How Things Work: Santa Claus Edition
Where do you think he got those tattoos? |
Your Gormogons are the stuff of legend, and as such run into other legends at the annual convention in Las Vegas. While Dr. J. has assurances from the Tooth Fairy that what happens in Vegas (long before he met Mrs. Dr. J.) will stay in Vegas, the Gormogons have a space-based dental drill positioned to insure her silence, but Dr. J. digresses.
One of his favorite drinking buddies at the convention is good old Santa Claus. Dr. J. has forgiven him for never delivering on that Millenium Falcon back in 1979, but the Atari 2600 in 1980 more than made up for it. There is a lot of misinformation on how Santa operates, and consequently this misinformation shakes the faith of many a child, resulting in them no longer believing in Santa Claus and resulting in great expense to the parents.
So, Gentle Readers, this is how Santa gets more done in a day than most folks get done in a year.
- Santa doesn’t go everywhere – Santa reduces his workload significantly by only delivering to the homes of believers. Entire regions of the world become fly-over country for him punctuated by brief stopovers for the occasional child.
- Santa has field agents who cover different parts of the world – Indeed St. Nicholas covers the Netherlands and northern Germany on December 5th with his controversial drowish sidekick ‘Black Pete.’ The Three Wise Guys cover Mexico on the Epiphany. La Befana brings gifts on the eve of the Epiphany to good little boys and girls in Italy, The Christkind used to drop off gifts to good Germanic little boys and girls on the 6th of December, but he breaks up his deliveries on that date AND the 24th. St. Lucia breaks up Italy with La Befana as well, delivering her gifts on the 13th, largely to Sicilian and Tuscan children. Dr. J. could give more examples, but he won’t, because he has other points to make.
- Those guys at the mall – Again, more field agents. Deputized Friends of Santa, much like our minions.
- Santa doesn’t even hit all the houses of American believers on Christmas Eve – There is no way that Santa can make it everywhere in a single night. Let’s just be honest there. Despite all of the planning, relativistic time-dilation, magic and immortality, ‘you canna change the laws of physics…’ so he doesn’t try. The families are on a rotation schedule of who receives there presents via UPS/Fed-Ex/USPS every year. Those presents Almanzo Wilder found in the barn with Royal. The ones that are sitting in Dr. J.’s closet presently? All of those were shipped from Santa in advance. You see, here is the dark secret. Amazon.com is a front organization for Santa’s North Pole operation. Who would think a company named for an equatorial river would have anything to do with the North Pole (a 90º turn, indeed). Think about it. J.B. Jeff Bezos, Jingle Bells…coincidence, Dr. J. thinks not!
- Why is he fat? – On Christmas Eve, burns far more calories than than even his frame can hold. Please leave him cookies and milk.
- He knows if you are bad or good – That permanent record file from school, you know, the one with the confiscated notes, chewing gum, slingshot…the one that becomes your personnel file? There’s that. When you go to that child-bearing class at the hospital when you/your wife is pregnant, they give you Santa’s naughty/nice line. 1-800-BAD-COAL. Operative BG, let Dr. J. know how that works out for you!
- Why do some kids get more presents for Santa than other kids – Santa has access to Mom and Dad’s tax returns, and after a few Snakebites at the bar at The Cosmopolitan, muttered something to Dr. J. about income inequality, the real meaning of fairness, plausible deniability, President Obama, and coal.