Issue #434 Keith’s SciFi Musings Sunday, December 10, 2023
“Who the hell told you I was still living at the North Pole?”
I shrugged my shoulders, still trying to comprehend how someone like Santa could be so hostile. I figured maybe it really was time for retirement, but little did I know.
It went way deeper than that.
“I bumped into one of the elves in a bar downtown the other day. He’d had a few, so I guess maybe he started running his mouth a bit too much. He told me - and everybody else in the bar - a few more things that were…well…interesting. I’m just glad we were all adults in there.”
Santa was sitting across from me in a Coney Island restaurant in Detroit. It was early December, snow still hadn’t arrived, not quite 40 degrees, and sunny outside. His beard was more gray than white. No red suit, no reindeer, no sleigh. Just a brown-skinned kinda Arab-looking guy - a very irritated kinda Arab-looking guy - wearing jeans and a brown sports coat. The only hint to his identity was his noticeably large paunch which barely fit behind the table, where several plates of food including pancakes, eggs, sausages, and toast waited to be dispatched next to his third cup of coffee.
Oh. And the Santa hat.
“Had to be Freddie. Had to be. Most attention-starved elf I’ve ever known in my life. That’s why I had to cut him loose. Forty-five years ago. So Freddie is the last being who would ever know where I’m hanging my hat these days. And it damned sure isn’t that wretched North Pole. I sold that place years ago to that Jeff Bezos guy. I was planning on retiring. Had my replacement picked, the kid was anxious and all ready to go. I used the Bezos money to get myself set up in the Bahamas.
“Little did I know that guy had designs on buying the entire damned world.”
“The whole…what do you mean, Santa?”
“Stop calling me that. Please. My name is George. Santa is just a title, which I no longer have.”
“OK. So then George. What do you mean Bezos had designs on buying the world?”
George gave me a long pained look, but I also got the sense he was gauging whether or not he could trust me. I was a reporter after all. But he had come quite a ways to share his story, so then he said…
“You’ve heard of Amazon, right?”
I gave him a look to indicate what a stupid question he had to know that was.
“Right. And you know how I used to deliver all those toys each year, right? And by the way, it wasn’t just one sleigh. I’m assuming you figured that out by now. The math doesn’t add up. Any idiot can figure that out. We had an army of those things. But anyway, you’re familiar with the concept, right?”
I nodded.
“And you’re familiar with what Amazon does, I assume?”
This time I nodded more slowly, getting a sick feeling in my stomach.
“Oh no…”
“Oh yes. Amazon put Santa Claus out of business.”
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OMG!! Santa's out of business. Tell me it's not so!
Brilliant
Thank you, Harriet!