when Santa's sled broke down

it's still dark
when I get out of bed
and go see what the racket
is in the other room,

I see
santa, half drunk on the floor.

his boots are off.
the place is full of elves too,

eating everything they can get
their little
hands on. they've wiped
out all my cookies

and are slicing up tomorrows
honey baked ham.

apparently the sled broke down.

hey, hey, I say to him, shaking
his shoulder.

yo, like what up dude?
kids are waiting,
they're depending on you.

he pulls off his fake beard,
and scratches his face.

I don't know, he says. i'm getting
too old for this.
something's wrong with the sled.

these new sleds, with the computers
and all.

I miss the old ones, with reindeer.
you don't have any reindeer?
no prancer, dancer, pluto
and and...the other ones.

yeah I do, but they're just for show.
they're up on the roof.
probably freezing their acorns off.

some of them got shot when we flew
too low over the red states. sorry
about the blood on the roof.
but I think it's going to rain tomorrow.

the sled runs on plutonium now,
very high tech.

I think the software needs a reboot,
or something.

I get my phone out and google
santa's sled and we work through
the problem.

I get my friend Jimmy on the line
in India and he texts a link
to get it up
and running again.

Santa sends one of his elves up to reboot
the system.

we all hear it start up on the roof,
and the elves start cheering in
their strange high pitched, jockey like
voices. I can't wait for them to
get out of my house.

okay, thanks, he says. I guess
I should get going. he snaps his beard
back around his face
and puts his shiny black boots back on.

do you mind if I have the rest of this,
he says, holding up a half empty
bottle of tangueray?

sure, I tell him, sure. take it.

I look around the room,
under the tree,
where's my stuff, I ask him, no gifts
for me.
oh yeah, sorry about that.

I checked my list, but I got nothing
down here for you. seems you've been a bad
boy, most of the year. I just landed
here because we stalled out.

but look, here you can have my fit
bit.

he takes it off his wrist and pats
his belly. it's useless in my line
of work, with all the cookies and cakes
along the way. alright, got to go.

hi ho silver, or something like that.