By Hope Madden

 

Christmas approaches, and George proves once again that he makes a fine Santa.

He played the part first at 15. A pubescent redhead weighing in at about a buck and a half – very authentic. Well played, Cambridge, Ohio Sears.

He donned the beard and boots again more recently. Perhaps you saw a bunch of Santas at various Columbus intersections dancing around with signs urging you to “Honk for Santa and Sunny 95!” George was one of those, and he had a lot of fun, even though he did get a one-finger Christmas salute from a guy who apparently saw right through a moonwalking Santa and his war on traditional holiday dance.

In between these stints, I would sometimes lend George out over the phone for nieces, nephews and friends’ kids. He has that nice, full baritone, does a great ho ho ho, and has literally no choice as I promise his services without checking.

He retired a few years back. A couple of 4-year-olds wore him down. My niece Ruby and our little friend Eva were to receive calls from ”Santa” on Christmas Eve. First he called Eva, who’d recently turned 4. She answered the phone with a shy, “Hello.”

“Hello. Is this Eva? This is Santa.”

Thud.

Eva dropped the phone and hid under a nearby table.

I should point out that George has been known to frighten children to tears. Usually the children sit in their itty bitty  jerseys or cheerleading onesies and George startles them from across a restaurant with a burst of fan passion. George is loud.

The children sometimes cry.

Of course, being a Browns fan, sometimes George cries, too.

Eva’s mom Heather picked up the phone, coaxing some conversation from her wee one, still safely tucked beneath the kitchen table.

“Eva, Santa says hi.”

“Hi.”

“Santa, Eva says hi.”

And so on.

George was a bit wearied by the time he got off the phone, but he needed to gumption up because Ruby was waiting.

“Ruby? This is Santa.”

“Oh, hello Santa.”

“Well hello, Ruby!”

“Santa, what is your favorite color?”

“Well…”

“What snack do you like best? How do you see when we’re good and when we’re bad? What do you dream about?”

At that point, Santa was dreaming of a gracious way out, but Ruby was having none of it.

“Are you sometimes invisible? Do you like to dance?”

How did she know about the moonwalk?

George has been on Santa vacation since then, but I was just thinking of a fun new plan, what with that fetching suit and all.

Skype!

God Bless America

Voting lines in our precinct were longer than we’d expected. We could have voted early.  I think we might have done it, too, if someone would have been motivated enough to remind us 634 times, but 633? Get bent!

Anyway, we like to get up on election day, put on our best sweatpants and bad-hair-day hats,  walk the block to our local elementary school and queue up to perform our civic duty.

As do a lot of our neighbors. Lots and lots. And it would seem that the vast majority of Grandviewans (Grandviewers? SpongeView GrandPants?) regardless of political affiliation have a last name in the L-Z bracket. As we waited and sweated, and read the artwork adorning the hallway to learn which second graders believed themselves to be the class’s best drawers and/or cutest, we heard the constant announcement: A-K? A-K? If your name starts with letters A through K, you can go ahead in. A-K?

I began to really hate A-K, not to mention question the logic of this line jumping.

Also, I was a bit distracted by the person in line whose phone kept going off with the “cock-a-doodle-doo” ringtone. So, if that was you, I apologize for yelling “Okay, who brought the rooster?”

To be honest, I think it brought about PTSD flashbacks from the concession stand line at the Obama/Springsteen/Jay-Z rally the day before. Because George and I have built our home on the corner of Liberal Politics and E Street, naturally we attended. How could we not?

Doors opened at noon, with Obama allegedly taking the stage at 4pm, so we and 16,000 other left-minded Ohioans queued up at 9am. By the time we got inside, we’d been standing since breakfast, knew we wouldn’t be leaving until dinnertime, so we all – all 16K of us – started looking for concessions.

16 thousand people, all of whom had been in line for hours and were now starving, and Nationwide Arena only opened two food kiosks? With a total of 6 (three apiece) workers? I’ll tell you right now, had I been one of those six, I’d have taken my own life.

C’mon, it’s Bruce!  Baby, we were born to eat!

It’s Jay-Z! I got 99 problems, and right now number one is not having direct access to super nachos!

It’s Obama! I thought free condiments were now part of my health care!

I waited 90 minutes. At about minute 30, a large young woman appeared ahead of me. This simply doesn’t happen in a line. So I said, “Ma’am, don’t do this. We’ve been here half an hour already.”

She returned to her rightful spot behind me and began loudly calming herself. “I’m just going to settle down, I’m going to let it go, I’m not going to start anything. But I am going to say one thing, and that one thing is, pay attention.”

She turned to me.

“Pay attention. That is the rule for today, for all you fools. Pay attention.”

It seemed needless to point out that, had I not been paying attention, I probably wouldn’t have noticed her ditching the line. But I said it anyway.

Lines breed testiness. Just ask those guys in my same concession stand line that came to blows.

But then we all remembered that great Tesla song, “Lines, lines, everywhere a line…”

Wait, did I just use the words “great,” “Tesla” and “song” in a row?

Whatevs.  The point is, wimpy hair metal is offensive.

After 90 minutes, I gave up. I could hear speakers speaking and figured it wasn’t worth missing it all for a super nacho and a couple of naked hot dogs (no way was I trying to get to that condiment stand).

I hope someone checked that rooster’s ID…

Snap, Crackle, Pop

With the help of my determined husband George and an orthotic boot, I once got to meet Duran Duran. If you’ve met me, you no doubt know that. It’s not like I keep it a secret. And if I hadn’t been a gimp, it couldn’t have happened.

My routinely broken bones get me into stuff, and they get me out of stuff. Like manual labor. So I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but seriously, I should not break this easily. I’ve had eight confirmed fractures in my adult life. Seeing as I am not a stunt driver, this strikes me as excessive.

Given that my tendency to snap bone goes back to grade school, it doesn’t seem like an age related bone loss issue. I take in lots of calcium and vitamin D, I exercise, blah blah blah. I am clumsy, I’ll give you that, but still, 8 is a high number.

So I discovered via paranoid web sleuthing that cola leeches minerals from your bones.  But the expert says an average human intake of about 3 colas a month should not put you at risk.

The average human takes in 3 servings of cola in a month? One every ten days? That’s impossible. That’s like saying the average height for a woman is 5’4”.

It just cannot be, because that would make me some kind of freak.

Let me walk you through my habit.

I pound two or three 16-oz bottles of Diet Pepsi each morning. Then I eat at Chipotle, loading up on at least four refills of my medium beverage. Yes, I could splurge on a large, but refills cost nothing and I sit close to the soda fountain for convenience. Saves me like a dime, although it does nothing at all for my dignity.

How much I drink after lunch depends on any number of things. Am I eating dinner in? If yes, then maybe another two cans before bed. Am I eating out? If yes, then at least another 84 ounces (4 x 16 ounce drink).

If I eat out and go see a movie – I’m a film critic, so the likelihood here is higher than average – I could conceivably consume in excess of 200 ozs in an evening.

Which makes me a pig, and likely an addict. Let me articulate. Recently, the pop machine on my floor ran out of Diet Pepsi (can’t imagine who went through it all). I made the short trek to the deli on the first floor. I was horrified to see their vending machines unplugged and pushed to the other side of the room. Bob’s Deli was retiling its floor. It was like a bad dream.

I ran back up to the fourth floor, slowly, lumberingly, with legs of caffeine-depleted lead. I limped in a rage back to my office, then remember something important.

My son Riley, who spent the summer doing odd jobs no one else at my office wanted, used to roam the building looking for some kind of adventure. What he found were vending machines, including one mystical, magical pop machine that dispensed beverages for a quarter. A quarter!

I called him. In school. It’s a disease, people.

He told me the magic pop machine is on the 9th floor.

I go. I wander the halls of Floor 9 looking for the right business.

And then I spy it, glowing like a refreshment beacon. Relief is mine – or is it? Hold the phone.

They’re out of diet pop!

 Moderation being an alleged virtue – and sugar substitutes being an alleged toxin – I understand that I need to gain control over my problem. I can’t just have bones snapping and popping every time I fall down some stairs because, you know what? I’m uncoordinated. It’s going to happen. So I’m weaning.

Nothing in the morning. Nothing at work. Nothing in the car. Nothing at home. Nothing at the movies. 

All told, I’m down to 4 servings a day.

God damn it, I’m sleepy.