Santa comes through

Thank goodness Santa has Saturday hours and he's a good listener. I've been telling him how worried I am about Tech Guy and his car--a car he drives all over tarnation for work and that is now, sadly, lifeless in his driveway.

Mr. Gadget gently tried to tell TG, many months ago when he was getting ready to buy this high-performance, gas-guzzling, smoky-windowed, pre-owned macho machine, that it might be wise to purchase something smaller and more fuel-efficient, with a nice warranty, even though it might not be the coolest car on his block.

But, of course, he didn't listen. After all, when you're young and smart, your parents are old and stupid. So now he's in a pickle. "What do you think I should do?" he emailed.

"You might want to arrange for a cheap rental car for a few days," we suggested, biting our tongues before blurting out a string of We-told-you-so's. "Then see if you can find someone to look at it and estimate the cost of repairs," we added, holding off on the How-could-you-be-so-clueless part.


I wonder what Santa would do? There's a large jiggling jostle of Santas right here in the treehouse, so maybe I'll ask them.

"Do any of you have a good idea I could pass along to Tech Guy?" I asked.

They huddled together for several minutes--just like those World Series umpires deliberating close calls at first--and soon came forth with their answer.

"It'll be winter soon," said the Santa who was obviously the crew chief. "There's nothing like a good sleigh and a couple of strong reindeer....ho...ho...ho!"