Howdy one and all, I know it’s been
forever and a day since I got up on here and gave yall the 411 on are comings
and goings. With Lil Jr being just about big enough to come along with us on
jobs, Jr will be starting back with me soon so maybe we’ll have more stories to
tell, but until then, I got to let yall know what happened this past weekend,
it was a bonified Christmas Miracle!
It was late Saturday night at the
Fenton compound, and me and Jr had just finished putting together all of Lil’
Jr’s presents. You see, ever since Lil’ Jr was born, we go all out at Christmas
for him, on account that Santa never once showed up for him. Well, Me
and Jr are mainly to blame for that. As you might recall, we are what you might
call “Personia Nan Grata” when it comes to those folks what inhabitate the
North Pole. Jr and I are on the big man’s naughty list for all time because of
one little mis step on our part way back when we was just kids. Man that was a good time, well Santa don't come around here because of that and it ain't fair to let Lil' Jr suffer cause of what we done. Regardless what that giant elf thinks of us ain't no reason to leave the kid out, he's a good kid and he deserves some Christmas magic and we make sure he believes.
Anyway, like I was saying, we
had just finished getting everything ready when we got a pounding on our front
door. Now don’t know body come calling on anyone this late unless its really
important, especially on Christmas Eve. Well I opened the door to find Beaman
standing on my porch looking troubled, so I asked him what was going on. He
told me there had been some trouble over at his place that even we wouldn't believe and if Jr and me could
come over and take a look. We told Sadie to hold down the fort and we’d be back
as soon as we can.
We got to Beaman’s place and went
on in. That’s when we learned of the troubles he was truly having. Sitting on
Beaman’s couch petting his dog was St. Nick himself. He took one look at us and
then at Beaman and said absolutely not! Jr and me had no clue what was going
on, so Beaman filled us in.
So as Beaman tells it, he was out in
his shop working on some things when he heard something clatteren on the roof
of his trailer. He went out to take a look and saw a deer on his roof. He said
that while that might be a bit peculiar place to find a deer, it was to good of an opportunity to not to take, I mean seriously, how often
does venison just park itself right in front of you. So he went and fetched his
shot gun from the shop and took aim. What he failed to notice when he fired the
gun was the seven other deer attached to a sleigh and a large man in the
process of climbing out it. Beaman is a decent enough fellow, I can see why he'd be on the nice list. So when he fired, the deer all tried to fly off in
different directions all at the same time. The sleigh flipped on it’s side and
Santa spilled out off the roof and onto the ground. As for the sleigh and the
reindeer, well, they ended up all catawampus and managed to scatter off into
the woods.
Well that kind of thing can happen in our neck of the woods, So we told Santa to sit tight, we’d
wrangle up his deer for him and get him back to business in no time and we got to
work collecting up what we were going to need to fetch the critters and get them
back to the house. We grabbed up some rope, a couple of flashlights, and Beaman grabbed
a bottle of his famous deer lure. It was basically one big bottle of deer good
time if you catch my meaning. One wiff of this stuff will get any deer going,
we figured if it works on White Tail, why not reindeer.
The path they made weren’t that
hard to follow, what with all the broken tree limbs and the huge track where
the sleigh had been pulled on its side across the pond and into the woods. We
followed it for a good ways until we seen them down by the lake, we kept our
distance so’s not to spook them futher. They looked to still be tethered in
their harnesses and the sleigh was back up right, even though it was half in
the water.
Jr took deer lure from Beaman and
uncorked it and I saw Jr side glance me when he did. He didn’t think I noticed,
but I was totally expecting what came next. You see, Jr has been itching for
some pay back ever since the fairy infestation down in Georgia. So when he
pulled his arm back and started turning towards me, I was already 2 steps ahead
of him! I grabbed Beaman by the back of his shirt and whirled him into Jr just
as Jr was throwing the lure at me. It caught Beaman square in the face and splashed
down the front of Jr.
Before either of them could say a
word, the reindeer all snapped their heads in our direction. They all let out a
noise I ain’t never heard come out of no deer before, something like a cross
between a roar and a bleet, man was it loud. Then they all started scraping and
splashing at the ground and then they were off! Jr and Beaman both let out a
scream that was so high pitched and squeaky and might have burst some windows
if there’d been any around. Anyway, them two started sprinting back up the
trail and I ready myself for what I needed to do next. The sleigh hadn’t really
picked up much speed as they went by me cause they had to pull it out of the
water and muck, so I was easily able to jump in and grab the reins, not that
I’ve ever driven anything what was being pulling by animals before, much less a
magical flying sleigh!
As those two were making there way
back faster than I thought was possible for them, Beaman hooked his foot around
Jr’s ankle and put him face first into the mud and ran right past him. I guess
that was enough to muffle the lure’s effect that was on Jr or maybe he didn’t
get as much on him as I though, cause the first deer just ran by Jr with out
even of “How you doin?” as he was standing up. So as the sleigh was passing, I yoked Jr into the sleigh with me.
When we both got up right, I tried
to get the deer to stop to which Jr told me I was doing it wrong and took the
reins from me. I guess when it comes to flying reindeer, he's got more experience than me. I looked out ahead and Beaman was no where to be seen. Jr pulled
back as hard as he could and the sleigh made a steep incline up and over the
trees, it was my turn to start screaming like a tea kettle set to boiling as I started lookin around for something to hold on to, who would have guessed there weren't no seat belts.
After of couple of barrel rolls and
me possibly crapping my pants, Jr had the hang of it. The deer seemed to have
calmed down, so we leveled out and headed back down to the trail to try and
find Beaman. The first thing we spotted was his coat laying on the ground, then
his shirt, then shoes and pants as we flew back towards the house. We found
Beaman standing waist deep in his pond scrubbing his face and hollering about not having any junk anymore. Did I mention that
we were in the middle of one of the worst cold snap I’d ever seen, I think it was
around 8 degrees outside.
We plopped down in Beaman's backyard. I left Jr to tend to the animals
and the sleigh while I got Beaman inside and to fetch Kringle. Santa was super thankful, but said he’d
have to call it a night. He had busted himself up pretty good falling off
Beaman’s roof. I started thinking about all those sad faced youngins who wouldn't have no Christmas and that's when the idea hit me! Santa wasn’t to keen on it at first, but once I’d
explained that all the children would be disappointed, he reluctantly agreed.
So we put Beaman to bed and went out back. Jr had gotten everything cleaned up
real nice, hardly looked like anything had happened. Jr helped Santa up into
the sleigh and handed him the reins. Santa handed them back and said this thing
doesn’t fly itself. Jr looked at him, then at me, then at the reins and I said
well get in and do what he says, I’ll let Sadie and Lil’ Jr know what’s going
on. Well, Jr lit up like the Christmas star and jumped in. I stepped back as Jr
cracked the reins and they took off. I’ll tell you this, Santa didn’t exclaim
anything as they drove out of sight, he was to busy screaming through a loopty
loop. I probably should have mentioned those to Santa.
I went home and gave Sadie the
short and quick version of the night’s events. Of course, she was worried, it's not every night that your husband takes off with a mythological delivery man, so
we waited up. It was almost dawn when we heard them on the roof. So I went and
got Lil Jr up so he could watch. Down came some soot and snuffed out our fire
and then Jr came bounding out of the fireplace followed by Santa. They got to
work putting even more presents under the tree. When they were done Santa gave
Jr a hug and told him something that I couldn’t make out, they he was back up
the chimney quick as a flash, just like the story says. Well since we were all
up, we decided to tear into the presents. There was on particular one for both
Jr and me. It was a little framed document, it stated that we had earned our
way back on to the Nice List, as a probationary trial at least. We all ran outside to watch him fly off. I kid you not, Santa Claus shouted out a WHOO! as they took off and did a barrel roll into the horizon, and we heard him exclaim as he rode out of sight, Merry Christmas Yall!
Since Jr and me are now off the Naught List, I'm gonna re-publish this for those of you who might need a little help yourselves.
