A real galleyshnogger of a Christmas
Dove in on December 25, 2022.
The 100-car pileup still clogging the Carparker-Harshbarger Parkway was only outdone by the 200-goose pileup clogging up my front yard. That bomb cyclone and the ensuing cold snap sure was a doozy! The snow and ice were three feet thick, from one end of my town to the other—only outdone, in front of my palatial abode, by the extra foot of solid goose shit on top of it all.
I looked up at my ceiling clock and grinsped anxiously. I wasn’t just late—I was Sofa King late.
For Christmas, I gave Becasue a sack of corn meal and she gave me another fourteen copies of Al Gore: A User’s Manual. I could always use more copies of that fine tome. I had long since run out of chairs and tables with uneven legs, but the season being winter, I needed something to light the fireplace, and these pages were as flammable as any.
For Christmas, the gnomes gave me more grief. They emerged from my wainscoting wheedling and needling, rustling my jimmies, and jingling my bells. The gnutes and gnizzles gave me more irresistible command hallucinations. They turned space-time inside-out and upside-down, much like my navel in spring. I gave them all an extended middle finger—and after that didn’t calm them down, an extended middle toe. Then I used all those al-gory books to start a fire in my kitchen, which chased the gnomes from my wainscoting, returned the gnutes and gnizzles to three-space, and burned down the entire neighborhood.
Amidst the roar of flames and wail of firetruck sirens, I serenaded my redheaded huzzey-muffet with that Christmas classic, “All I Want for Christmas Is Your Two Big Feet”. The fire was soon out. The smell of roast gnome and charred gnute filled my nostrils.
As they do every year, NORAD tracked Santa Claus’ flight down from the North Pole. But this time, they actually got the hoary old gnome before he could spread Christmas cheer and terror: A massive volley of surface-to-air missiles knocked his sleigh out of the sky over Arizona. The fiery crash just outside of Tucson rivaled that crater full of Volvos down in Bobo, Mississippi which I may or may not be responsible for.
The jingling wreck was still burning Christmas morning. There would be no toys for tots this year. But there would be discount roast venison at the local butcher shop for weeks to come.
“Serves that old gnome right,” I muttered sneeringly to myself. Childhood memories of empty cardboard boxes and dismally unstuffed stockings played across my synapses. Sometimes, revenge came late—but it was still as sweet.
It would be a real galleyshnogger of a Christmas this year, all right. A real galleyshnogger.
Being an avid daily reader of the Federal Register, I discovered that the U.S. survey foot will cease to exist when the calendar flops over from 2022 to 2023. This news was met with some indignation, as I use these rather exotic feet to measure most things in my Pnårpy life. Come next Sunday, I am going to wake up 0.043 891 287 thous shorter!
Would I ever be able to truly call myself a six-foot-tall man–squirrel again? I chittered nervously. Surely the rest of my squirrel family would disapprove. Surely Becasue would leave me for a taller man–squirrel. What am I to do? What …to do!?
“Hey, Emperor Sleestak! You big upright iguana!”
Christmastide continued unabated. I called all my friends and neighbors on the telephone and emphatically wished them a merry Christmas, but the greeting I chose did little more than sow confusion and consternation among them. The Fnords next door had no idea what a Sleestak even was. Plårp made annoyed pepperoni noises at me and hung up. And Borbra threatened to get a restraining order once and for all.
Wait until I wish them a happy New Year!
I returned to my dining room with Becasue. Piles and piles of food sat there in front of us: All that roast venison, charred gnute, and broiled gnome sure wasn’t about to go to waste. Nor would the frozen geese mounted on sticks, 200 of them. There was fried moose synapse, corn gone wrong, cans of spam the size of barrels, barrels of bacon grease the size of barrels, pickled garefowl eggs, and sticks of pepperoni longer than a 39½′ pole. And finally, there was my favorite: Red bouillabaisse in blonde sauce.
“Well… it ain’t gonna eat itself!” I shrugged and dove in.