When I was just a kid, maybe around 4 years old or so, I woke up on the night of December 24th to a noise I had never heard before in the middle of the night. The way my parents house is designed is that when I opened my bedroom door, you can see into an office that was part of the living room. But a semi-section of wall blocked view from the living room to my bedroom. In order to see in the living room you had to walk into the office a little bit, or travel back up the hallway toward the bathroom and enter the living room there...

So here I am, 6 years old, and I want to know what this noise was. So I got up and went investigate. Being a huge fan of police forces, military and James Bond... i was trained. I was like a shadow ninja so that whoever, or whatever, didn't hear me, or see me coming. I was used to slow crawling up to my cats and walking around as not to wake them. I was good at this shit.

When I got my full view of the living room my heart sunk. I saw my father there eating Santa's cookie, my mom was drinking some of the milk and then she screwed around with the fireguard on the fireplace as to make it look like a 350lb man could fit through that tiny hole. Dad then brought in a few more presents that look like Dillard's boxes wrapped in your local 99 cent store wrapping paper.

"What the..." is what I thought as I came to a crashing realization that Santa is not real. That bastard Santa wasn't the one who kept bringing me navy blue slacks, socks, ink pens, and pencil erasers on Christmas... it was my parents! I went back to my room and stayed awake all night running this over in my head. No Santa? No Reindeer? That means... no Eastern Bunny either. Which explains the huge amount of candy in the basket being everything my mom loves to pig out on. She still put out Easter baskets for me well into my 20's. She did this because, that's what she does. She has a hard time dealing with change, and loosing something. She was loosing me as the innocent kid she once had, and I've changed from what I used to be, into someone who is stronger than even myself had ever imagined I could be. All those years of my mom putting out the Easter basket for me, has led her to become what the doctor says is "borderline diabetic". Too many sweets will do this to you. It's wrong to steal candy from me, regardless of when I was a child or not... I'll hurt you.

I've strayed off course...

A lot of you don't mind getting socks and ugly navy blue slacks for Christmas. That's fine. Pens and Pencils make you tingle? Good. Just keep it to yourself. I was pissed off. I raised hell every year after that about getting slacks, socks or some other stupid non-toy item. Bring me a bike, a Nintendo, an RC Car for fucks-sake! I even threatened to my mom that I would skin Santa Clause alive. Yes, even after I knew that Santa was irreversibly my father. No, I would not have skinned my dad. Sicko.

One year, my mom left a sales receipt on the table after she got back from what she said was "Christmas Shopping". Yet again, clothes, clothes, socks, clothes.... PENCIL ERASERS!? What the hell have I done to make this woman think that I'm totally IN LOVE with pencil erasers? It was time for a full deployment of resources, a battalion of insults, and a swift execution plan.

I waited till my parents went to bed that Christmas Eve. I made sure I sneaked enough coca-cola to be WIRED awake by that time. Sure enough, I was. I had cat-like hearing in that old house, my footsteps were unheard even to the cats... walked right passed two of them. I crept across the living room at what seemed to be 1/2 the speed of molasses moving uphill on a cold day. And I planted my bomb. It was a bag. A duffel bag full of all the slacks, socks, erasers, paperclips, and uniball ink-pens were contained within. On the outside of the bag I left a "Return to Sender" address label I found on my dad's desk, and a small note that said "Dear Santa, you don't have to bring me this anymore. I'm sure that if I needed them that bad, my mom and dad would buy them for me throughout the rest of the year." I let out a very faint chuckle reading over the note before I bolted. I sneaked out the living room, careful not to step on the cats, and went into my room and laid next to the door with the door locked, and my ear under the door, next to the floor so I could hear.

Now the slick execution. I gave the wall, right next to the door, a quick hard jab. Enough to make the sound travel throughout the house, but not enough to cause alarm. It worked, my parents woke up and thought it was me, but they checked the living room to see the bag instead of heading directly to my room. My door was locked, so they couldn't just barge in. The knocked and called my name... but I didn't respond with anything but a fake snore. I climbed back into bed, and fell asleep. The next morning I awoke to a Nintendo 64, a brand new mountain bike, more lego's than I knew what to do with and a $100 gift certificate to Toys -R- Us from Sant.... MY DAD?!?! Wow... I must have struck a nerve, that never happened before. Christmas was mighty fine this year... mighty fine.

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So that is the story of when I found out Santa wasn't real, and what I did about it. Unfortunately the very next year I was back to my ugly floss and erasing expeditions.