Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Santa Clause: “Thanks for coming, Larry.\u00a0 I understand you’re not happy being an ordinary elf, making toys and wiggling your ears and saying “hee hee” and “ho ho” and stuff like that.\u00a0 Is it true?”
Larry the Elf: “Oh, no, Santa. I love making toys and singing in the elf choir.”
Santa: “Larry, this is me.\u00a0 Santa.\u00a0 I know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.\u00a0 Straight up, Larry, are you happy in your work?”
Larry: “Okay, yeah, it’s true.\u00a0 I’m tired of manual labor and I hate singing.”\u00a0
Santa: “So what would you like to do, instead?”
Larry: “Well, Hermie got transferred\u00a0to the dental clinic.”
Santa: “You want to be a dentist?”
Larry: “No, I want to be an accountant.”
Santa: “It’s worse than I thought.\u00a0 Okay, tell you what.\u00a0 I’m creating a new position for “Regulatory Compliance Officer.”\u00a0 It’s a big responsibility but I’m sure you can handle it.\u00a0 Want to give it a try?”
Larry: “Would I?\u00a0 Oh, thank you, Santa, it’s Christmas come early for me.\u00a0 I won’t let you down.”\u00a0
Three weeks later . . .\u00a0
Larry: “Thanks for seeing me, Santa.\u00a0 I have a few things that need your decision.”
Santa: “Sure thing, Larry, fire away.”
Larry: “First off, I have letters from Norway, Greenland, Russia, and United States, all claiming jurisdiction over the North Pole and asserting we owe delinquent taxes.\u00a0 How should I respond?”
Santa: “Tell them to pound snow.”
Larry: “Our no-fault insurer wants to know if you use your sleigh in business and how many miles per year.
Santa: “Refer them to Clement Moore, he documents all my travel arrangements.”
Larry: “The INS denied your application for a one-night visit.\u00a0 Without a visa, we’ll have to cancel Christmas in America.\u00a0 What are you going to do?”
Santa: “I aim to misbehave.”\u00a0
Larry: “Santa, I’ve got another hour’s worth of issues from liability waivers for walking on slippery roofs, to appeals from naughty children who didn’t get toys, to those animal-rights activists with the “Free Rudolph” signs. But I’m getting the impression that you don’t care about complying with regulations.\u00a0 So what’s the point of my job?”
Santa: “You see, Larry . . . .”
***
Choose your own story.\u00a0 What’s Santa’s reply?
Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Santa Clause: “Thanks for coming, Larry.\u00a0 I understand you’re not happy being an ordinary elf, making toys and wiggling your ears and saying “hee hee” and “ho ho” and stuff like that.\u00a0 Is it true?”Larry the Elf: “Oh, no, Santa. I love making toys and singing in the elf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-racket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72751,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72750\/revisions\/72751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}