Herb goes looking for the latest farmers almanac

Home Coun­try

Slim Ran­dles

It was Herb who dis­cov­ered it. He went into the Read Me Now book­store to ask Sarah if she had the lat­est Farmer’s Almanac (he always plants veg­eta­bles in the bow­els of some­thing) and found she had hired a Santa’s helper to talk to the children.

Well, that’s good,” Doc said. “Maybe those lit­tle nip­pers will enjoy hav­ing a Santa to talk to.”

But Doc,” Herb said, “she hired Windy Wilson!”

The Mule Barn truck stop right then and there lost at least fif­teen bucks’ worth of break­fast, because we paid for our ini­tial infes­ta­tion of cof­fee and left, en masse, for the book store.

Windy had sev­eral chil­dren lined up wait­ing to tell him what they wanted for Christ­mas. He was in his ele­ment, fake whiskers, red suit and all.

Sarah came over and smiled. “You won’t believe this, fel­las, but Alphonse told me he’d do it for free.”

Did you just meet him?” Doc asked. She nodded.

We had to walk up closer to Santa to hear what pearls of yule­tide wis­dom were being dropped.

Hello there, young lady,” he said. “Do you wish to con­vey an appur­te­nance of Christ­mas time wishes to all of us at this conflagration?”

Huh?”

Tell Santa what you want for Christ­mas,” said her mother.

Oh … I want a doggie!”

I see! You desire to bask in the unabrashed afflic­tions of our four-legged companions.”

No … I want a doggie.”

Yes, of course you do.” Windy glanced toward the girl’s mother, who nod­ded. “Now you real­ize, of course, that hav­ing a dog means pro­vid­ing it with ampu­la­tory nour­ish­ment and care. And there may be some … exc­re­ta­tory sur­prises to be remedliated.”

The girl looked up at her mother.

You’ll have to feed it and clean up after it, Honey,” Mom said.

I will, Santa!”

Good!” said Santa’s helper. “And a felic­i­tous cel­e­bra­tion of the sanc­ti­fied par­tu­ri­tional occur­rence to you, my dear.”

She looked up into the white beard and the twin­kling eyes. “Merry Christmas!”

Sarah should charge admission.

Brought to you by “Home Coun­try,” the best of the first six years. Read a sam­ple at www.slimrandles.com.

Posted by kpotts on Dec 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.