Project C

"How the C's Christmas Turned Larcenous!"...A Holiday Special

Now, most people like Christmas, except for the stress,
And besides Jews and atheists, but I digress--

The C hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that his head wasn't screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that his boots were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been the way weather turns brisk in the Fall.

But, whatever the reason, his boots or the snow,
When the yule-season came he was all filled with woe,
Staring out from his cave with a sour, frozen frown
At the warm lighted windows he saw in the town
As he walked from his home to his job at the store
To sell mistletoe-themed porn and condoms galore.

"Und there's holes in my stockings!" he snarled with a sneer.
"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"
Then he growled, in a language he'd learned only recent,
"I MUST find a way to make holiday decent!"
For, tomorrow, he knew...

...All the town's girls and boys
Would wake up bright and early. They'd rush for their toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing he hated, the NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

Then his neighbors next door would all sit to a feast,
And the shouting would start once the drinking'd increased.
And he'd call her a "bitch" and she'd call him a "beast",
And C's headache would not be relieved in the least.

And THEN would come something he disliked still more.
He remembered a faith that he tried to ignore
When the churches near by would start Christmas bells ringing,
And the congregations would light candles while singing.

They'd sing, and they'd sing, and they'd sing, sing, sing, sing,
And the more the C thought of this spiritual sting,
The more the C thought, "I must stop this whole thing!
"Vhy for seven long years I haff lived like this now!
So I VILL have a merry Christmas, da...But HOW?"

Then he got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE C GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

"I know yoost vat to do!" the C laughed in his throat,
And he put on his scarf and he buttoned his coat.
And he chuckled, and clucked, "Vat a great kind of trick!
But the cops vill be out so I have to be qvick!"

"How I vish for a beer..." And the C looked around,
But since he'd drunk them dry, there were none to be found.
Did that stop the old C...? No, the C simply said,
"If I do not have beer, here's tequila instead!"
And a cockroach named Max crawled onto C's boot tread
And ascended unnoticed to sit on C's head.

Then he loaded a bottle into a coat pocket,
Turned an old ramshackle key in the door, and so locked it.
Then the C turned and spat and his path started down
Toward the homes where the folks lay a-snooze in their town.

All their windows were dark. TVs buzzed in the air.
All the trash had been left by the curb without care,
When he came to the first little house in the square.
"This is stop number one," that old Mr. C hissed,
And he took a quick swig from the flask in his fist.

Then he slid through the window, quite tight on his gut,
But he wriggled right through in a windowsill rut.
He got stuck only once, for a moment or two,
Then he was inside next to the fireplace flu,
Where a nice line of stockings all hung in a row.
"Now I know," he grinned, "yoost vat first must be so."

Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,
Around the whole room, over piles of presents.
Video games, socks and gift cards and more,
And lingerie wrapped up and stacked on the floor!
More than one would expect, the C then very nimbly,
Plucked up all the charcoal briquettes from the chimney.

Then he slunk to the kitchen and went through the drawers,
Finding matches in books from bars and liquor stores.
He found a strike lighter as quick as a flash,
That the home owners used to light their pipes of hash.

Then he stuffed all the matches in pockets with glee.
"Now," the C said, "I must yoost get a tree!"

And the C grabbed the tree and he started to shove,
When he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.
He turned around fast, and, well, what do you know?
Little Uronoro, no more tall than five-oh.

The C had been caught by this strange little lady
Who was searching for insects in areas shady.
She stared at the C and said, "Hey, Mister, why?
Why are you taking that Christmas tree? Why?"

But, you know, that old C was so smart and so slick.
He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick!
"Ich kann nicht Englisch sprechen. Bitte shön, geh weg,"
That C lied through his teeth as he wished for a keg.
"So bitte du ueberschuessigst deine Zeit.
"Tut mir leid, tschüs." And took up a quick gait.

Then he picked up the child by the scruff of her neck
And he set her outside the door on the sun deck.
As she went Uronoro waved Maxie "adieu".
C went to the window and shoved the tree through!

Then the last thing he took
Was the log for their fire.
Then he went through the window, himself, the old liar,
Off to build himself one nice big Christmas Eve pyre.

And his one companion gave him no reproach.
On his hat, nibbling specks, just that little cockroach.
Then he went through the 'hood in similar encroaches
Taking matches and lighters. (The specks were the roach's.)

It was quarter past dawn, all the town still a-bed,
When he packed in a barrel he found in a shed
That big tree, like some pyromaniac druid,
And newspaper and covered all with lighter fluid.

Then fifteen feet up all those flames went a-jumping!
(But he had extinguishers and sand for dumping.)
"Fuck you!" to the world he was spitefully cawing,
Thinking how he could almost feel his toes thawing.

The world started to wake little bit by a bit,
From the smell of the smoke the fire did emit.
The people in the neighborhood all cried "Oh, shit!"

"Now a noise," the C mused, "I'll hear next is a siren.
Crap, I did plan this badly." He looked at what he'd done.
He paused. And the C thought of what he'd begun.
And a sound came prompted by the firelight's glow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow...

But the sound wasn't sirens!
Why, this sounded merry!
It couldn't be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!

The neighbors all stared
As he laughed with a cough,
Bowed his head in his mirth,
And a cockroach fell off.

Every neighbor of C's, both the tall and the small,
Were so shocked that no one called the cops at all.
The C roared with laughter. His Christmas was lame,
But somehow or other he laughed just the same!

And the C with his booted feet ice-cold as snow,
Was puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"
It came without family, came without friends,
But somehow he was here laughing in the end.
And he puzzled some more at what thoughts did amuse,
Until C thought of something: It was just the booze.
"Maybe I am yoost drunk," the C said with a slur.
"Dude, you're totally stoned," a neighbor did concur.

And what happened then...? Well, around here we think
That C's felon neighbors asked him to have a drink.
It may not have been legal, may not have been right,
But his head whizzed around feeling jolly and light.
And they watched his fire burn, sitting close to its heat
And he, he himself, the C, roasted his feet.