Santa, Le Drunk

Santa, Le Drunk

So we were at the Legoland in Schaumburg, a plastic empire for kids, building blocks and germs. Germs breeding germs. It was Half-off Germ Sunday when we went.

It was my son G Frenzy’s 4th birthday.

ChunChun, our 6 month old ball of flesh whom we also had produced, didn’t care that it was his older brother’s birthday. He was just hungry, ready to add to his girth.

Let me rewind. We woke up. Wait. He woke us up. We didn’t have a choice in the matter. 6:30am.

Knock on the head. Hello, old man, wake up. You have been vacant in my life for the passed five days at that place you call work and lie about “I’ll be home in a few minutes to play Candy Land crap.”

Our son was popping and bouncing with heightened anticipation and not the I-have-to-number-one kind. Thank God he can whiz on his own now. He had just seen this enormous present in the downstairs living room, which suggests he risked tripping the home alarm which would have set off the first of many internal, let alone external, panic buttons (the CODE, what is the CODE???) and brought the police to our home to witness a bewildered Dad in his boxers scratching his burlap and a Annie Oakley (Mom) pointing the 2.75-inch Whitworth Rifle at the door (“there are intruders here!!!…check the basement Wussy Boy.”)

No alarm.

G Frenzy was bubbling that his epic day, his day, was before us.

I told him the present wasn’t for him. I told him Santa had gotten drunk and got his days, months rather, mixed up. I told G Frenzy to go out in the garage and haul in the ladder down so we can push the present back up through the chimney. We had to do this because Santa had probably messed up his back coming down the chimney because all he does is binge eat and and drink and watch Mama Claus run numbers and avoid foreclosure.

I told him this is what drinking- any mindless addiction or inflamed defect of character - does to you. To anyone. Even to your mythical heroes. Batman? Meth. Thomas the Train? Co-dependent and passive-aggressive. Uncle Sam? Gambling.

We would rest the present on the roof for Santa to pick on a date to be named later, probably during one of his random boozy flyby’s .

He stared at me. Hard. And went back to his room, emotionless. It bought me an hour more of sleep.

During blueberry pancake time, cut with finite precision (or it will be sent back, Chef!), I had to come clean. Hey, kid. That stuff I told you about Santa and stuff......its a bummer isn’t it? Want to go play with Lego’s all day?

We went. Waited for an hour to get in. $28.50 Lego Pen. Another strip mall scam job.