Happy Holidays! The festival season is upon us, as people around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Diwali, Boxing day and all those other crazy holidays we associate with Christmas purely for the fact that they all come near the end of the year.
Like most other college students, I find myself holding my breath, crossing my fingers and knocking on wood. No, not because I’m worried about my grades. I’ve given up on those a long time ago. Like any other full-fledged idiot man-child, I am hoping that Santa Claus got my letter and has deemed me to have been a good boy throughout the calendar year.
Don’t try to persuade me that Santa Claus isn’t real. What’s so unbelievable about a magical, morbidly obese elf who flies a magic sleigh around the world and breaks into the houses of Christian children in industrialized countries so he can leave toys that conveniently fall into the price range of the children’s parents? Exactly. He clearly exists.
Because I am a completely unreasonable person I have submitted a list to Santa of expensive stuff I want from him. Even if he only brings me one third of the crap I want, I’ll be completely happy. Because with even one third of what I asked for, I can pawn it and get enough money to buy something good.
But pawning your gifts is not the spirit of Christmas, which is why I hope Santa brings me all the things I asked for.
First, I asked Santa to get me one of those Segway things. If you can’t remember what Segways are, they’re those scooters you control with your mind or something. They can only go 15 mph and are supposed to revolutionize travel. I would like one because I think it is complete malarkey that I can’t crash it. I will prove that I can crash a Segway, no matter how much blood I may lose trying. And I don’t care that those things cost a small fortune. Santa is a magical dwarf with a workshop full of elves who spend the entire year building Playstations and cheap wooden trains. The least he could do is magically make whatever I want.
Second, I would like a sports car. I got this idea after seeing one too many commercials where someone gives their significant other a set of car keys for Christmas and then they both look out the window and see a Jaguar wrapped in a big red bow sitting in the driveway. Why the hell doesn’t anyone buy me a Jaguar? It’s not like asking for a $60,000 sports car is asking for much.
On a related note, I’ve always wanted to give someone a set of keys for Christmas so that they run outside driven by excitement, hoping to see a car parked there. However, there is only a padlock in the driveway. I could say "Merry Christmas! It’s a Master lock!"
The last thing I told Santa I want is a brand new answering machine for the Gripe Line. I want an answering machine that was made after the Eisenhower presidency. I want an answering machine that callers don’t have to wait for every single previous message to play before they can leave their message.
But most importantly, I want an answering machine that I can fast forward and skip any gripes left by the same morons who never actually get into the paper because they aren’t funny, yet still call four times in a row every week.
I especially would like to skip any messages left by any disc jockeys at WRST. They call every week saying they want free publicity and demanding that they be in the Gripe Line. They do this by leaving five minute long messages about how great they are. Considering there aren’t usually any 600-word-long gripes in the Gripe Line, it seems that they have completely missed the point.
I don’t think this is asking too much. I could have really given Santa an impossible task by asking for world peace or the end to world hunger or something like that. All I’m asking for are material possessions. All Santa has to do is go to the store and buy that stuff. Let’s see Santa try to find a store that sells world peace.
