At The Very Top

I stood staring out the big front window today for the longest time.

I watched as my neighbours drove by with exhaust fumes billowing out behind them and although I couldn’t hear it, I knew that the snow was crunching underneath the wheels. The two squirrels that regularly frolic along the branches of the trees were nowhere to be seen. Dick from across the street was shovelling his walks in what seemed to me to be slow motion. He did have a stroke a couple of years ago so any shovelling is a good thing I suppose. Some snow blew horizontally past the window and it just looked cold. It is a good day to be inside looking out.

I saw all of that, but what I was really looking at was the clean glass of the window. I had just cleaned off the Christmas painting that I had on the window for the past month or so, and a line of nose prints from the dog.  I clean the window around this time every year, and every year it is with a little sadness that there will be 11 months before there is a new painting blocking the view.

I looked over my shoulder and there sitting on the big reclining chair was Santa Claus, a penguin, a stuffed Rudolph whose nose lights up and a polar bear. They had been watching me the whole time I spent cleaning the window and now they are looking at me with more than a little disgust. I explained to them that when I pull them out of the box, there will be another and hopefully better painting on the window next year. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the box.

If the mood were bleak before, it was dark now. Lord knows I didn’t get up this morning hoping to piss off a reindeer, penguin, polar bear or Santa Claus. The reindeer and penguin don’t worry me at all, but a polar bear can do a fair amount of damage, even a tiny one. I’ll need to pack him away in a very solid box this year. Santa was just disapproving, but I have faith that by November of next year all will be forgotten and I will once more be on the NICE list.

Maybe I should get proactive about getting back on the NICE list. I could help Dick shovel his walk when the snow builds up. That might go a long way in Santa’s eyes. Mind you, perhaps shovelling is good therapy for him and if I did his shovelling he would spiral down into even worse health. Maybe his sitting in the house would lead to his ultimate demise. I would be doing him a great favour by not helping him with the snow this year. You could say that by staying on my side of the street I had actually saved his life. I would be the hero of the neighbourhood, a lifesaver!

 

That’s exactly what I’m going to do and I wouldn’t be surprised if come next Christmas I am at the very top of Santa’s NICE list.