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!
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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.