Little person Rex climbed over the side of the sleigh to make sure the sleigh’s Bombay doors were secure, then climbed back into the backseat for Santa’s yearly gift giving tour.
“On Donner! On Smitten! Soon your hooves will be as frozen as Rex’s mittens!”
Rex grumbled at Santa’s ‘joke.’ Santa ignored his little person’s curses, he knew if he complained they’d get worse. The elves had insisted on being called that. They considered ‘elf’ insulting. And NO ONE wants to piss off Santa’s little people.
“Santa, what is inside the Bombay doors?”
”It’s a secret.”
”I know it’s a secret for little boys and girls, Santa, but really… what’s in there?”
”It’s a secret.”
”Well that’s annoying.”
Santa chuckled, but didn’t press his luck again.
Rex and Santa had been flying together Christmas Eve for hundreds of years, Rex being the successor to the previous little person: Grandma, who died in the gruesome accident. She actually did get run over by a reindeer, memorialize by the well known song insensitive miscreants laugh at. Everyone called her “Grandma” out of respect because they knew she didn’t like her actual name: Flatina Squashed.
Did you just laugh?
Are YOU an insensitive miscreant?
Like the author, when he sings Flatina’s song in… be flat?
So, after a joke that fell flatter than Flatina, Santa and Rex flew around the world. Rex kept priming the sled’s Scotty Doohan gift giving transporter. It saved Santa from climbing down so many, mostly absent now, chimneys. The last chim chim-i-ney Santa climbed down the body of a certain fictional character was stuck in it. At the exact moment, like overly toasted toast, Santa was slammed as Mary POP-ins-ed up, Leaving Santa sore and smelling like a very ripe, spoiled, pop tart.
Yes, just like Santa, the writer sometimes over wraps his jokes then goes a looooooooooooogggg way to deliver them.
Meanwhile, the Doohan doohickey transporter device was busy transporting gifts under trees with a Sulu-ish, “OH MYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”
Finally they circled back over the last location.
“Rex, you know the lever. Go ahead and pull it!”
”But you’ve always told me I’m not supposed to pull it, Santa.”
”I know, but you deserve the honor, Rex, for all the years service after Grandma…”
”…got run over by a reindeer.”
At this point, both Santa and Rex chuckled but the readers cringed at the second use of a very bad joke.
Rex pulled the lever that delivered the rest of the world’s supply of “there’s no such thing as clean coal,” shoving it down the Trump-ian hole.
So as Santa and Rex took flight, flying home before morning’s light, just before they cross the Spielberg-ian moon and fly out of sight, hear Santa cry…
“Season’s greetings to you tonight, and good riddance to a year worse than the blight!”
-30-
(Or, “Well that’s how our story goes. Hope it gave you a few Ho, Ho, Hos!)
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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