Thursday Thirteen

Today's Thursday Thirteen will be a letter to Santa, aptly portrayed to the right by my brother during a recent Christmas event. Wasn't he a good Santa?

Letters to Santa often are very selfish and I daresay mine is no exception. Santa is a great commercial and consumer icon, the epitome of "me me me." Still, it's kind of fun to think about what you would like for a semi-god-like entity to hand over.

It is also rather hard to come up with 13 things.

Dear Santa:

(1) Please take a long look around the world and then ask yourself, how did this happen? How is that there are billions of people without food, shoes, good water, health care, and education? Then put your elves to work on these problems. Perhaps they can cobble ways to create fertile farm lands from arid deserts, or they could craft people-sized clothing instead of stuff for dolls. Maybe Herbie could expand his dentistry.

2. After you've addressed those larger issues, let's take a look at smaller things. In my area we've got a kidnapped girl with her mother murdered, 47 indictments for drug issues in my little county of 32,000 people, and a lot of fires because it is cold outside and people are using fire to stay warm. Not to mention the fact that someone is out killing cows from a farmers' field and throwing the carcases all over the place. I don't know how you fix that kind of thing.

3. Could you take something instead of giving, dear Santa? Could you take the meanness away? And in its place, could you please leave a little "nice"?

4. Lots of people need work, Santa, and I mean they need good jobs, not Walmart greeter positions. Maybe you could figure out how to put some of those folks to work curing all of those ills up in item number one.  That would be ingenious and very smart, wouldn't it, using folks out of work who can work to help other people while they get back on their feet.

5. Please help people who have very closed minds to realize that is not always about business and corporate profits. You know who they are. Please remind them that morality means doing the right thing because it is the right thing. Apparently they need a lot of reminding.

6. Locally, please help the leaders to make the appropriate decisions as they slash budgets and make immoral cuts to services.

And now on to the selfish stuff:

7. I would like an iPad just because they look really cool.

8. I also would like a new camera. I have been looking at these point-and-shoot Nikons with the 26x lens on them and they look pretty nifty.

9. Since I am asking for items I know I won't get this year, I will toss in a sunroom. I would use it for my exercise room and get the treadmill out of the kitchen and the exercise bike out of the living room.

10. A maid would be nice, too. I think I ask for this every year and she is still not forthcoming.

11. Weight loss is another item. Maybe you could bring me a membership to the gym or something. Or maybe you could create some kind of food vacuum that would take away all of the bad food as soon as I bring it in the house. Something besides my eating it, that is.

12. Please take good care of all of my friends and loved ones, dear Santa, and bring them whatever they need from your goodie bag.

13. And last, but not least, please see that my gentle readers are happy, loved, and patted on the head as they go throughout the holiday season. Fulfill their wish list, too.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here.  I've been playing for a while and this is my 168th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.