Off Season Rant

It’s been a long time since I blogged. Sorry.

I recently found something I had written down in a notebook a while ago . . . and by a while, I mean either last December or a year before that. I’m not really sure. Anyway, I’m sure at the time I intended to do something more with it, but in rereading it I was pretty happy with it, so I’m going to leave it how it is. Enjoy.

I was sitting in the lobby of the theater, which is the primary job of a House Manager if all is right the world, when I heard someone trying to get in the lobby doors. This is not untypical, even at a quarter after eight for a show with a 7:30 curtain. What can I say? People are rude and don’t understand how disruptive it is for live theater when someone walks in 45 minutes late. I got up to see who it was tugging on my lobby door, shaking my head with disgust at the rude bastard, whomever it might be and screwing on my “I’m disappointed with you as a human being” face. Through the glass doors I saw an enormous man, easily my height , maybe even taller, in a Santa suit.

“WTF?” I thought to myself.

Behind him stood a middle-aged woman in glasses and frumpy attire. Not frumpy Mrs. Claus attire, just regular frumpy. Not unlike what many of the women who volunteer as ushers at the theater wear.

When the behemoth Santa saw me, he waved one gloved hand while the other clutched a fist full of candy canes. Suffice it to say, I was suspicious.

I pushed the door open the same way I always do when some kind of degenerate is trying to get into the theater and I want to act polite but not inviting. I said, “Can I help you?” And though he could have just as easily crushed me with his massive frame, he thrust a candy cane at me and said “Merry Christmas!”

The way he said it suggested to me that either he thought I thought he was really Santa or he thought he was. Not wanting to burst his bubble and have to deal with an enraged 7ft. tall schizophrenic in a fake beard, I said “What, uh, what’s going on, uhm, Santa?”

He immediately dropped his guise and said “I had a thing at the Kid’s Museum [next door], just stopped by on my way to the car.”

“Ah. Alright. Well, thanks for the candy cane.”

“No problem,” he said waving good-bye, “Happy Holidays!”

Now, ‘Happy Holidays’ is my preferred winter salutation. I’m a card carrying member of the ACLU, I don’t think it’s overly PC to be respectful of the fact that other people don’t necessarily celebrate the same holidays—I think it’s just the right level of PC. But Santa saying it? Santa?! How weird is that? It’d be like Zombie Jesus saying “Happy Pagan Fertility Celebration” on Easter Sunday. But, y’know, like a 7ft. tall Zombie Jesus with a frumpy mute female sidekick*.

The whole thing left me feeling incredibly unsettled, but hey, free candy cane, so who am I to complain?




*It’s been a while since I read the Biblical accounts of the resurrection—does Jesus have a frumpy mute female sidekick?**

**Actually, given the great disparity between the various “gospel” accounts, it’s entirely possible that in Mark Jesus had a frumpy mute female sidekick and in Luke he had a fast-talking midget in leather pants as a sidekick and in John Jesus actually is a fast-talking midget in leather pants.
Seriously people, those of you who actually believe the Bible is true need to read the various resurrection stories and, with a straight face, explain to me how it could be possible that all four of them is true. Really, I dare you.