Sergeant Christmas
Yesterday I went over to Fox News headquarters to enlist in the War on Christmas, and I brought my friend Gronk. Gronk is a massive barbarian warrior with a flat dark eyes and olive skin and shoulders studded with overlapping, mounded convexities of muscle. His homeland of Shadinor was experiencing something of a damsel-in-distress draught, so he’d come to America in search of fair creatures to deliver from peril.
The receptionist drone at the front desk was an attractive woman with blue eyes and blonde hair and a look vapid enough to vaporize the less rigorous pockets of reality. She said: “Hi! Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to sign up for the war on Christmas.”
“Fantastic!” She turned to Gronk and said: “Will you be signing up as well, sir?”
“Gronk save you, helpless damsel,” said Gronk.
“Fantastic!” said the woman. “I just need to ask you a few questions.” She squinted down at a laminated sheet of paper on her desk. “Ok. First. Do you believe that the Democratic party is a tool of Satan?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Gronk save you from Demon-cratic party,” said Gronk.
“Fantastic!” said the receptionist. “Second question. It’s a two-parter! Do you believe in God, and, if not, are you reconciled to an eternity of suffering in the fires of hell?”
“Yes to the first,” I said. “Not applicable to the second.”
“Gronk believe in Calaban, God of Cleaving,” said Gronk. “Calaban also God of Herbaceous Borders.” He frowned. “But Gronk doesn’t know what herbaceous border is.”
“Super! Ok, last question. It’s a multiple choice!” She held up a picture of a Christmas tree. “When you see this picture, do you think: (a) Holiday Tree (b) Christmas Tree (c) Xmas Tree; or (d) I love atheists?”
“B,” I said. “Christmas tree.”
“Neat!” said the woman. “You totally pass!”
Gronk nudged me. Since he’s about three times my size, this sent me rocketing across the floor through the giant stained-glass Bill O’Reilly head at the other end of the lobby. After the pain subsided, I picked myself up and brushed myself off and stepped through the me-shaped hole in O’Reilly’s mouth and limped back to the front desk. “Yes, Gronk?”
“Wench ensorcelled.”
“No.”
“Yes! Look at blank eyes. Slack face. Crazy questions. Brainwashed. Ensorcelled.”
“No, Gronk. She’s what we call a Fox News Employee,” I said, holding up two pairs of fingers as quotation marks. “They’re all like that.”
The woman pressed a button on her telephone and leaned over it. “Sergeant Christmas? You have two new recruits.”
Immediately, a door in the back of lobby flew open and a short barrel-chested man in green fatigues and a red Santa Claus hat sprang out. He hurled himself across the lobby and stopped in front of us. “Recruits!” he said. “State your names!”
“Lapsed Cannibal,” I said.
“Gronk,” said Gronk.
“Why are you here?”
“We’re here to save Christmas, sir.”
“And who do you want to save Christmas from?”
“From Democrats, sir.”
“That’s right! Godless filthy scumsucking atheist democrats!”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Why he yelling?” said Gronk.
“AT WHAT POINT DID I GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO SPEAK, SCUMBAG?”
“Gronk not bag of scum,” said Gronk, and lifted his axe. “Gronk cut off your head now.”
I put a hand on Gronk’s arm. “Forgive him, sergeant. He’s foreign.”
The sergeant glowered at us for a while, his face turning various shades of red. You could see the explosion just beneath the skin, massing like lava.
But it subsided, and he handed us each a black marker. “Your first mission,” he said, “is to go down to the mall and reconnoiter storefronts for ‘Happy Holiday’ signs. As soon as you see one, you are to proceed to the store in question, overpower the manager, subdue the employees … and CROSS THE SIGN OUT!”
“You want us to desecrate Christmas signs?”
“NO! I want you to eliminate heathen pagan ‘holiday’ signs! You can’t desecrate heathenism!”
“But what if someone tries to stop us?”
“They won’t, private. You’ll be wearing these.” He pulled two nametags out of his pocket and handed them to me. They said God Police in alternating red and green letters.
“What do we do with these?”
“You wear them, Einstein! And if anyone challenges you, you hit them with these!” He produced a pair of short, brown truncheons.
“And these are …”
“Jesus Sticks!”
“Of course.” I looked at Gronk. He was picking his teeth with his Jesus stick and staring at the receptionist, who was, in turn, smiling blankly off into space. I turned back to Sergeant Christmas. “So that’s it? We go to the mall and scribble on signs?”
“What? Is that not enough for you?”
“Well, actually, sir … I was thinking that maybe we should try to talk to people, you know, explain why …”
“Oh you were thinking, were you?” said the sergeant, rounding on me. “You were thinking. Let’s get one thing straight, private. There will be no ‘thinking’ is this army. ‘Thinking’ is for godless liberals. Around here, we decide things with our gut. As long as you’re a Christmas warrior, you won’t be ‘thinking’ … you’ll be gutting!”
“Gronk can gut,” said Gronk.
“Ok,” I said. “Fine. I was gutting that maybe if we talked to …”
“You can’t talk to these people, private. All you can do is talk over them. The only language they understand is loud. LOUD!”
“Ok. Well. Thanks.” I put the markers in my pocket. “We’ll get right on it. You ready, Gronk?”
“Ready,” he said, and picked up Sergeant Christmas by the scruff of the neck. The sergeant immediately began to sputter and flail like an tourettesy epileptic.
I sighed. “Put him down, Gronk.”
“But little green man irritating,” said Gronk.
“What do you plan to do with him?”
Gronk ruminated. “Maybe make little Christmas ornament out of him.”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually. A Christmas ornament that starts screaming if you put it on a Holiday Tree, maybe.”
“He probably scream wherever you put him.”
“Well, that’s true.” We were at the doors, now. I turned and waved to the receptionist. “Thanks. Nice meeting you.”
“Happy Holidays!” she said, smiling brightly.
1 Comment