walk again, so he built her gigantic robotic legs.
Which stomped the bicycles and puppies flat.
Tinsel
Tinsel for decoration started off as shredded silver strands, but silver tarnishes quickly. And these days, it’s rather expensive.
So, people switched to copper, but wartime restrictions meant that people needed to use another metal.
That’s around when aluminum became cheap and easy to use, but aluminized paper is a fire hazard, and the lights on trees would heat up the paper and burn houses down.
Lead is nice and shiny. And toxic. It causes brain damage. But if your kid sucks on Christmas tree decorations and thinks some fat dude’s bringing presents, really, how much stupider can they get?
Thicket
When I was growing up, one of our neighbors was a farmer who had a small apple orchard behind our house.
We’d chase fireflies there in the summer. Dazzling lights.
A ticket in the middle of the orchard was home to a family of rabbits, and our dog would chase them around.
Once, the dog tried to go into the thicket, and needed help getting back out.
I used Google Maps to look the place up, and the orchard and thicket are gone.
The farmer sold to a developer.
All that remains are memories and the scars on my arms.
Finger Fairy
From her shelf, the doll watched the girl sleep night after night.
“If the Tooth Fairy leaves quarters under her pillow for teeth, what might I get for fingers or toes?” she pondered.
Climbing down from her shelf, she walked to the sewing table and reached for the scissors.
They slid off the table and fell, slicing off the doll’s head.
The girl blamed her little brother for the attack, and sewed the doll’s head back on.
Grateful, the doll never thought about cutting off the girl’s fingers and toes ever again.
Her little brother, though, that was another matter…
The Elf On The Shelf
Little Steven sits on the floor, humming a tune:
There’s an elf
On the shelf
Sitting all
By himself
I look up on the shelf and see the elf.
I didn’t buy it for him.
Did you? No?
Then where did it come from?
There’s no way that he could get it up there.
The stepstool is too short to reach it.
His toychest is too heavy to move.
And he couldn’t have thrown it up there.
I reach for the elf.
Did you see that? Did you see it move?
I put it in a drawer.
And lock it.
The Music Of The Stairs
The music teacher in my high school was rather avant-garde.
Instead of learning to play our instruments in the traditional sense: blowing into them, stroking them with various implements, or smiting them with mallets in some semblance of rhythm and meaning, we tossed them down a flight of stairs to listen to the odd beauty of the cacophony.
The school administration tolerated his madness, and since the instruments were already in bad shape, tossing them down stairs was significantly less expensive than repairs.
It was when he filled in for the drama teacher than they had to let him go.
Acquired Distaste
When I was young, I loved cottage cheese.
I’d put onion flakes and dill on it for flavor, but I didn’t mind it straight from the container.
It also didn’t matter if it was small curd or large curd. I liked them both.
Over time, I ate less and less of it, until I found myself forgetting the last time I’d had it.
So, I picked up a small container of the small curd stuff.
It was disgusting.
I tried different brands, but those also tasted lumpy and gross.
Onion flakes. Dill. A bed of lettuce.
Nope. Still tastes awful.
Klingons
Back when I was in high school, there was a Klingon Language Club where they spoke that language from the Star Trek show and movies.
They wanted me to join, but I didn’t see any use for it.
A few years later, when we were at the graduation barn dance, a strange light appeared in the sky, and a Klingon warship landed in the parking lot.
The Klingon Language Club, dressed in full Klingon battle armor, greeted the ship.
Its cannons blasted them into atoms.
You know, because it was Kirk at the helm, slingshotted back in time.
Stupid geeks.
The Robe and The Mask
Carlton has worn a mask and robes since the age of seven.
Some say he was burned badly in a fire, but that’s not the kind of thing you ask a kid. Or his parents.
It wasn’t in the papers, and I don’t see any mention of it in the news archives.
And he moves around pretty good.
Like a kid, and not like someone with skin grafts and other debilitating injuries.
He sounds pretty normal, too. Not like his body’s rotting out from under him.
Maybe he just likes the robes and the mask?
Maybe he’s just kinda weird?