Yes, the legend is true, I fought old St. Nick. And might I add that as a child I thought that he was Street Nick, but I digress.
I always knew that one day it would happen, that one day it would come to this. It was clear to me that the fat old man in the red suit would come looking for me. In kindergarten I was the boy who told the other children that Santa Claus was a fake, a phony and a charlatan. I can still see their confused faces.
Have you ever seen a kid who can’t spell his own name try and say charlatan. It wasn’t fair or funny what I did that day. I left the teacher with a real conundrum, but that is a separate tale for a different time and place.
Old St. Nick is not as jolly as some would like to portray him. You see when they speak of him making a list of who is naughty and nice they leave out part of the story. The nice children, well they get presents, cool toys to play with, bright and shiny.
But the naughty kids get something else and it is not a pleasant experience or so I had always been told.
Don’t ask me to tell you how it started because I am not really sure. What I know is he was fat, surly and he hit me with a cheap shot.
The beauty of being a Taurus is that I am very much like the bull, minus the horns, hooves and ring through the nose. I pawed the ground, snorted and flung the old fat man off of me. I stood up and wiped the dirt off my face and prepared to unleash one angry Jew on that poor excuse of a man.
For a moment we stood and stared at each other. We circled right and circled left, it was the ugliest hora you have ever seen. And then finally from somewhere deep inside me came this guttural noise and I was on top of him. Punching, kicking, fish hooking and gouging we went at it. We rolled around in combat like Gandalf and the Balrog.
It was ugly and it was mean. I had never pegged Santa as a biter, but to this day my right shoulder bears the scars from his jaws. I had to tear out close to half of his beard but I finally got him to release. The pain was considerable.
****
Some people claim the story above is quite different from the one that ran in the paper. Some say the influence of alcohol might have played a role and maybe it did.
We all have that one experience we adjust within the old memory bank to make it more suitable and it is possible you might apply that to me too.
In my mind the headline reads Cancel Christmas Because I Beat Up Santa Claus but I know that part can’t be true because headlines don’t use ‘I’ in them, or at least I can’t remember any that did.
But then again after recent events bits and pieces of my memory are a bit of a blur so maybe I am wrong.
It Is Hard to Say You Beat Up Santa
There are relatively few good ways to tell most people that you beat up Santa Claus.
Most of them start with he was drunk, aggressive and getting too friendly with my wife/kids but those are hard to come by.
My story isn’t quite like that. The jolly old man wasn’t making eyes at my woman or doing bad things to my kids so I don’t have any reasons other than I just don’t like him.
Something about that guy just chaps my hide. Maybe it is because as the Jewish kid I know he automatically puts me on the naughty list.
Once upon a midnight dreary when I found myself in a state between weak and weary I started thinking about how unfair it was not to be gifted with whatever sort of gifts are given to the other team.
Since I am a peace loving fellow I figured the best way to go about this was to figure out who Mr. Claus reports to. Once I had that information it would be easy to encourage him to share some loot with me.
When I began my research discovered the 1-800-Ask a Gentile hotline. I dialed the fine folks over there and much to my chagrin learned it didn’t work. Every time I called I got one of those error messages about the line not being in service.
Since my one track mind isn’t easily dissuaded I called the Vatican and asked to be connected with the pope.
Apparently he isn’t available to take calls nor is he willing to return them, especially when they are of a frivolous or silly nature. I don’t know about you, but a guy who wears a funny pointed hat shouldn’t chew on the butts of other people who enjoy silly.
Anyhoo, time passes and I am stumped. Mrs. Hackleshmackle, the librarian from my high school called me an idiot and said she don’t have to put up with my nonsense no more.
There ain’t no one at the Library of Congress who will answer my question nor is there anyone at the Smithsonian. But like I said, I am determined so I figure I’ll go to the local mall and ask the guy who is playing Santa Claus if he can help me out.
So I head on over to the Short Hills Mall and find myself talking to an elf who has a real Jersey attitude. I say, Snooky, I got no time to deal with an elf who smells like she doused herself with a combination of kerosene and Chanel Number Smellslikecrap. Just tell the fat guy I need to talk.
I don’t even want to tell you what sort of response I got, but it was pretty vulgar. Fortunately Santa heard us talking and he waddled over and what he said shocked me.
That fat old man used a series of four letter words in a fashion that cannot be described as friendly or jolly.
Well, no one gets a free poke at me so I told Santa that if he didn’t apologize I was going to kick his ass.
Jersey Santa didn’t take too kindly to that so he vaulted over the candy cane fence and came straight for me.
Santa, I ain’t one of your elves. The sarge told me he loved me because I am a hard charger with a head full of rocks. Step back or risk having your bag of coal shoved so far up your ass a match and a burp will start a fire.
Needless to say Jersey Santa didn’t take my advice but he did take five fingers in the mouth, a boot to the ass and a hard right to the gut.
Had there been a window he probably would have been defenestrated, but sadly luck was not on my side.
I’d like to say I got through the moment unscathed and unharmed but that wouldn’t be true.
Two of Santa’s elves jumped me from behind. One of them bit my shoulder and the other grabbed a hold of the kind of package that requires more TLC than they gave it.
And Santa, well he surprised me with a hook shot that almost knocked me on my ass. I have to give him credit for that one, it was almost as good as he got.
Twenty-five years later I still don’t get anything on Christmas nor have I ever figured out who Santa’s boss is. But I got some good memories and I didn’t get arrested, so I guess I got that going for me.
Editor’s Note: I was challenged by a friend to write something ridiculous in under 15 minutes. The rules didn’t preclude me from using something I had written before but in the interest of fair play I tried adapting a couple of older pieces into one.
Not sure it worked, but that is the joy of writing for fun, you can try things out and make adjustments as needed.
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