Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

It's 9:30 on Christmas Eve, and right now, NORAD's Santa Claus radar has the jolly old elf somewhere over South America...

I'm going to bed soon. I think I'm going to drink some of the spiked egg nog, and chase it with a Benadryl or two. I don't want that fat man to catch me anywhere near awake.

See, I caught Santa one year. I used my mental powers, and my ninja training. I set a trap for him. You know the saying...build a better Santa trap and the world will beat your ass to the door. Or something like that. The trap? It was fly (I learned that word on TV). It was diesel-powered, and it ran on 1.21 gigawatts of electrosol, or something. I can't explain it well, because I'm inept in my ability to explain things technical. Suffice it to say this: think of a cross between one of those glue-based mouse traps, a helicopter, and Eskimo Ingenuity, and you're almost there.

Santa fell into my trap. At 12:14 on Christmas morning, in 1994. Santa has a weakness for Swiss Cake Rolls. I caught him. He was screaming in some language I didn't know. Considering the jaunty sneer and the swaggering swivel of his hips, I assumed that it was Elvish

I could only wonder at my achievement. How many millions of people had tried and failed to catch St. Nicholas? I stared at the man in red, and could barely begin to think of the acclaim, the public adoration.

Sadly, I could barely begin to think of the money. The Knoxville Zoo told me they'd pay me $20 if I could deliver the jolly old elf. I know that, because I called and asked how much a jolly old elf would bring me...they answered with a snort (which, at the time I took for excitement, but realize now was something more mocking) "twenty dollars."

But I was counting my chickens before they hatched (which, coincidentally, was plan B, to put Santa under a heat lamp and see what emerges). I managed to hold St. Nick for all of 28 minutes. He's a wily old elf. He knows how to think his way around a corner (or outside the box, as it were). In the future, I'll know that Santa's got a helluva bunch of good stuff in his Batman-style utility belt. I think it was the acid that freed him, though I'll never be sure. I was momentarily knocked silly by one one of his deadly accurate "Santarangs."

I gained my senses enough to try once again to subdue St. Nick. I've watched my share of pro wrestling in my life (and probably your share, too). But don't let anybody fool you. Thousands of hours spent studying the career of Bret "the Hitman" Hart is no match for Santa's rolling snowball Kung Fu. And let me say, Santa Claus knows his way around a choke hold.

When he was done beating me senseless, he tied me to the hearth with the stockings, which hadn't been hung by the chimney with enough care for Santa. I was left for Commissioner Gordon and the rest of the Gotham City police to find in the morning.

Most damning? Santa has connections. He told me, as he laid a finger inside his nose (Clement Moore had that one wrong), but before up the chimney he arose: "Young Thomas: because of you transgression against me, you will never be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven!" That, in a word, sucks.

I've done my best in the decade since to atone. I've twice made a pilgrimage to the North Pole to offer thanks for my life, and to do whatever Santa wants me to do, so as to make up. (FYI: The North Pole thing is bunk, a story made up to throw off Santa's enemies....Santa's workshop is actually in Iceland, inside a volcano, where he and his elves and reindeer are protected by Magma Monsters and Lava Loons.)

I feel like I'm making progress. I am cautiously optimistic that, over time, he'll forgive me. I hope, anyway. The problem is that an immortal elf like Santa shouldn't have any problems holding a grudge for a long, long time.

But mostly, he tells me in no uncertain terms to go away, and to leave him be.

So, I'm doing all I can to make him happy, in that respect. Which means I'll have been asleep for several hours by the time Santa makes his pass by my house.....

And let me pass a word of warning on to you, as well: You'd do well to do the same. Don't do anything to draw his wrath. As if eternal damnation of the soul to Alabama (it's where Hell is, just south of Tuscaloosa) isn't enough, he's got heat vision and no problem with using it to burn off and instantly cauterize fingers. Also, I've got a permanent crick in my neck and an intense aversion to pointy hats that I'll carry with me forever, for my troubles.

You do the same, and you too, can have a Very Merry Christmas.