What I Did on my Christmas Vacation

Technically, I probably shouldn't write this until the Christmas Vacation in question is over, in case something dramatic happens. But I figure I can save time by making up my extravagant lies now.

Plus, I expect that the whole vacation can be extrapolated from the way the first couple of days went. So far, I've slept a lot. My alarm clock is practically unused! By the time I have to go back to work, it will have completely forgotten its former life and will probably have to go through a retraining process where it laboriously learns how to sound an alarm, like stroke victims who have to learn to speak again. I've also watched some television and played some Playstation 2 games.

Exciting so far, huh? Are you on the edge of your seat, breathlessly wondering, "Does Monty also maybe go buy some furniture?" Well, yes I do. Did. Whatever. The point is, yes. Yesterday, I bought a dresser. And that's about as far as that anecdote goes, which explains why I had to put all that other stuff at the beginning of the paragraph in a vain attempt at padding. It's a pretty nice dresser, but the most exciting part about buying it was wandering through Ikea and wondering how to pronounce the names.

And that's how it's probably going to be for the next week and a half, except without any more trips to Ikea. I'm not going to any Christmas or New Year parties, and I don't drink, so the holiday season will, in all likelihood, look a lot like any other week and a half without me working. And, well, there's nothing wrong with that, except that it doesn't translate into riveting prose.

So instead, I'm going to pretend like I'm having the wildest, most tripped-out Christmas vacation ever. Except that I've never been entirely sure what "tripped-out" means, although I have the distinct impression that it doesn't really belong in the same sentence as "Christmas". My point, if you'd stop distracting me, is that I'm about to start making stuff up. The lies will start . . . now.

I finally mastered the harmonica and went on a world tour with a jug-band. We were pretty good, and the groupies were uniformly attractive and well-educated, but the public soon wearied of us. Mostly because all we ever played was a selection of jigs and television theme songs. After an unsuccessful solo project, I returned home just in time to prevent my apartment from being taken over by aliens who all looked exactly like Paddlefoot, the dog from Clutch Cargo. Unless "Spinner" was the dog.

After fighting off the aliens, I went to a massive Christmas party, which was attended by Mr. T, Zorak, the Velvet Underground, and well over a hundred clever, funny people that only I know about. I brought deviled eggs, which were the hit of the party (except for Mr. T's chocolate souffle), and the party lasted over two days. When I left, Maureen Tucker was drinking Zorak under the table. They had a specially-made table for people to be drunk under.

The party took a few days to recover from, so I got caught up on my reading. I finished Finnegan's Wake, and then read through every book that's been on the New York Times best-seller list over the last ten years. Except for those damn Everything I Need To Know, I learned in Kindergarten things. I dont think I need to be taught anything by someone who hasn't learend anything since age 4.

So I had a fairly sedate New Year's party, where we just sat around making fun of the shenanigans on MTV. Of course, we did it from my secret lair on the moon, because the reception's better there. Does the "reception" joke even make sense anymore, now that everyone has cable?

Then it was time to go back to work. The end!