Friday, December 14, 2012

How I Learned There Is No Santa Claus

I guess I should have put a spoiler alert in front of that title, but you have to find out sometime.

The Christmas I was nine the present I wanted most was a Slinky.  I know, I know, but I've always been Low Maintenance.  Anyroad, I was extremely vocal about this.  I talked about it ad nauseum, I freaked out when the commercial came on ("Everyone wants a Slinky, You want to get a Slliinnkky!")  It was the 50's, brainwashing was in.  And of course it was the top of my list in my Letter to Santa.

On Christmas Eve, I was telling my mother how excited I was about Christmas, and, in particular, about finally getting a Slinky.  She stopped dead in her tracks and gave me a Joan Crawford "no more wire hangers-ever" look, and said, "What's a Slinky?"  I regaled her with the many wonders of the Slinky and then plaintively reminded her, "I told Santa I wanted it!!!"  She angrily threw on her coat and yelled to my father, "Charlie, I have to go to Thrift Drugs, I'll be right back!"  She came back twenty minutes later with a small, square box in a brown paper bag.

Now, in addition to being LM, I am also Extremely Naive, but I ain't the dullest crayon in the box, so I put 2 and 6 together and figured out that Mommy + Daddy = Santa Claus.  I wasn't so much disappointed in finding out He didn't exist as I was deflated that Mommy hadn't listened to me.  Again.

Moral of the Story:  Keep bitching till you get what you want.

Merry Christmas!

1 comment:

  1. When I worked for a certain big insurance company I learned about the "Squawk Basis," as in "Fix this mistake if, and only if, the customer squawks about it." The squawky wheel gets the grease.

    I was the last kid in my grade to stop believing in Santa. It wasn't exactly naiveté , but sentimental stubbornness. I think it was tied in with my warped Calvinist attitudes about faith and my Disney attitudes about Troooooo Luuuuuuv. I have battered believer syndrome, so despite all the evidence that 12/25 was an inside job, I insisted on being the Last Apostle of Santa. Today I'm overdoing the unbelieving, as well as trying to hijack peoples' blogs in the comments.

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