Monday, December 25, 2006

I think that woman Carol killed JFK

Christmas time has always warmed my heart. I actually have a heart made out of lamp oil so it's always a time of the year when I have to watch myself because at time my chest lights on fire and kill a lot of old people and deer.

But those times when I don't burst into flames, I remember the stories of my old christmases. Oh yes. Those times that families share together as they eat saws and listen to Connie Chung recite a Christmas Carol over their two-way radio they bought at Walmart. I remember the time when my grandmother threw a ham at my family (true) and the time my brother shot a mouse through a box with a bee bee gun in front my mom who started crying (true) and the time I fell down a flight of stairs twice and laid on the floor for 30 mins unconscious and no one came to see if I was all right (true) and the time aunt Helen fisted a beer (oKSYSDA THAT:S FALLSEEE)!!

But the most clear memory I have of Christmas is one of joy and sadness. It was the time when I was perhaps 9 or 10 and went sledding with this woman named Carol. Carol was of no relation to me. None. She was actually not even good friends with my family. She was literally this woman Carol. My mom had to go to work, and my dad had to go somewhere. I was in need of babysitting for a short amount of time, and I'm pretty sure they just knew this woman Carol because they saw her once. They left me with Carol, and she decided to take me sledding. I loved sledding. I loved it. Plain and simple. I was very good at childhood you might say. I enjoyed all those silly little activities that make you a kid. Sledding. Face painting. Soiling your pants. Sign me up.

This woman Carol suited me up in a snowsuit that wasn't mine. It had belonged to her son Andrew who was now grown up. It was a Buffalo Bills snowsuit with buttons, zippers and clasps that locked a child in all directions and supports and ways. It was like straight jacket of fun and sports appreciation. I was all bundled up and ready for a day of sledding.

This woman Carol took me to a hill near this school her son Andrew had attended, and even though I was 9 or 10, it struck me as odd how much she tried to pretend I was Andrew. Once I'm even sure she called me Andrew. I had not brought my sled that day to this woman Carol's house, but it didn't matter since I just borrowed one of Andrew's. I got ready to go down the hill the first time. I saddled up onto the sled and began to inch forward. All of a sudden, I burst down the hill! This woman Carol had run up behind me and said "LAUNCH!" She said the word "LAUNCH!" and pushed me with everything she had in her, falling over in the process. I was fucking out of control. My sled was hurdling forward in all different directions. And this hill...this hill that Andrew probably had sled down countless times before after being LAUNCHED! by his mother Carol was fucking steep and large. I was screaming but everyone else there with their kids just thought I was having fun, having no idea what this woman Carol had just done to me. As I hurdled further and further down the hill, faster and faster I approached the bottom where people were ending their runs. The thing is my FMA formula (force = mass x acceleration) was not going to have me end anywhere near these people. Hence, they became targets. BOOM! One kid went down tumbling to the side on his orange circle disc. I had no time to look back before BOOM! A duo of girls who had just chain sled down the hill passed under my sled which at this point perhaps had flames on it. BOOM! An abandoned sled (smart kid) flew up into the air as I plowed directly into its heart. I could not be stopped. My FMA was fucking up this hill. I assume this woman Carol was standing at the top of Everest admiring her work. I felt the end nearing. I was slowing somewhat but my direction was still all over the place. I tried to steer but I was in a fucking blue piece of plastic. There's no starboard or port direction in a plastic vessel of hell. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! I don't even know what those were but I was sure of the BOOM! that lay ahead. My finale. My ending. My exodus. Ahead of me stood a middle aged man, having just sled down the hill himself perhaps trying to relive the childhood he wasted and could never reclaim. There was no way around him. I couldn't veer in either direction. I swerve to the left, a group of young children making snow angels. I swerve to the right and I was toast. The angle would have been too severe and a-tumbling my carcus would go. There was no choice but to go through the heart of the beast. I braced myself. I thought of all the things in my life that I had loved. My puppy Ted. My little playskool kitchen. My classmate crush Michael Brooks. This was it. This was the end. BOOM!

After all these years, I remember that man's face as he turned to see what fate had brought him. His wasted childhood came hurdling at him, dressed in a Buffalo Bills straight jacket on a blue flame thrower of plastic speed. This man only wanted a second chance. He didn't deserve this LAUNCH! We all grow up too quickly that we miss those moments that seem pointless and stupid at the time. All we do is look ahead to getting wasted or making out with boys or girls in the back seats of cars. The things we miss in the process. It's a shame. That poor man.

BOOM! I went directly under his legs ducking my head at just the correct moment to not end his adult life as he knew it. I did knock him over but his jewels remained in tact. I finally came to a stop, crouching downward on the sled, clutching onto it as though it was the one thing that understood me as a person. I just crouched there. I didn't want to look back at the carnage. The blood. The tears. The regret. I crouched there. Not moving. I could hear the man who probably stopped sledding after that day scream out, "Are you okay, kid?" I didn't scream back. I saw a shadow form over me. It was that woman Carol. She patted me on the back. Pulled back my hood. And asked, "Ready to go again?"

I soiled Andrew's Buffalo Bills snow pants at that exact moment.