A Seasonal Contractual Obligation

First of all, guys, sorry that I've been a wee bit pre-occupied during the last few months, and have let my posts lapse to only the occasional once in a blue moon.  To my less than ardent followers, you're welcome.

I know you may find this hard to believe, but, in a rather weak moment, when my powers of cogitation, collusion, and rejection were somewhat weakened by a craving for my drug of choice, chocolate, I was coerced into signing an agreement to take over a special task from a vaguely familiar but rather sad and saggy old guy, to supply and deliver toys for a few million of his reported 'believers'. You may have come across this chap in your visits to the mall about this time of year. He is usually rather weirdly dressed in a red suit, shaggy white beard, and patent leather black boots, and reportedly entertains a fetish for reindeer and a penchant for sliding down the inside of chimneys. 

It transpires that said sad and saggy old guy is currently voluntarily in residence at a psychiatric ward, somewhere near Hudson Bay, receiving treatment for post traumatic stress disorder.  I know this sounds far fetched, but he was apparently attacked by heat seeking missiles while travelling, late last December, over eastern Europe in a rather unique mode of transport.  It seems that he only missed receiving a direct hit as he was travelling at the improbable speed of Mach 5.

Anyway, to get back to my own sad story, I've always been a sucker for cult followers and the magical connection that binds them blindly to their almost fantasy figurehead.  I must indeed have been romantically motivated, at the time, by the concept of bringing smiles to the faces of all those impoverished kids who are desperately in need of the latest Space Station, Spiderman lunch pack, glow-in-the-dark 'slime lab', or Nike trainers.

And this is where I made my biggest mistake ..... I signed on the dotted line without reading the fine print.  Furthermore, I signed in haste (and now regret at leisure), without as much as a speed read of the contractual clause headings, to ascertain whether or not I might be obligated to endure any pain in the worst of all places for a former Scot ..... the hip pocket. Yes I committed the cardinal sin of contract reviewing and failed to notice a nifty liquidated damages penalty, at the rate of multiple big bucks per hour, should I fail to perform my obligations by close of business on Christmas Eve.  

This penalty, associated with failing to deliver a flotilla of kids wishes worldwide by the cut-off date and time, is apparently referred as the 'Santa' clause.

Well it soon became abundantly clear that, to save myself from potential bankruptcy, I not only had to suffer weekly trips to the frozen north, but had to attend a rigorous course of time travelling in this rickety old sleigh lookalike, drawn by a combination of robotic reindeer, in the northern hemisphere only, and big white boomers (ie monster AI kangaroos) in the southern hemisphere. 

The trips inside the Arctic circle were to ensure that this rather complex sweatshop, full of little green clad, pointy eared, height impaired mischievous 'elf' people, was actually producing enough Space Stations, Spiderman lunch packs, glow-in-the-dark 'slime labs' and Nike trainers to satisfy the demands of the next generation of up and coming 'would be' business tycoons.  The time travel training (supervised by an apparently well-known time lord, residing in a historically accurate police box from late 20th century London) was obviously in order to reduce the risk of over-running the deadline of midnight on 24 December.  

It must be said at this point in conventional time that it is apparently common practice to whittle down the number of deliveries to cult 'believers' by referring to the electronic database (stored in the sCloud) which comprises two separate fields.  These are commonly referred as the Naughty List and the Nice List.  Only the locations of the latter data field are entered into MapQuest RoutePlanner which is used to plot the complex flight path to be undertaken wholly during the dying hours of Christmas Eve. 

So, let's just say that my time over the last few months has been at a premium and that I'm currently in a state of some anxiety, as I not only hate the prospect of failing in my contracted duties of timely delivery, but will be working anything up to the next thirty years to draw even financially if the 'Santa' clause is invoked.  

So it only remains for me to wish you all a very merry Christmas and to remind you to leave me out some milk (full cream dairy, please) and cookies (preferably chocolate chip) on Monday evening, before you go to bed.  This is because natural gas is a critical requirement in the fuel mix for the journey. 

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http://ken-boddie.squarespace.com

The author of the above, Ken Boddie, besides being a sometime poet and occasional writer, is an enthusiastic photographer, rarely leisure-travelling without his Canon, and loves to interact with other like-minded people with diverse interests.

Ken's three day work week (part time commitment) as a consulting engineer allows him to follow his photography interests, and to plan trips to an ever increasing list of countries and places of scenic beauty and cultural diversity.