Today I am stationed at the Welcome Center Kiosk. I am the Welcome Center elf. On busy days, there is a huge line of guests that show up to visit Santa. Sometimes, the line can be a 2-3 hour wait, snaking all the way through the rest of the store and even into the dreary back hallways of Human Resources.
The Welcome Center is the spot where the guests first enter into the magical splendor that is Santaland.
Usually, the first thing they see is an over-caffeinated elf bouncing behind a visitor's facade, saying “Welcome to the North Pole! Welcome to the North Pole!”
But today, I’m bored, so I begin asking people for their passports. They have two reactions; amused or confused. Most people have the latter reaction, so to alleviate their anxiety, I stamp their hands with an invisible stamp and tell them to move along.
I begin informing people that due to recent Yeti activity, we’ve had to establish the Department for Elfland Security, of which I am the newly and self appointed Chief Elf.
“Please declare all fruits, vegetables, and goats upon departing your transport,” I deadpan, as I fashion a cardboard sign that reads,
“Smuggling Candy Canes is a Felony!”
I think this premise to be quite clever and witty. High-larious, even. Oh, the joy.
Per my duties as Chief of Elfland Security, I inform visitors that:
1) They may have to submit to
a full body candy cane scan.
2) We will be setting up racial
profiles for all puffins and
penguins.
3) We are planning to build a
fence between the North Pole
and Narnia.
(Mr. Tumnus may be an excellent
gardener, but he still needs
his green card.)
Again, I'm sure you can appreciate how High-larious it was.
Markus, the night manager, did not find this funny.
Markus is no fun in a mousy, ratsy sort of way. Markus is like Frank Burns from MASH except “ratsier”.
He has no sense of humor and he commands about as much respect as the Kuiper Belt at the Hayden Planetarium. (Yay, Astronomy joke!)
Needless to say, I was soon relegated to Exit Elf, demoted and devalued, just like the planet Pluto.
I was “plutoed”.
Standing out at the end of the massive line, by home furnishings, on the outer stretches of the department store galaxy, I feebly raised my fist, stripped my sleeve and muttered, “These wounds had I on Crispian's Day!”
*****
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