Santa Claus’s Christmas quandary
“Mrs. Claus, are you awake?”
“I am now,”
“Good, ’cause I’ve been lying here thinking about my naughty and nice list and I’m greatly perplexed-need your help.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Well. .. a few very important people are up to some dreadful, naughty shenanigans, and I’m afraid that if I put them on my naughty list this year, you and I might lose our Social Security, get audited by the IRS, or find ourselves the subject of a Justice Department investigation. Maybe all three at once.
Society is going mental, and government is not governing for the people, but is fighting itself. Politicians advocate throwing opponents out of restaurants. College students riot more than they study.
Newscasters don’t cast news, but blather about their opinions. Anger has replaced baseball as America’s favorite pastime. Some in Congress tell more lies than truths. The nice list is becoming so short, I may have to layoff half my elves. Some, while claiming to be devout Christians, even support abortion even though their religion teaches against it. To top It all off, one party, in partisan fashion, has nothing more to do but spend their time continually trying to impeach the president who is supervising a great American revitalization: the economy is at a fifty-year high, the military flourishing once more, unemployment is way down, illegal immigration is down, foreign trade is a work in progress but looks promising, and for the first time, we have frequent, transparent access to what the Commander-in-Chief is thinking. Mrs. Claus, what am I to do? If I remove all the foolish politicians and media bullies from my nice list, we will have to retire.”
“Well, my dear Mr. Claus, my advice to you is to modify the elfs work schedule to include only the children. Hopefully they will not start acting like their elders. If they do, we’ll have to retire in Boca Raton incognito.”
“We’ve been giving mankind gifts for centuries and I hate for Christmas to have no Ho, Ho, Ho.
Perhaps I can devise some helpful gifts for these cantankerous politicians and biased media folks-the real deplorables. ‘Deplorables: where have I heard that word before? Hum … “
So, Santa deliberated. At length, he went to his kitchen elves and asked them to prepare several tons of sugar cookie dough and an appropriate quantity of special sprinkles according to the Claus family secret recipe. To his science elves he submitted orders for magic spectacles, consequence beepers, truth serum, and morality meters.
When the cookies were baked, the elves were instructed to cover them liberally with sprinkles of patience, compassion, wisdom and responsibility. Members of Congressional committees involved in hateful, biased, and foolish enterprises instead of the work they were sent to Washington to accomplish were put on Santa’s naughty, but possibly compliant list for reception of sugar cookies covered with enchanted sprinkles.
Magic spectacles will appear under the Christmas trees of media megalomaniacs whose vision is distorted through bias and group-think: their myopic focus blurring everything beneficial accomplished by an unworthy non-conformist president upon whom they look with disdain.
Consequence beepers will be delivered to politicians who have been making irresponsible statements about their political opposition. Without thinking about the hurt they caused, these hateful people have smeared those who disagree with them, and have even encouraged verbal and physical confrontation with others in public. Every time they begin to speak without considering the consequences, their beeper will sound a warning signal.
Truth serum is on schedule for delivery to the media and to politicians who have lied repeatedly, deliberately misleading the public to further their swamp-dweller causes. This serum is antidotal to the dangerous, but popular “the end justifies the means” practice by Congress and intelligence agencies.
Santa’s elves succeeded in inventing a morality meter which they have manufactured in bulk to be delivered by Santa on Christmas eve-delivered by sleigh to all those who pretend to represent their constituents, but secretly have spied, lied, and besmirched opponents, thereby working against the will of we, the people.
Santa believes these Christmas gifts will revive America’s anguished soul. We could all be Santa helpers: we could call our representatives and sprinkle their cookies.
DeWitt Clinton is a resident of Dunbar.