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Afraid of Santa? You might have Claus-trophobia

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Column by Jim Bishop

While everyone else is decking the halls and wrecking the walls, yours truly needs to climb up on the rooftop and unclog my Chinese chimney so Santa won’t catch the Hong Kong flue (I’m well-sooted for the job).

Which prompts me to ask, how come you never hear anything about the 10th reindeer, “Olive?” You know – “Olive the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names …”

Well, they told me the holiday drinks – nothing stronger than egg nog (that’s a yolk, son!) – were on the house, and I believed them. So while I’m up here sneezing and freezing, I may as well finish my list and check it twice (nothing naughty, everything nice) …

Near Christmas, Phil and Will built a skating rink in the middle of a pasture. A shepherd leading his flock decided to take a shortcut across the rink. The sheep, however, were afraid of the ice and wouldn’t cross it. Desperately, the shepherd began tugging them to the other side. “Look at that,” said Phil to Will. “That guy is trying to pull the wool over our ice.”

Did you hear that one of Santa’s reindeer now works for Proctor and Gamble? Its true … Comet cleans sinks.

I bought one of those new paper shirts and quickly found I don’t like them – they’re tearable.

“Mop and Glow” – floor wax used by Three Mile Island cleanup team.

Computers are not intelligent. They just think they are. The attention span of a computer is as long as its electrical cord.

To be or not to be – those are the parameters.

The wind is like the air, only pushier.

IRS motto: “We’ve got what it takes to take what you’ve got.”

History does not repeat itself – historians merely repeat each other. On second thought – history does repeat itself, mainly if you flunk it.

Some quixotic queries in search of answers …

If Santa and Mrs. Claus had a child, would he be a subordinate clause?

What do you get if you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite.

What do you get when you cross an archer with a gift-wrapper? Ribbon Hood.

How do sheep in Mexico say “Merry Christmas?” Fleece Navidad!

If athletes get athletes foot, do astronauts get missletoe?

Skipping school to go bungee jumping will get you suspended. (I always prayed before my trigonometry tests, hoping for a sine from above).

When longshoremen show up late for work, they get docked.

Building a cul-de-sac sounds like a dead-end job.

The artist was great. He could always draw a crowd.

One evening King Arthur’s men discovered Sir Lancelot’s moonshine whiskey operation and shattered the still of the knight (in other words, he got canned).

Achronoliterate: someone who does not have enough time to read everything that he wants to read.
Even though my memory is growing worse, the good thing is I enjoy several times the same good things for the first time.

Do you think we should silence those who oppose freedom of speech?

The problem with life is that you’re half way through it before you realize it’s a do-it-yourself thing. And you know you’re getting old when “tying one on” means fastening your MedicAlert bracelet.

Two hats were hanging on a rack in the hallway. One hat says to the other, “You stay here, I’ll go on a head.”

An English professor wrote the words: “A woman without her man is nothing” on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly. All of the males in the class wrote: “A woman, without her man, is nothing.” All the females in the class wrote: “A woman: without her, man is nothing.” Punctuation is powerful. Amen!

Two hunters were dragging a dead deer back to their car.

Another hunter approached, pulling his along too, and told the two men, “Hey, I don’t want to tell you how to do something… but it’s much easier if you drag the deer in the other direction. Then the antlers won’t dig into the ground.”

After the third hunter left, the other two decided to try it. A while later, one hunter said to the other, “You know, that guy was right. This is a lot easier!”

“Yeah,” the other replied, “but we’re getting farther away from the truck …”

Before I get any more Santa-mental, think I’ll get off the roof and take another bite of the Christmas fruitcake that was our employee gift. There was a note with it that read, “It’s been nice gnawing you.”

Well, that’s a discreet way of giving someone the pink slip during the holidays.

Postscript: Speaking of fruitcakes, join host Jim Britt and yours truly, Santa’s little yelper, for the “Warped Records Christmas Show,” 10 a.m.-noon Thursday, Dec. 20 on newsradio ho-ho-no 550, WSVA. I’ll also roast some musical chestnuts on an open CD player with “A 50’s Christmas,” on the “Friday Night Jukebox,” 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 21 on 91.7 FM, WEMC (www.wemcradio.org).

Jim (Eggnog on His Face) Bishop allegedly is a regular contributor to The Augusta Free Press.

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