I’m just going to lay this on the line: I am very confused, maybe more confused than I am hurt. I have so many questions about why Santa Claus shit in my stocking in mid-May. I scarcely know where to start, but I guess as good a place as any is, why would Santa shit in my stocking at all?
This is not codified into the accepted rubric of Santa Claus rewards and punishments – not in any country’s Santa Claus tradition, as far as I know, not that I am some kind of Santa scholar (after losing my free ride to Stanford prior to completing my master’s).
If you’re good, you get gifts such as toys and candy. If you’re bad, you get coal. Strictly coal. This has been true for generations. Coal is the epitome of undesirable items to receive from Santa, and yet there is a kind of dignity in it, like being the learned man in a prison. That is the game we all know: be naughty, get coal.
So was I worse than coal? Not that there is precedent for that, and I don’t think I could possibly have set a new one with my conduct. I haven’t been the most punctual lately, I suppose, but I hesitate to bring that up, it seems so far from what might possibly account for the shit in my stocking. So why, Santa? Why?
And why now, Santa? It’s not Christmas. It’s not even Christmas in July. I thought we were clear on where I stood back in December, a state of affairs which there is no call to alter for one full calendar year. I know you make a list and check it twice, but I assumed both checks were near the end of the year. So why, Santa? Why is watery shit dripping out of the bottom of my stocking?
I didn’t even have my stocking out still, Santa. I’m not psychotic. I put it up after Thanksgiving along with my tree, and after I take it down to see what I got, I do not put it back up. I’m not a child. So that means you came down the chimney, retrieved it from the crawl space, put it up, and shit in it. I assume you didn’t shit in it before putting it up; that just seems hard.
I did consider the possibility that someone other than Santa did this. To frame him, perhaps, or just for their own reasons. Maybe some non-magical being took a dump in my Christmas stocking just to delight in me chasing my own tail as an end in itself, right? Occam’s razor.
But the shit reeks of cinnamon. And there’s a plate of cookie crumbs and an empty glass that had milk in it. I didn’t set these things out – I didn’t even have any of either in the house. But that’s Santa’s MO. It’s too precise to have been imitated by someone else. So why, Santa? Why did you shit in my stocking?
Here’s my plan: Somehow, Santa has tried to communicate something to me. He came to my house, and he shit in my oversized knit sock. So I’m going on the offense. I’m going to go to the North Pole. I’m going to find Santa’s workshop and his home. I’m going to shit in something of his. Ideally, he will appear and confront me, at which point I will obviously say, well, what about what you shit in, Buster Brown?
And if that does not happen, at least the scales will be balanced. And next Christmas, should nothing else happen, I will know from what he gives me whether my response was on target or not. And that’s really what I want, here – not even justice, just certainty and closure. That’s what anyone would want when a holiday mascot comes to your house and shits where you aren’t supposed to shit.
