At this time of year, I'm all about toys

  • By Mike Dewey
  • December 17, 2012
  • 370
                        
SUMMARY: When it comes to the holidays, it can be a train wreck for Mike Dewey who, using experience as his guide, tries to make things better this time around the track. Two Christmases ago, Santa Claus gave me a Lionel train set, something I'd been asking for since I was five years old. It took him half a century, but Old Saint Nick finally delivered. What I figured was that my name had been on his Naughty list for so long, he'd given up hope that I'd ever be Nice. What can I say? I paid off some cheesed-off drone of an elf, with access to the Big Guy's database, to hack into the system and pull a Ferris Bueller. You know the scene when he improves Ally Sheedy's grade from an F to an A, something like that, in "War Games?" If not, rent, rip or download it now. You'll be glad you did. But, yeah. The little guy must have broken down the firewall and changed my status. All it cost me an autographed copy of "Short People," Randy Newman's iconic and ironic single from the early Eighties, a song most people misunderstood. Which is what I told the elf. "Listen," I said. "It's just like that song 'Rednecks,' the one everyone got all mad about 10 years earlier: by painting the portrait with broad stereotypical strokes, he distances himself from the hate-mongering and flips the mirror, so that we are forced to come to terms with our prejudices." The elf was unimpressed. "Do I get the record or not?" he demanded. "Because if I don't, you stay on the Nasty list." "OK," I said. "Alright. Don't get mad. I just wanted you to understand that Newman's ---" "DO NOT TELL ME," Santa's elf screamed at me, "that I don't grasp the concept of a line like, "short people got no reason to live,' OK! Because I can read and hear and think, not that you care." "It's satiric," I said, under my breath, sotto voce. "Not literal. He's actually standing up for those --- " "One more word from you," the elf/mole snarled, "and you'll be five years old again, sniveling and whining 'cause you got no train set. We clear?" So, I mailed him the kickback record, got him off my neck and my name off the Nasty list. People get angry at what they don't (or won't) understand. SOMETIMES YOU JUST need a simple reminder, a random act of kindness, to temper your avowed conviction that the world is filled with bad people doing awful things. Especially at this time of year, with its bleak weather and shrinking daylight hours and the insistence that buying things will make you feel better. Which is, of course, up to you. Personally, I'm taking the Grinch's realization to heart this Yuletide. You remember the scene in which he hears the town of Whoville singing after he's hijacked their holiday, don't you? Sure you do. And you probably know this immortal Dr. Seuss couplet: "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store ... "Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." Sure, you could interpret that to mean that I'm tapped out with no real discretionary income, every penny of what I earn going to help with the bills, which are mounting with alarming frequency and don't seem to understanding what Whimpy meant when he said, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Or you could see it as an attempt to -- in Van Morrison's phrase -- get back to basics. That's not easy without coming across as a Scrooge-like skinflint, the type of miserly loner who eschews the Christmas season in order to save a couple of bucks or, in his case, a few quid. Still, I suppose, that sleigh has soared: the whole idea of Christmas without spending cash isn't viable in most families, though I am sure there are exceptions, but I'm not enough of a hypocrite to tell you I've devoted the last 12 months to whittling a nativity scene out of fallen oak and pine branches I've found in the back yard. "Here, honey," I won't be able to say. "I carved all this myself." No, what I do is turn her loose in the mall, with my credit card holstered to her belt, Jesse-James style, while I watch football on TV in the sports bar. "Waitress," I'll say, "could you make the next dozen wings hot enough to melt Scrooge's soul and, while you're at it, another one of those frosty lagers, please?" Ah, it's a fine time of year for contradictions. BUT TO GET BACK to my train set, the one Santa had been forced to give me a couple of years ago: It took me a few hours, but I finally got it chugging and rolling smoke ... and the same held true last year, which was even better, because I knew what I was doing. "Wow," my wife said, surveying the train rolling its merry way around the base of our Christmas tree in the sunroom. "You set that up fast." "Practice," I said, adjusting the speed as the engine and the four cars behind it picked up steam, "makes perfect." And then, a few days later, Kris Kringle got his revenge. He -- or my wife, I can't be sure -- added something called Santa's Wish Station, a very complicated accessory I simply couldn't figure out how to make work with my setup. So it stayed in its box all year, until I unpacked it a few days ago and still, I had no idea how to create the necessary magic.It was beyond me. My wife was very unhappy with me, wondering why it was that I was good for nothing except maybe putting words, not train tracks and accessories, together. I felt ashamed. But then, like the Grinch, I got an idea. I'd heard that a bunch of railroad enthusiasts were hosting a holiday display down by the local grocery store and I determined to seek their wisdom. "What are you doing?" my wife asked as I started packing up pieces of track, the transformer and the Wish Station. "We," I said, "are going into town to get advice from the experts." "We?" she retorted rather accusingly. "I'm not leaving this house." I know a bluff when I hear one. "That's cool,," I said, "but you might just miss out on a Christmas miracle,." And then my wife started to smile again. And it was beautiful. NEXT WEEK: "If You're Gonna Build a Railroad, Do It Right," or "Are You Sure You Wouldn't Rather Collect Seashells?"


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