So every Christmas, no matter how special, cannot come off without a snag. It's some kind universal truth ... like Murphy's Law or Occam's Razor. We'll call this one "ThirtyWhat's Theorem." ThirtyWhat's Theorem states that the level of fuck up is in direct proportion to how large your attempt at Christmas magic.
For instance ... you give someone a Pez Dispenser for Christmas ... and the head just pops right off. Not catastrophic. Your attempt at being Santa's personal elf ... well let's just say you set the bar extremely low ... therefore the risk was low ... therefore the loss was low.
Now, let's say you plan a Christmas based on a theme ... and all the presents tie into one central gift ... and that gift has to work in order to enjoy the rest of the Christmas presents. That's a big risk. Everything hinges on that one gift working. And when it breaks or doesn't work as expected? Your Christmas is officially, 100% fucked.
This was my snag this year. I got Stoney a turntable and ordered a handful of limited-print records to play on it. The turntable worked great on the first album ... but every album after that, it skipped and skated and was basically unusable. Skips happen on records ... that's just life. But you can't use a defective turntable on new albums because you're running the risk of damaging them permanently. And who wants that?
So ... we boxed it up ... sent it back to Amazon ... and ordered a different one. It's far from the end of the world. I've had worse Christmases ... much, much worse Christmases. But it's frustrating and disappointing as the giver ... I'm sure it's twice as frustrating and disappointing for him.
The cherry on top is that the new turntable was supposed to be delivered today ... but for some reason Stoney's house is literally on the tail end of the UPS route. I'm serious ... right before Christmas we were getting our deliveries between eight and eight thirty at night. Yesterday's delivery came around 5:30 ... so ... any minute? Maybe? If we squint?
Next year, he's totally getting a Pez dispenser.
Filling Santa's shelves
With a toy
For each girl and boy
Oh, we are Santa's elves
We Are Santa's Elves
No comments:
Post a Comment