It was lunch time at the North Pole. Moe and Joe
Jingle, two elves from the Nintendo division,
slipped outside the toy factory and quietly raced
behind the reindeer barn.
“You got it?” Joe asked. Moe pulled out a sheaf of
papers and smiled slyly. “Yep,” he said. “Got it.”
They huddled together as Moe unfolded the papers.
“So who are we reading about today?” Joe asked
anxiously, trying to peer over Moe’s shoulder. Santa
had never installed satellite TV at the North Pole,
which meant entertainment was mainly limited to
watching reindeer games and playing hockey. Joe and
Moe were tired of both. So the two had hacked into
Santa’s recently computerized “Naughty and Nice”
list to read about the lives of the faraway people
who awaited the red-suited gentleman’s visit every
year.
“Let’s see. Today we’ve got… some folks from
California,”
Moe said.
“Wow! They’ve got
sun
there!” Joe said. Joe’s dream was to live in
a sunny place.
“I bet this one’s gonna be good.”
Moe’s eyes skimmed the paper. “Sorry. Don't think
so. Doesn't look too exciting.”
Joe’s face fell. “Well, might as well read it
anyway. We don’t have anything better to do.” He
leaned against the reindeer barn and stuck his
tongue out to catch the snowflakes that had started
falling.
“Let’s see,” Moe said. “Cayne,
Lisa and Chase
are their names.
Chase
has a few marks in the Naughty column, but he still
got a Nice rating.”
“Darn. Nice people are always so boring,” he said.
“Well, it’s not all bad. Says here that
they took a few trips
this year – camping in Big Sur and northern
California, a trip to Seattle and the San Juan
Islands to see family, and a visit to Montreal when
Lisa had a business trip. That was Chase’s first
trip out of the country. He had to get a passport.”
“Hey, that’s cool. What else?”
Moe’s eyes continued down the page. “They
also got a new dog, a chocolate lab named Zoey, and
Lisa went skydiving for the first time for her 40th
birthday.”
“What?! ” Joe yelled, forgetting all about catching
snow on his tongue. “I've always wanted to do that”
Joe went back to his snowflake catching. ”I guess these people aren’t as boring as I feared.” He leaned his head way back to catch a snowflake and his green elf hat fall into the snow with a soft jingle from the bell on top. “What else?”
"Chase
turned three and had a Spider-man party for his
birthday. He's into dinosaurs and robots, so his
Grandpa got his a Roboraptor. He loves it!"
Joe took a break from trying to catch snowflakes and
looked at his watch. “Hey, we better get something
to eat before we get back to the toy factory.
Anything else before we grab some grub?”
Moe skimmed the list. “It also says
Lisa’s company laid
off a bunch of people, but she's still got her job..”
Joe swiped at one more snowflake with his tongue.
“Think you can get another one tomorrow?”
“Sure. No problem. Santa will never know.” He and
Joe turned and headed off to the cafeteria to get
lunch.
They never even saw the man in the red suit who was
quietly adding names to his Naughty list.
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