I sit in a lounge chair, in the corner of my apartment, one leg propped on the stool in front of me, the other nearly vertical on the wall to the left of me. You might think it would be an uncomfortable position, yet it is peaceful in a zen-yoga-I-was-just-running-around-in-circles-and-am-very-dizzy kinda way. I was trying to reach my glass of water with my horizontal leg, a true test of the utility of this newly discovered sitting position, when I saw a picture of Santa Claus. It was a picture of him on the cover of a coupon book, lying halfway across the floor. He had the white beard, the Santa garb, as any self-respecting holiday icon would be donning, when I noticed he looked like someone else I recognized:Wilford Brimley. So I got to thinking; what do we do on Christmas? Celebrate family, togetherness, give presents, drink eggnog, and I had hit upon an idea. Eggnog… not totally unrelated to oatmeal, perhaps a distant relative? So the connections that I had been piling up for years, about the correlation between Brimley and Clause were that much stronger. How long had these two been in cahoots? Why were they in cahoots? And whose cahoots were they to begin with? I had no answers, other than the ones I had already come up with. I would have to switch tracks in order to crack this conspiracy.
I decided to look at the dossier that I had put together on the two characters. Lets check them out shall we? (Pause: As I change into my dossier-perusing sweater and put my lounge-around-the-house sweater back into the closet)
- First, there is Santa Clause:
- From an extremely affluent family, his father having made his fortune investing early in “bars and grills”, before it was commonplace to combine the two. His family is so wealthy that he has taken to giving his fortune away in the form of knick-knacks and cute toys.
- Strong affinity for the color red.
- No close acquaintances. However, I have received several anonymous tips from a man who claims to be part of “the Keebler community.” He claims Mr. Clause gives him a wonderful, fulfilling job over the holidays.
- Born-again animal lover, after an unverified incident of striking one of his pets with such force that the swelling on his face has still not gone down to this day, and occasionally throbs with a painful flare that could light the darkness.
- Then, there is Brimley:
- Was in that Cocoon movie awhile back.
Other than that there seems to be no available information on the man. Apparently he has gone to great lengths to hide himself, cleverly choosing a profession that keeps him out of the public eye, yet affords him a comfortable lifestyle. Why is he so secretive? What is he afraid of? And whoever came up with the idea of pairing him with Quaker Oats? I mean it was a brilliant advertising move!
So, where does that leave us? Two elderly, bearded, possibly jolly men, working together on something unknown. It’s as though two evil Jerry Garcias were in our midst, constantly plotting behind out backs. Well, that would mean you would have had to clone Mr. Garcia, twice. And it also assumes that he was evil, and while I do not claim to have known the man at all, he does not strike me as the kind of person who would be evil. C’mon, they named an ice cream after him: Cherry Garcia. He’s gotta be wholesome, so sayeth the deities Ben & Jerry. But they are criminal masterminds to deal with another time.