Today a merry flurry of hundreds of red suits, white fur trim, long beards and jolly bellies came together in Seattle to crush one local child’s imagination forever.
“I was gonna ask for a new bicycle, but now all I want is for it to stop—just make it stop,” cried the child, Timmy Watkins, as five drunken Santas wobbled past him on a sidewalk so one could puke in a gutter. “I thought there was just one magical Santa at the North Pole working hard with his elves until traveling the world on Christmas Eve, but now I know he’s just contracting the work out now to a bunch of local alcoholics. Well, at least I know why there was an empty bottle of gin next to my stocking last year.”
Unconsoled by his mother’s assurances that these were just a bunch of funny men dressed in Santa suits for Santa Con and there still very much was a Santa up at the North Pole carefully considering his Christmas list, Timmy demanded to know who the hell that mall Santa was then.
“So you had me sit on a strange man’s lap to tell him what I wanted – what is going on here?” Timmy said. “What’s next? You gonna wrap up a copy of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States to put under the tree and then still tell me this country has always been about freedom? Jesus fucking Christ, Mom, give me some credit.”
In addition to having his imagination too shattered to continue believing in Santa Claus, at press time, Timmy had also sadly even lost the ability to still believe in the Mariners and that the Sonics will ever come back.
