SANTAS IN THE SKY?
WHAT are they? WHO are they?
Small car-sized drones? Spaceships from the far side of the moon? Do we celebrate them, endure, or hide under our beds or under the Prius in the garage?
If they are spaceships, Steven Spielberg has taught us how to deal with them.
The minute they say “take us to your leader,” we just point at Mar-A-Lago. But then we don’t even know where he is at this particular moment — Mar-A-Lago or Manhattan.
And it’s Christmas, we have gifts to wrap, food to bake, carols to sings, and a tree to decorate. Who has time to worry about cars flying around New Jersey? Do they know New Jersey? Sinatra’s relatives still live there, don’t they? That’ll be some dance.
And they probably don’t know about climate change — we barely do. Since the election I have turned off all the news shows. I only watch Seinfeld reruns now.
Do you want to hear some spacemen screaming in their language because they can’t get their drones working in an ice storm? I’m not up to that. I can barely get my remotes working in a soft fall storm.
And how do we explain the winter solstice, Christmas Eve Mass, Christmas Day ham, let alone Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve and Amazon two-day delivery to them?
And do you think they even have a flag? If they don’t, our new president isn’t going to stand for that.
Remember, this is the guy who took a bullet to the ear for his country. Wait until they hear him tell that story.
Will JD Vance explain to them how Kamala Harris lost an important election? And ask about the flag again?
Wait. Maybe that’s why they’re here. Maybe they’re Kamala fans and have been following the news on the way down. If they are smart enough to fly those things from outer space, they are surely smart enough to read Georgia’s ballots.
Between explaining the difference between the two parties and daylight saving time, we’re already dead, let alone explaining the winter solstice when we slip back to longer days. They surely won’t get that. Not even President-elect Trump does.
And if they decide to stay, how do we explain “Morning Joe” and New Year’s Eve and the big ball dropping, and how to eat canapés and drink blue martinis when it does?
Yes, as Desi used to say to Lucy, we “got some ’splaining to do.”
Starting this month, we’ll have to get used to kissing some big shot space alien’s rear end, just to get the new thinner folding iPhones when they come out, not to mention teaching them how to eat a bagel, drink a large glass of spiked eggnog and hum a Beatles song at the same time, or make out in the back set of an Uber ride.
For now, as we have arrived at the end of a cold December with the lights glowing on every tree, I am eager to see if they can fix my garbage disposal. Stay tuned fellow earthlings.
J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.
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