The Scoop: Nothing says loving like new underwear
Ahh, the Friday after Thanksgiving, the one and only day we get to see Santa leap from an airplane and land his parachute at Three Star Mall.
For me, Santa plummeting to the earth at around 150 mph is my first sign Christmas is around the corner. As far as my biological clock is concerned, Santa’s freefall is the way my body knows it’s time to begin shopping.
If, for some reason, I didn’t see Santa leap from a plane, I don’t suppose it would be any great catastrophe. I wouldn’t spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars Christmas shopping and all my relatives wouldn’t get gifts they don’t really want.
I say that because it’s painfully difficult to shop for people once they’re adults, and I use myself as a prime example. When I was younger, you could get me a bulldozer, a football, or just about anything I could push, throw or spin. I would be just as happy as a kid at Christmas. OK, so I was a kid at Christmas.
Today, I don’t play with bulldozers as much and probably have a football for every room in the house. So what do you get a guy like me? For anyone looking for hints, ocean-front property would be nice. A better dental insurance plan would also earn bonus points.
But those ideas aren’t really Christmas gift material and that’s where the ever-popular backup plan comes into play: the three-pack of Fruit of the Loom.
Yes, the trusty three-pack, always sure to be a mainstay under the tree. The three-pack is sure to be as much a part of my holidays as fruit cake and mistletoe. This, apparently, is what I really want for Christmas because the three-pack always finds its way under the tree with my name on it.
This has been such a recurring Christmas gift for me, I regret to say I’ve developed a certain degree of skill detecting which box contains the underwear. This is a trick I originally learned during a trip to the orient and I’ve spent years refining the craft.
OK, so maybe my trip to the orient is a bit of an exaggeration. A trip to the Chinese buffet is about as close to Asia as I’ll ever be.
To combat this almost supernatural ability I have to locate all-cotton briefs in wrapped packages, my relatives have upped the ante. They’ve been known to take the biggest, bulkiest box – the kind capable of holding a 10 speed bike – and hide underwear inside.
So there I am, a gigantic box on my lap and thinking major stereo equipment must be inside. I rifle through the paper, push aside the plastic peanuts and find ? a three-pack of underwear. Isn’t Christmas grand.
But undeniably, the best thing about the holidays is the loving cheer, the spirit of togetherness, that’s shared throughout the community. Around Christmas, I’m so nice, I don’t even use sign language when someone cuts me off in traffic. It’s the least I can do.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares this love of mankind around the holidays. In fact, in today’s issue of the Standard on page 7-A, is the story of a woman who is obviously not feeling warm and fuzzy as Christmas approaches. This woman, who is also a nurse, conned her ex-husband into allowing her to give him a flu shot.
If this sounds like a good Samaritan thing to do, wait just a minute. Instead of having a flu vaccine inside the syringe, the woman had a heavy mixture of barbiturates. The woman was trying to euthanize her ex-husband the way vets across the country do dogs and cats each and every day.
Call me old-fashioned, but that’s not the right attitude to have around the holidays. It’s the time of year to love your family members, not try to put them to sleep. And remember, when trying to reach out and show your true feelings, nothing says love like a three-pack of Fruit of the Loom.
(James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at standard@blomand.net.)