Santa and the Easter Bunny are Fighting for Your Freedom

EMERGENCY SESSION OF NATO’S COUNCIL FOR PEACE THROUGH WAR

The wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Gaza, Ferguson, Missouri, and the skyway system in St. Paul, Minnesota, were experiencing a few hiccups.

“We have member states and Notable Personages protected by the treaty who aren’t pulling their weight,” a U.S. general said. “It’s time for these freeloaders to bleed into the trough of war.”

By unanimous decree the U.N. forced the North Pole and the land of Grassbasket to join the U.N. — and then immediately ordered a group of highly trained seals to escort Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny into battle. The seals honked their circus horns and padded off, barking. They did anything for fish.

SANTA AND EASTER BUNNY “VOLUNTEER” TO JOIN GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM

After some rough handling at the leathery flippers of the seal team, Santa and the Easter Bunny faced one another across a narrow aisle, perched awkwardly on jump seats, their assault rifles and grenades criss-crossing their knees.

“This is my busy season,” Santa lamented over the roar of the plane’s engines.

“You think you got problems.” The Easter Bunny’s pointy teeth bobbed against his furry chin as he spoke. “Me and the missus were just about to cuddle when those toads broke in on us.”

Santa was about to tell him how many years the Bunny family had been excluded from his Nice list due to their disgusting rabbit practices when a high-pitched whistle gained in intensity.

A crackle from the speakers erupted to life. “Incoming. We’ve got incoming.”

On the ground, Cobra Commander had been firing off bottle rockets to celebrate his civil union to Snake Eyes. Seeing that he had struck a NATO transport plane, he cursed his luck, thinking the wrath of the American military would rain on his honeymoon in the Hamptons.

“We’ve worked too hard for marriage equality,” he said, his tears unseen behind the combat mask.

Fortunately for him, drone surveillance operators misidentified him as the Egyptian goddess Isis, which sparked a new war with ancient animal-headed gods. But that’s a different story.

Meanwhile, Santa and the Easter Bunny were tossed out of the plane by the seal team who went leaping out behind them just before the plane exploded like the closing fireworks at the Minnesota State Fair. The Easter Bunny was oohing and aahing in free fall while Santa screamed his head off in blind panic.

“Why do they hate our freeeeeeeeeedommmm?!!?”

He rummaged desperately in his sack of toys (did I mention he brought his sack of toys?) and pulled out an inflatable raft meant as a present for Vladimir Putin. He pulled a cord causing the raft to inflate as they splashed into the ocean.

DAY 23

The last bottle of Smart Water was gone. There were no more Cadbury eggs to be had. Miles of open sea caked the Easter Bunny’s fur with salt, making Santa imagine him as what the French call prêt à consommer. Likewise the Easter Bunny couldn’t help but salivate, imagining that under that red velvet jacket and snow-white beard lurked a giant jolly carrot. They didn’t speak much, because they knew that very soon they would need to make a Big Decision. The Ultimate Decision: which holiday would they celebrate next?

As is the case in many tales of popular holiday figures stranded on the high seas by errant fireworks from a gay marriage celebration, the tale of Santa and the Easter Bunny found a happy resolution. A small boat appeared on the horizon—wait. Not quite a proper boat they realized as it neared. Two young men pedaled the contraption propped on bicycle seats. They wore white button-up shirts, black ties, and bicycle helmets that protected earnest smiles.

It was a long pedal back to land, and in that time, Santa and the Easter Bunny were won over to Mormonism. Mr. Bunny was particularly interested in the concept of polygabunnyism. Santa liked the thought of taking it easy at Christmas.

But the real world would not relent. By the time our heroes saw their first sanctioned news source, they realized their mission to fight for our Freedom was not over. Video footage of people dressed like ninjas beheading candy peeps drove the Easter Bunny to a blood lust. News that the elves had unionized and were agitating for a $10.10 minimum wage made Santa drop some very naughty words.

Santa spit polished his boots until they were a shiny coal black. He slid of his red floppy hat with the white pom-pom at the tip and replaced it with a red bandana.

“They drew first blood, ho ho ho.”

And this is how the world was made safe from terrorism, forever and always. If you don’t believe it, then you are a terrorist who is now on Santa’s no-fly list.

Ukraine "Snookers" Rebels

Odd graphic-text pairing from Wikipedia today.

"We came at them with all we had: bank shots, bump shots, trick shots..."

I've Got Mail, and It's Terrifying

Spring had put the earth through the proverbial car wash the past several days. I opened the metal mailbox attached to the front of my house to check for rainwater seepage, but something else was in there: an envelope.

I scanned the front of the house for damage. Nothing in the front yard seemed to be missing. No broken windows. Then I squinted down the sidewalk caught a flash of white as a U.S. postal van sped around the corner.

Someone from the government had simply dropped the envelope in my mailbox and fled. I lifted it out carefully. Fortunately I was already wearing latex gloves after the wildly successful used-syringe drive at the local library.

Other than the beating the post office had inflicted on the long white envelope date-stamped by NEW YORK NY and waving a U.S. flag on the postage stamp, the outside was tattooed with a specimen of Doc Hurley’s handwriting.

At first I was confused about why he would go to the trouble of wasting a postage stamp just to tell me the location of my house, but there it was: my name and address written in large printed letters for the entire postal system to see.

Maybe he was writing to tell me his mailing address? Did he want to exchange Mother’s Day cards? It seemed unlikely because his own name and address were written in smaller letters and at an angle, like an afterthought.

A terrible thought flashed: had he sold out to the NSA? Was this, like a Judas kiss, Doc Hurley’s way of alerting the Feds to my whereabouts? Little white postal vans parked on every corner, their blue mail receptacles listening stations.

The postage stamp could be an RFID chip tracking my movements. My god — what was Doc Hurley thinking?

I raced inside, deadbolting the door behind me. I drew all the shades and turned off the lights. Everything was quiet except for the pounding of my heart.

After I caught my breath, I brought the letter to my clean room (which is adjacent to the panic room where I also store my Soloflex). The clean room’s UV lights neutralize many microbial biohazards on first contact, but to be on the safe side, I placed the envelope in the pressure chamber and turned the nickel-finish knob to the lowest setting. 

It was from Brooklyn, after all.

I made sure all the seals in my biohazard suit were in tact before I opened the envelope.
Inside was folded an undated article from the New York Times, the pages ripped from the magazine in a tax accountant’s waiting room, undoubtedly.

It was like subletting a magazine subscription, getting the Times like this, delivered by para-government agents in blue uniforms and khaki pith helmets that made them look more like zoo keepers than the harbingers of foreclosures and oil-change coupons.

I cannot reveal the nature of this article to you. The redactions I would be forced to make would render them meaningless. I will say there was strong smell of chloroform on the pages, but that was probably because I had chloroform for lunch.

Besides, the article would just distract you from my main point: don’t send mail. It attracts carriers.

The Three Penny Orphan:

Now with more Mariachi Kidnappers!

A Mash Up of Little Orphan Annie and Mack the Knife for Erin Oberdorfer.

*******

Who really is Little Orphan Annie? Where did she come from? What brought her to her desperate state of orphanism?

These are the questions haunting the cast of the new smash hit

THREE PENNY ORPHAN!

---------------

A big-time eleven-year-older in the Eleven-Year-Old scene takes a tumble into the dark side of New York when she meets the handsome Macheath, (Mack the Knife), on loan from Newgate Prison in London.

He’s as attracted to her family’s vast wealth as she is attracted to his brooding eyes, pouting lips, and chiseled strength.

In the opening scene, our little red-headed heroine, Annie Mayfax, belts out the following ditty from the marble atrium of her parent’s Manhattan palace:

Oh golly gee I don’t want to be an Orphan!

Oh no sirree I can’t happily say...yeeeeeesssss!

To a life without mom and dad and happiness!

The crowd applauds as she tries to bow, but her big eleven-year-old bobble head sends her off kilter and she nearly tips over. But if she were to fall over, she would land in a big pile of caviar, because her family is so rich.

What could go wrong for this eleven-year-old up-and-comer who laughed at destitution? Who scorned the working class? And spurned the affections of the less wealthy, the less polite, the less-than-eleven?

Macheath, that’s who.

Yes, Macheath, better known to the musically inclined and the fey as Mack the Knife.

Macheath has eluded capture from cops and thugs alike during his brief stay in the big city of New York. He has hidden himself in the nearest mansion on Park Avenue he could find. After singing the I Walk a Crooked Path song, he is forced to disguise himself as a piñata during a big eleven-year-old birthday to-do.

(For the less culturally inclined: a piñata is a candy-filled effigy of a harmless animal or a political opponent, traditionally cracked open by terrifying bands of children wielding sticks.)

What is the first line Macheath utters when he falls to the floor of the Mayfax mansion after being pummeled mercilessly by Annie and her uber-rich, uber-good-looking eleven-year-old friends?

New York doesn’t seem that different from the Old York, if you ask me!

The future orphan and her stick-wielding four-year-old friends interrogate the lank, candy-coated stranger who has invaded the luxurious Mayfax mansion.

Who are you?

What are you doing here?

Are you mean, like a hairy ruffian?

Could you be

An awful cemeterian?

Bad! Bad! Bad!

...and they renew their assault on Macheath with sticks, punctuating the rhythm of each bad in the song with a blow of broom handles right on his piñata.

“No es bueno,” Macheath whispers before lapsing into unconsciousness, but not before witnessing a group of sinister south-of-the-border banditos kidnapping Annie and the other children and snapping the children’s sticks like matches to the rhythm of the Stick ‘em Up song done in Mexican mariachi style.

“Stick ‘em up! Stick ‘em up! Stick ‘em up!

Or you die!

Get in this sack! Get in this sack! Get in this sack!

Or we’ll cry!

Ai,yai, yaieeeee!”

The audience barely has time to recover from the onslaught of trumpets and miniature pom-poms that seem to accurse mariachi players like adolescent acne. The last sack is closed, the last child is caught, the curtain drops.

Macheath drags himself toward the audience, barely able to lift the stage curtain. His lower half is hidden in the folds of the thick fabric as he sings to the front row! To the back corners! To the people still waiting at the concessions stand for a thimbleful of box wine!

He stretches his voice like the pelt of a wildcat strung on a tanner’s frame. This audience is his only remaining world.

Why? he intones dramatically, and the moment his head drops, the house lights come up.

The Mariachi Kidnappers appear at all the exits and wings. They have new sacks.

Empty sacks.

Six theatre-goers are hauled away in those sacks. You wouldn’t have noticed them until the spotlight lit them up: a man who looked confused; and then a woman who looked confused; and then several other confused-looking people.

At first, the audience members having sacks shoved over their heads are polite to the actors playing the kidnappers, with nervous titters, and mild hand gestures indicating “thanks but no thanks” even as they’re being dragged away. (The show debuted in Minnesota, after all.)

The Mariachi Kidnappers assure the audience members that the sacks over their heads and the application of slight pressure on their necks, applied from the grip of their expertly trained arms, are just part of the show, and won’t they follow the others into the lobby?

These six people who are pulled from the audience are never heard from again and very little effort has been made to find them.

The curtain rises once more.

Our little heroine, red-haired Annie Mayfax is being forced to double-check piles of discarded beer-stained scratch-off lottery tickets and pull tabs from local bars and houses of ill repute. She is enslaved by the State Lottery Commission who is funding a new state office building and a state rainy day fund with the proceeds.

Annie finds a winning ticket some idiot had thrown away. She sings to us That’s the Ticket (My Lucky Ticket) until you swear she’s going to get a nosebleed. She plans to turn in the winning ticket and buy a “plane ride, bus ride, or boat ride” home to her wealthy family and privileged lifestyle.

Just then, as the piercing strains of her contralto has rattled your brainpan sufficiently, Macheath appears at the Lottery Commission’s child labor den. Clearly old Mack has some nefarious enterprise scooting across his neural receptors. Up to no good, that naughty rake.

But he gets distracted by Annie’s winning lottery ticket.

Now, Annie may only be eleven, but she’s not blind: Macheath is a stone-cold hottie. She instantly falls in love with him, and he instantly promises to betroth the hell out of her.

The play doesn’t address the severe discrepancy in age between Macheath and Annie. With her bouncy spirited attitude, Annie can fill in a 1040 IRS form as easily as skip a rope. The situation is presented so fluidly in the production: little Annie Mayfax is making choices as a full-grown woman, but she keeps that buoyant optimism that eleven-year-olds are known for.

And their prolific singing.

Macheath sweeps her off to Paris and then to Athens. (Texas and Georgia, respectively.) He drives a delivery truck for a guy called the Godfather of Payola. He expresses the value of holding your tongue in song “or someone will hold it for you”.

Annie and Macheath have a wonderful, romantic time of it (for about three blocks) when Macheath nearly sideswipes a black limousine carrying none other than “the Godfather of Payola” - whose real god-given name is Daddy Warbucks.

Now Annie may be only eleven, but she can do the math. Sure, Macheath may be good-looking now, but what will he look like when she is twelve? And thirteen? He’d be ancient by then! But Daddy Warbucks would still be rich, just like her former family, whose address and name she can’t recall because the Mariachi Kidnappers spun her around blindfolded at the piñata party.

She convinces Daddy Warbucks to execute Macheath and administer the justice owed to him, but he refuses. Daddy Warbucks dumps little Annie while he pursues maritime maneuvers in the narrow channels of the vivacious Lydia Clairol, wealthy and glamorous daughter of a ship-building tycoon.  

Annie and Macheath kill Lydia and reconstruct her body in a bottle and send her out to sea like a message. They decide to destroy Daddy Warbucks and his empire, and they trick him into attending a piñata party, where Annie spins him around and around until he cannot remember his name or where he lives.

Annie assumes legal guardianship of Daddy Warbucks because a court rules him incompetent in song. Macheath moves into the Warbucks mansion where some very unsavory scenes of debauchery transpire. Annie sings about chairs for no apparent reason. Annie and Macheath hide their illicit arrangement under a thin tissue of human decency while squeezing the Warbucks fortune dry. They have to spin the old man once every day or else he’ll start to remember.

Enter Miss Hannigan, arch-conniver. The dastardly trio hatch a scheme to trick Warbucks into revealing his military weapons contracts so they can sell them to the Germans. They sing a song called Split Three Ways, shake hands as they form a spinning triangle, and then freeze as the lights cut on stage and the house lights come up.

The Mariachi Kidnappers appear in the aisles and at the exits, collecting another six audience members in sacks. The man next to you is taken. He urges you to find his wife and tell her what happened.

You never suspected he was part of the show.