A not very merry interview with Mr. Claus

Originally published Nov. 25, 2012

As one of the top five reporters on the staff of the Lebanon Daily Record, I pretty much get the plum assignments around here. Any time a celebrity or politician passes through town, I'm on it like tinsel on a shag carpet.

So it's no surprise that I was able to wrangle the assignment from my boss when Santa Claus came to town Friday night. We had negotiated with his agent for an exclusive interview following his appearance at the LDR office during the Community Christmas Tree celebration.

For a couple hours, he sat there listening to kids' Christmas wishes. Once the last tot had teetered off with its parents, the jolly old fellow leaned back on his big chair and sighed tiredly.

I could tell when he asked Mrs. Claus to go start the car that he didn't intend to spend a lot of time on this interview.

I noticed a dark red spot on Santa's pants leg in the vicinity of his lap. Apparently a child hadn't been able to contain his or her excitement during the short visit. I wondered how many blissfully ignorant children had sat there after that little accident.

"Mr. Claus? Or may I call you Santa?" I began, introducing myself.

"Mr. Claus will do," he said, studying the framed newspaper awards on the wall of the conference room-turned-Santa chamber.

"Not seeing your name anywhere up there," he observed.

It seemed I had caught Santa in kind of a cranky mood.

I gestured toward the damp spot on his leg. "That happen a lot?"

"Enough that I wear rubber scuba pants underneath the suit," Santa said. "It's murderously hot in here. Don't you people ever leave a window open?"

I ignored that and got right down to my list of questions. Well, truthfully, I didn't have a list. I tend to wing it, often resulting in long pauses between questions during which I pretend to be writing something down.

"First off, your agent said you're the real deal, not one of the helper Santas," I said. "Do you have any way of proving it?"

Santa snorted in disdain. "Why should I? It's your article. You can look stupid by interviewing a helper Santa or claim I'm the real Santa and you got a scoop. It's bad enough having to constantly prove I exist without dealing with people who think I am an impostor."

He seemed to have anger issues.

I wondered if maybe Santa had been at this job a little too long. Too bad he can't retire, I thought, but his 401K probably got creamed like everybody else's in '08.

To settle the issue of his identity, I leapt at him and pulled at his beard. Santa screamed in pain and batted me to the floor with a white-gloved fist. I pulled myself up warily, rubbing my sore head.

Santa stood as if ready to stomp me with his shiny black boots.

"Sorry," I said. "Had to be sure."

"That didn't prove ANYTHING!" Santa thundered. "I could just be a regular guy with a white beard!" He took a step toward me and I backed away.

"Calm down," I said. "Hey, I'm sorry I pulled your beard. Really."

"Sorry doesn't cut it," Santa said, but his tone lost some of the rage, and he went back and collapsed into the chair again. "Man, this job gets to your back."

This interview was going better than the one with Gov. Nixon had.

"So," I said, "Why reindeer? What's up with that?"

"Horses don't fly, you idiot," Santa said.

"Good point," I said, pretending to write something down and trying to come up with a good question. "How long you been doing this Santa Claus gig?" I asked.

"Since about the 4th Century," Claus said.

"Long time," I commented. "How old are you?"

Santa looked exasperated. "I'll bring you a calculator next month," he said sarcastically.

"You know, you're portrayed a lot nicer in Hallmark movies," I said, sick of his attitude.

He grinned. "I spend a lot on PR," he said.

I nodded. Made sense.

"Hey, do you feel that bringing free gifts to children gives them a sense of entitlement that will hurt them in the long run by making it less likely they'll be willing to work to get the things they want in life?"

"No," Santa said. "I think kids like toys. You can over-think these things."

I pretended to write down something. "By the way," I said at length. "That Vertibird I got when I was 8 was totally cool. I played with that for weeks."

"Actually, that was supposed to be your sister 's," Santa said.

"You were getting the Easy-Bake Oven, but your dad switched them. That was the year you cussed at Vacation Bible School."

"Oh yeah," I remembered. "Stupid popsicle sticks and cheap stupid glue. I don't know how anybody builds anything out of that crap."

"Speaking of which, I flew over that house you and your wife are building in Falcon last year," Claus said. "I see you haven't changed much."

I let that - which might have been an insult - pass. "Speaking of Joyce, she said to tell you hi," I said.

A car horn honked. I looked outside the big windows of the newspaper office and saw a huge Chrysler Imperial, red of course, pulled up to the curb.

Mrs. Claus was shouting something we couldn't hear and gesturing.

"Gotta go," Claus said. "She's got to see her shows on the television or she's a bear to live with."

"I hear ya," I said, standing and shaking his hand. "Merry Christmas, Mr. Claus," I said.

"Likewise," he muttered, and left.

How come my insurance guy can't fly like Flo?

I was watching football on TV last Sunday, and after somebody fumbled or threw an interception or whatever, the game stopped for a couple minutes so the network could play commercials.

Shoot, I don't mind. The fellows need to catch their breath, so I might as well watch informative and often amusing messages about amazing products and services in the interim.

One of my favorites is the Flying Insurance Lady, Flo. She always has some witty or novel way to hawk her company's car insurance.

You wouldn't think car insurance would be so much fun, but sometimes this lady floats right up into the air next to that big sign that lets you compare your rates to those of several other companies.

She's always in a big, gleaming white room with no definite boundaries, suggestive of heaven.

I've covered enough government meetings as a reporter to know it's not always easy to make a dry subject interesting to the general public, but Flo nails it every time. I laugh and laugh.

My car insurance guy, Ralph, is down the street from my office. He also is a pretty amusing guy, but I've never seen him float up in the air. I'm thinking about switching companies.

To be fair, I only stop in at Ralph's once or twice a month to say hello, so I could be missing some floating.

I wonder if car insurance guys cringe when they watch that commercial where the SUV crashes through a stone wall and emerges in slow motion, without a scratch, on the other side. I'm thinking that must work on the same principle used by the karate fellows who can break bricks with a single chop.

When I was in college, a friend of mine was really into Tae Kwon Do. This was long before "Walker: Texas Ranger," so he was a relatively rare specimen. His nickname was "Ninja."

We both attended a speech class in which one assignment was to give a speech that demonstrated how to do something. I chose as my topic "How to Give a Speech Without Any Preparation Whatsoever."

Ninja chose "How to Break Boards With Your Bare Hands."

Ninja hammered those boards for about 10 minutes, then, red-handed and red-faced, sat down. He still got a better grade than my D, and I don't remember which of us got more laughs.

What bothers me about that crashing-through-awall commercial is that there's no disclaimer or warning message. It doesn't say "Professional driver, closed course" or "Don't try this at home."

Now, I am surely not in favor of more government regulations to thwart the success of businesses, but there ought to be a law. I bet there are people on the other side of the Mississippi who are driving into stone walls all over the place because of that commercial.

On the other hand, the Earth has a carrying capacity of about two billion humans once the fossil fuels run out, so we have to get rid of about five billion between now and then. I reckon the people who drive their cars into walls on purpose might as well go first. I hope they're showing that commercial in other countries too.

I own a little SUV, and I reckon I could drive it into a brick wall real fast, but I don't know how to drive in slow motion on the other side, so I haven't tried it.

Well, that's not strictly true. I have one spark plug wire that keeps popping off, and when it does that, I kind of drive in slow motion up the hill out of Twin Bridges, which can frustrate the folks behind me a little bit.

When you hit middle age, you become one of the people who is driving a hair slower than the average anyway. Either that, or people are just in more of a hurry these days.

This is an in-between age in which the older folks in front of you are going too slow and the younger folks behind you think you are.

My wife and I make up little stories about the people driving in front of us on the way to town.

"Looks like Esther and Nathaniel got hold of Trish's keys again," I'll say, and Joyce will come back with something like, "Yep. There ain't a nursing home that can hold 'em."

We keep ourselves entertained and I avoid pounding the steering wheel in frustration.

I do worry about Flo.

She's always so chipper when she's floating around and comparing rates, but if you look close, there's sadness in those eyes.

Seeking sense in underwear patterns

My awesome wife, Joyce, buys my clothes. I haven't purchased as much as a sock for myself in more than a decade. This frees me up for things like worrying about the Cincinnati Bengals, which really requires a good bit of my time during the fall and winter.

If you saw last Monday night's game, you'll understand.

Not too long ago, Joyce noticed that some of my undergarments were in sorry shape, so she bought a new bag of boxers. It had six pairs in it. One of the designs is camouflage.

Now, I am not picky about undergarments. I figure the occasion is pretty rare for them to be revealed to anyone else, or at least it would be if I could remember to wear my belt every day. So the pattern of the underwear isn't very important to me.

But I can't imagine a situation in which, dressed only in my underwear, I will ever need to blend into the surrounding underbrush. Yet I know the end of civilization is nigh, and it's hard to predict what situations might confront us in the post-apocalyptic world to come.

Still, camouflage-patterned underwear makes no sense to me.

I suppose a soldier who is picky about matching clothes - even if they don't show - might like my camouflage underwear. Well, I don't mean he or she would specifically like mine; I imagine he or she would rather have their own.

I don't still have my battle-dress uniforms from my Army days, or I could wear them on the one day a week I wear the camouflage underwear. I might forget my belt on purpose that day just so folks would know how pattern-coordinated I am.

To be truthful, on the day after my release from the Army in 1990, there was an incident involving a cleared area, uniforms, gasoline and a match, followed by hysterical glee and dancing, that eliminated my BDUs for good.

I saved a field jacket, which my dad wore when riding his motorcycle for a couple years. Luckily, we have the same last name.

You wonder what think tank came up with the idea of camouflage-patterned underwear. I reckon every combination of stripes, polka-dots and hearts already had been used. They couldn't just use Homer Simpson's face repeated to make a pattern, because everyone already has a pair like that, unless they're poor.

Maybe it was a specific incident that generated the idea. Some underwear designer probably was camping with his or her family, went to use the bathroom in the great outdoors, and was spotted by something or someone because they did not blend in well enough, leading to red-faced embarrassment or an attack by a bear.

Some day I may encounter a situation in which these underwear save my life. And, luckily, one of the other patterns is also a camouflage design, but in blues, grays and whites instead of greens, browns and blacks. So I'll be covered (pun intended) during the wintertime too.

***

Did you ever notice that when you're going through kind of a rough patch, and the nice people around you are sympathetically asking if there is anything they can do, and you say you'd like a sandwich, they almost never go get you one? In fact, they get a little huffy.

Kind of like Christmas' evil twin

The judge was a tough one, tough but fair, according to the courthouse scuttlebutt. I reckoned I needed to establish right off that I knew what was what. I had been brushing up on my Latin.

"Your Honor, ipso facto, if it please the court, I'm the defendant," I answered when my name was called.

His honor stared at me and I sat down. 

***

I get sued a lot.

It must be my winning personality coupled with my inability to pay all the bills I have. A certain hospital system in Springfield is suing me, annually. Getting sued once a year is like Christmas's evil twin.

I write a lot of articles about court cases, and I've read every John Grisham book at least twice, except for that one about the painted house. All my experience lumped together probably amounts to at least the equivalent of a night school law degree, so I'm representing myself this time around. 

I figure I'll somehow wind up in Witness Protection with millions in a Cayman Island bank account by the time it's all said and done. That's how most of the Grisham books end, unless somebody gets shot.

***

The other fella, the lawyer representing the hospital, started bad-mouthing me right away, whining to His Honor about how I had run up all these medical bills and never paid them.

"I object!" I hollered. "Your Honor, I would like everything that guy just said to be stricken from the record! This ain't nothing but a scandulum magnatum."

The judge seemed a little surprised. I reckoned he never figured he would have a near-expert amateur litigator to contend with. I hadn't spent the 90s watching Matlock five times a week for nothing.

"You know this isn't a trial, right?" he asked me. 

Well, that was true. It was a shame, too, because I had a great opening statement I had practiced all night. I couldn't wait to tell everybody they can't handle the truth. I sat down again.

"Now," His Honor said, shuffling some papers up there on the bench. "Mr. York, are you disputing that you owe this amount to the plaintiff?"

I stood up again. "Your Honor, before I answer that, at this time I would like to request a brief recess to confer with my client," I said.

The judge eyed me. "But you're representing yourself," he said.

"Well, that's so, but I think I should have the same right to a recess everybody else gets," I said reasonably. "You'll remember in Cagney versus Lacey, 1992, it was determined that — "

"Cagney versus Lacey? Now you're just making stuff up," the judge snapped.

Caught. I had figured citing nonexistent precedents would go unnoticed in just a hearing. "Well, maybe it was called something else," I mumbled. "Blame my loco parentis." I sat down.

"Loco something," the judge muttered. It gave me an idea.

"Your Honor," I said, standing up again. "I'm not sure my client is competent to stand trial. I'd like to request a full battery of psychiatric tests before we proceed."

"But you're representing yourself!" the judge said again, sounding a little impatient now.

"Correct, Your Honor," I said. "And if I am found to be mentally incompetent, my client will have grounds for appeal because of ineffective assistance of counsel."

"I'm pretty much ready to rule on that one right now," His Honor said. "Just answer yes or no, OK? Do you owe these guys this money? The truth, now."

He was asking for it. "You can't handle —"

"STOP!" His Honor thundered, glaring. "If I have to hear that one more time —"

"Your Honor, I feel I should take the Fifth at this point," I said. "And I'd like to get it on the record that I have not been properly Mirandized," I added.

"You can't take the Fifth. This isn't a criminal proceeding," the judge said.

"I disagree, Your Honor," I said. "If I had just walked into the hospital and taken as much money as I owe those guys, you'd have my habeas corpus in jail."

"Aha! So you do owe the money. Pay it," the judge ordered.

I was undone by all the legal trickery. I left the courtroom, my mind already racing with my strategy for the appeal.

***

All right, all right, this didn't really happen. Calm down.

Ken York is the assistant/Sunday editor of The Daily Record in Lebanon, Mo. 

Guns, tomatoes and government goons

Let me apologize in advance to the people who read this column every Sunday hoping for a little levity about Bigfoots, aliens and such. I’m afraid my subject this week is no laughing matter.


Once this newspaper is published on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012, I may not be heard from again. I’m hoping that, in appreciation for my alerting you to the horrible danger you are in, someone will remember to ask the musicians to play “Rhymes and Reasons” by John Denver at my tasteful outdoor memorial service, should the government allow one to be held. I would also like bagpipes — no more than seven — to play something rousing and patriotic after the 21-gun salute, if it’s not too much trouble.


I know you are asking why the government would provide soldiers for a 21-gun salute if it’s not inclined to allow the memorial service in the first place. Well, it probably won’t. I imagine a few of my friends and family will volunteer to serve as the honor guard. Just bring whatever guns you happen to have laying around, and please drill somewhat beforehand so as not to disrupt the sombre occasion with clumsiness and inadvertent firing.


Probably it would be a good idea not to invite the relatives with whom my branch of the family is currently feudin’ if there are going to be a lot of guns there, but that’s your call.


I have no particular fancy for flowers, but I understand if you all wish to show your deep and abiding grief by laying garlands of roses — blue, please —  across the base of the white and gray marble monolith which I expect will tower — quite against my wishes, as I am a humble sort — over the assembled grieving mobs. Under the etched words, “Our greatest hero, Ken York, was taken too soon by the goons of Homeland Security who could not allow the truth,” I hope you will find comfort and solace for your loss.


My friend and colleague, Fines Massey, may be delivering a few short remarks, possibly referring at times to the binder which I have provided him. Please do not be put off by his attire should he choose to wear that of a priest; his ordination is legitimate, according to the website from which I procured it for $17.95.


I doubt there will be any remains to dispose of, but if there are, my wife, Joyce, knows my wishes. I would like to be composted, of course. A return to the earth from which man was crafted is my intent.


It’s not a difficult process; just dump the remains on the ground and throw some leaves, sawdust and whatever kitchen scraps you might have on the pile. You’ll have to turn it with a pitchfork once every couple days and liberally apply compost activator. As you know, urine is the best compost activator, plus it adds nitrogen to the mix, which is always good. I can’t imagine there will be any shortage of donors.


I suppose if I could choose, I would ask that the finished compost be used to grow heirloom tomatoes. Brandywines are still my favorite, but I find Arkansas Traveler is also a good tomato. I doubt I’ll be able to dissuade you all from gathering on the anniversary of my demise each year and solemnly consuming a tomato sandwich with lots of mayonnaise on very fresh white bread. It’s pretty good if you slap a fried egg on there, too, and a couple slices of crisp bacon can make you forget you are grieving.


I must be realistic and recognize that my passing may move many in the community to push for a name change for our little Ozarks city at some point. I beg you not to do so, but if you do, please consider that “York City” would be a logical choice, even if at some far flung future date its origin should be so obscured by time’s passage as to cause many to believe it to be the original for which New York City was named. There’s certainly nothing you or I can do to prevent that here in the 21st Century.


But I digress. Now, as the bottom of this column edges ever closer, I come to the dire news which I must impart:


Homeland Security is replacing us, one by one, with robots that will do the bidding of its secret masters. Arm yourselves with squirtguns, for they haven’t yet waterproofed their malefic creations, so they short out easily. Squirt everyone you know, and then run! 


Jumper cables attached to the ears may also destroy the robots, but be careful not to do this to someone who might be human, as they get angry and slap you repeatedly. I also should mention that Joyce wasn’t a robot as of Friday.


Ken York is the assistant editor of The Daily Record. Past columns and other writings may be viewed on his blog at http://ken-york.blogspot.com/.

Monkeys don't try to spare your feelings

I hope when the aliens come they can’t read our minds.

You nice people probably wouldn’t have a problem. Your first reaction to any situation is invariably positive, wholesome and, if need be, sympathetic. I can’t help but compare your positivity and goodness with my own sarcasm and downright uncharitable nature.

If someone tells a nice person that Aunt Jill has passed away, he coos something like, “Poor thing! She’s with the Lord now.”

When I’m told the same thing, my first thought is “How can you tell?” or “Not surprised, since she’s been saying she’s dying for 50 years.”

I don’t say those things aloud — anymore. Instead I mumble something like, “Poor thing. She’s with the Lord now.”

Telepathic aliens would nail me to the wall for the things I don’t say. (Unless they had taken the time to get to know Aunt Jill, that is.)

I have a young friend, Paula, who is so nice that probably her first, unexpressed thought is actually nicer than what she comes out and says. I think she censors herself the other way, probably because people in the past have suspected sarcasm where there was none. She always find the good in people, looks on the bright side, turns the other cheek and blah blah blah. I’ve tried to get her depressed and cynical about the world, but it never takes.

Mind-reading aliens could be a little dangerous. The last thing I need is a little green guy named Skirzuk following me into Walmart and telling everybody what I really think of them.

He’d point at a woman and say, “You’re wearing pajama pants? In a store? What happened, did you accidentally sleep in your dress clothes?” He’d point at a guy and say, “That dude’s balder than I am, and that rug ain’t fooling anybody. Get a hat, you loser.”

That would get me beat up a lot. What’s worse, when the people came to beat me up, Skirzuk would tell them that despite my impressive defensive posture, I don’t really know kung fu.

Eventually, the world might be a better place with Skirzuk and his intergalactic cronies running around. They say honesty is the best policy. We might get to a point where we no longer need Skirzuk’s clan. Folks would just say what was on their minds naturally without considering the consequences, like I assume monkeys must do. I have never had a monkey try to spare my feelings.

I’m guessing a lot of our leaders wouldn’t get re-elected, but the tar and feathers industries might experience a boom, and that means jobs, jobs, jobs!

***

Joyce and I have a new grandson on the way, and we’re coming up with potential names. The last name starts with a “Z,” so we’re all coming up with “Z” first names (I’m not sure why). My submission, “Zebulon,” has been rejected, but that’s no big deal, since the primary role of the step-grandfather is to dub the poor child with a nickname that sticks despite the wishes of the unfortunate parents.

I pointed out to Joyce that the little guy is going to have the initials, “Z.Z.,” which could prove very funny should he ever suffer from narcolepsy.

You have to be careful with the initials when you’re working with a “Z.” You can’t name him “Edward” or “Ethan,” because if he grows up to be a little gullible everyone will call him “EZ.” Likewise, you can’t name him “Ken” or “Keith,” because if he marches to the beat of a different drummer, people will laugh and say he’s “KZ.”

“Ulysses” is out, unless you want Homeland Security watching “Uzi” all his life.

I think anything starting with an “F” or “S” is safe, but I have to think about it some more.

Why is the gov't secretly making beer for Bigfoots?

I like reading on the Outdoors page of our local newspaper every Thursday about the critter of the week, usually one that's rare or endangered. But while the article always gives a lot of info about habitat, lifespan and whatnot, it almost never has a recipe.

I'm not saying I would ever intentionally hunt down a protected species, knock it on the head and throw it in the deep fryer. I'm just saying if I should happen to stumble across a recently deceased Bigfoot, I'd like to know the best way to handle the opportunity.

Nobody on the Internet has a decent Bigfoot recipe. I think that's why our little corner of the Ozarks is overrun.

I can't claim I've seen any around our place myself, but they're there. When your min-pins start barking every 10 minutes for what seems like no reason, you've either got a Bigfoot problem or your little dogs are stupid.

I admit to wondering whether it wasn't the dogs being a little daffy, but there's other evidence. Seems like whenever Joyce and I both have to work, when we get home, some critter has dragged trash all over the place.

Bigfoots are partial to potato chip bags, peanut butter jars and styrofoam cups, and sometimes they play mean tricks. We've found Gizmo, the matriarch of our canine clan, with a peanut butter jar stuck on her head more than once.

The reason I know it must be Bigfoots is that the mess is both inside the house - usually on my side of the bed - and outside. No animal without opposable thumbs would be able to open the door.

I think Bigfoots also terrorize the chickens when we're not home. Thelma, Louise, Lucy and Ethel all show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. No matter what you do around them, they're convinced you're trying to kill them.

Try to fill their water dish outside, and they go flapping and squawking away in a panic. Scatter some feed in their pen and they almost have heart attacks. "Aaaahh! He's trying to kill us! Again!"

I can't imagine that they're idiot chickens. They've all done well on standardized tests, at least the multiple choice parts. Ethel's the only one who's any good at essay questions. We home-school.

Something has those chickens scared, and it's Bigfoots, mark my words.

There's a recipe on the Internet for Bigfoot burgers, but it calls for ground beef. What kind of idiot makes Bigfoot burgers out of dead cow meat? I wrote an angry letter to the website, but I haven't heard back.

Lots of recipes are out there for Bigfoot beer. The only thing that I can think is that those recipes must come from some secret government program.

It only makes sense. A normal person like you and me would take pictures if we captured a Bigfoot long enough for it to taste-test beer. Probably, once the Bigfoot was a little tipsy, we'd put it in a dress and try to teach it to ride a bicycle or something. Or let it loose in the courthouse. Oh man, I would pay to see that.

Come on, you know you would too.

Whatever we did with it would no doubt make the papers, if not CNN. Since that hasn't happened, the Bigfoot beer brewers have to be the only ones in the world humorless enough to get a Bigfoot drunk and not eventually break some kind of law.

That just screams "secret government program" to me.