The Pun Also Rises
(as seen in the North Adams Transcript)
"Christmas Illumination"
Here we are in December, and 'tis the season...
for illness. Various co-workers of mine (and probably some of yours
too) have been out sick lately, which means that the holidays are
here. Time off from work, albeit not quite how one planned it. Every
little virus and cold reminds me that it is better to give than
to receive. This year I celebrated the miracle
of the Hanukah Headache, a headache which should only have lasted
for one night, but through the grace of god, magically managed to
last for eight whole days.
Oy. To the world.
Of course, when comparing Hanukah and Christmas, one must keep
in mind that one spans many more days than the other. As you may
know, Hanukah only lasts for a mere eight days, while Christmas
lasts for anywhere from twenty to seventy days, judging by the number
of decorations that went up in my neighborhood just after Thanksgiving.
If you're going to be decorating your house for Christmas and you
still have Thanksgiving leftovers, I think you should be required
to include them in your decorations. Nothing says holiday spirit
to me quite like a giant Christmas tree covered in turkey bones.
Sure, they don't light up, but they'll be just as effective at getting
Santa to come to your house. Well, maybe not technically Santa,
but his reindeer will come back to lick your tree. Reindeer love
turkey. While I love reindeer. Just don't tell Santa about my Blitzen
Pot Pie, or I'll be on the naughty list for sure.
Santa isn't the only one keeping lists this year, though. If you've
tried to fly recently, you've probably noticed that your wings are
not very aerodynamic and that you don't have any feathers. But if
you've tried to fly on an airplane recently, you may have noticed
that the federal government is keeping a secret list of people to
be hassled whenever they attempt to board an airplane. The list
is so secret that they won't even tell you why you're on the list,
which is too bad because Santa knows that if you tell people why
they're on the naughty list, they'll try to behave better next year.
But, the TSA doesn't follow Santa-approved guidelines. On the contrary,
their modus operandi suggests a very different holiday spirit. To
help you understand what I mean, this is what a TSA holiday song
would probably sound like:
You'd better not shout,
You'd better not fly,
They'll give you a search,
And not tell you why,
TSA is coming to town.
TSA, for those of you who don't know, is the Transportation Security
Administration, also known as the Tactile Sensation Association.
They really like touching other people, especially people who are
just trying to get from point A to point B without having a random
person put their hand on point C, thank you very much. Under the
auspices of security
screening at airports, they now have free reign to pat you down
on your Steeples, your Mass MoCA, or even your Appalachian Bean.
Not only has this intrusive searching has caused some people to
avoid flying out to see family over the holidays, but it has lowered
our nation's average purity test score by three percent.
This shouldn't surprise us though, in a climate where standardized
test scores have been falling across the board. I know that President
Bush has attempted to address this by cutting funding to under-scoring
schools, to make sure that people who would lower the average don't
even get as far as taking the test. And while this might raise average
test scores, it
doesn't really make our children brighter. Luckily, I can rest assured
that our neighborhood is getting brighter every day.
After all, more Christmas lights keep going up.
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Seth Brown is a local freelance humor
writer who will probably be added to the no-fly list after this
article. He appears frequently in the Washington Post's Style Invitational,
and his first book "Think You're The Only One?"was recently
published by Barnes and Noble. His website is www.RisingPun.com.
All work on this page is copyright Seth Brown.
If you are sharing it, please give attribution. If you want to reprint
it, please contact me first.
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