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Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM
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Santa's Little Helper Challenge
By:
Richard Tornello
Ja-pas, the elf in charge of writing the assembly instructions for the toys, was in a very good mood. A few too many eggnogs only added to his dyslexic bliss. “Ah the spirit of giving,” he thought. “What might I do to make some one special human feel the true warm spirit of the winter solstice?
“I have an idea.” He map Googled. He procured the elements necessary for the gift and sealed them in a dense metal box.
“If he can open this,” Ja-pas laughed, “it will make a believer out of him.”
The Gift was magically left on the threshold, wrapped in gold ribbon. The recipient looked at it. He looked around. His AK-47 scanned the hills. “How did this get here? What might it be? A gift from my god?.”
It was very heavy and dense. He had a number of his minions lug it to his inner cave laboratory. The gift was sealed and except for a microscopic indentation there was no appearance of an opening.
Welding torches were brought . “No that’s not a good idea at this time. I would guess that this has to be opened in some subtle manner, unlike some of our operations.” He smiled.
“You have a point,” his number two opinioned.
He sat before it and meditated. For forty days and nights he meditated. He moved it out doors and placed it underneath his favorite tree. He sat again for forty days and nights. Nothing happened.
He then decided to just put it in his lap sitting in the lotus position and praying over it. It opened. The technology within was astounding. He reached and found an assembly instruction sheet written in every language. This was just like his electric tooth brush. “My god, anyone can assemble this! A gift, and what a gift.”
He commanded everyone to leave save his number two and a few technicians. There they assembled the device. “Oh joy of joys the gift I have been waiting for all my life. The Great Ships Of Desert Pilot be praised.”
In the mean time Ja-pas had recovered from his drunken stupor, wondered if it was a dream or had he actually done what he thought he had done. “Shit, this is a really big one. Nah gotta be a dream.” He looked around. The energy sources for the sled were missing. Now what?
****
The former patron saint of sailors, demoted to schlepping cheap lead painted Chinese made products to children was loading up the “sky barge”. He was going through the preflight check. Low and behold, no fuel!
“JA-PAS why the hell isn’t there fuel in the sled?”
“Ah, not sure boss. Seems we never got a reorder from the Russians as per usual. I think it was diverted.”
“What do you mean, I personally signed for it.”
“Well, it’s missing then.”
“You know that weird former soviet reindeer, the red one we keep in the lead paddock, the one that worked near Chernobyl? He might be an answer.” The boss commanded,
“Hook him up. Attach one line to his antler and plug the other into his butt. We’ll use him as a power source for the propulsion systems. When I get back you had better have an explanation and the missing material or it’s off to the toy manufacturing gulag in Mongolia.”
“Yes boss.”
Ja-pas wonders, “What the hell am I going to do? I have no idea who I gave…. It… oh shit!” The besotted memory kicks in.
****
Meanwhile the recipient of the Gift had it worked out. The final detailed instructions required were available from the Princeton University library. Amazing, he thought. It’s all there. And The Great Camel Pilot gave me the tools. How grateful can I be?
He explained to the locally assembled group, “I will wire this up on their great religious holiday and have it delivered to the Holy Land. Oh Nameless One be praised.”
December of that year the gift recipient has managed to travel through no mans land and is in the country of centrifuges, caves and stoning deaths for profit and gain. He sits with his hosts. They are amazed at the level of sophistication he demonstrates.
“Look the instructions are in every language of this planet. But I am the chosen one.”
“Well how will it work,” they inquire?
“Simple, very simple. We get a remote flying vehicle; a timer is set with an altimeter and as the vehicle descends, Happy New Year”
****
Meanwhile St. Nick is having trouble keeping airspeed with the reindeer as an energy source. The line keeps popping out of his butt. One of the smaller elves has to work hand over hand, reach and plug it back in, then return to the toy laden sled. “This is the shittiest job I’ve ever had,” he bitches.
****
Our hero, flush with joy, wonderment, and forbidden drink, again illustrates the method of wiring for the final solution.
All are in wonder. How he received this. We thought he was a kook. The gods must think differently. We stand corrected.
Ja-pas is looking for the power source he misplaced. He comes across the wiring instructions. Pretty funny he says to himself. The green goes into the cathode and the red into the anode. That would allow for a timed released of energy. Boy if anyone got that in reverse. He laughed, what idiot would do that?
Off in a distant underground facility, our hero reads the instructions and for some liquid reason, gets it in reverse.
A giant mushroom cloud appears over the desert of Iran in the vicinity of the weapons labs.
St. Nick has just delivered a new AR-15 toy to a young girl who always wanted one like her brother’s. He looks at the sky and notices the glow to the East. He looks at his Russian reindeer.
Just wait. His ass is grass. He mumbles.
[align=center]The End[/align]