Little-Known Santa No. 29
Perhaps, like many others of us — inundated as we are at this time every year by commercials for all the latest tech toys and games and gadgets — you too are suffering that malady known as FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out.
Are you sick of idly standing by with empty hands or with your clunky laptop still within the tattered backpack slung over your shoulders while others around you swish and swipe at their digital tablets, selecting and enlarging that darling photo of their cat doing something endearingly goofy?
Do you have to surreptitiously rummage for and flip open your beat-up old cell phone (or, god forbid, tug at its wimpy little antenna!), while others are already busy loudly prattling into their Bluetooth earpiece synced to their to hip-cradled smartphone synced to their car radio?
Are you too often stuck in traffic behind a snail-paced granny with a GPS navigator screen glued to the windshield a foot before her aging eyes, while you steer with your knees while frantically flipping and flapping through a six-year-old city map booklet with a page missing?
Must you still experience that brief yet stinging flush of shame that washes over you each time a stranger happens to enter your family room to encounter that outdated VCR atop your set, flashing, “12:00 . . . 12:00 . . . 12:00”?
Well, then, you can certainly empathize with this sad fellow. You might say that he’s feeling not at all sharp. In fact, he’s feeling all fuzzy and out of focus. For he is truly a Kilobyte Kringle in a Megapixel World.
That’s what comes from sticking around so long: sooner or later, you’re sure to fall behind the times. Now, you might be feeling a little out of it, at your age (say, 40? Or 50? Or even 60?). But can you imagine what it must be like to be turning 1,742? Boy, would you be feeling way, way, WAY out of it!
It doesn’t help that he gets around on Christmas Eve aided by eight tiny reindeer. Hoof power only. No fuel-injection, no turbo-charging. No hybrid fuel options; just the same old hay. And what about that rickety sleigh, circa 465 AD? Can you imagine how hard it is to find replacement parts? No self-aiming headlights, no heated seats. Not even ONE cup-holder. No damn back-up camera either! And who ever heard of living at the North Pole? Can you imagine the heating oil bills? What kind of rating do you think the local school system there gets? And re-sale value on something that's covered in snow and ice 24/7/365? Forget it!
So, Father Pixmas here has gone way beyond FOMO. By his latest reckoning, he figures he passed FOMO sometime around 1966. In recent decades, he has even surpassed DOBSTBATBIITMW — that is, Dread Of Being So Technologically Backward As To Be Irrelevant In The Modern World. In fact, he is mighty rapidly approaching TABCAROOF: Terror At Being Considered A Really Old, Old Fart.
So, for Christmas Eve, keep it simple and traditional. Milk and cookies, preferably homemade chocolate chip or oatmeal or gingerbread. No gluten-free flours or artisanal doughs or modern twists on old recipes, please. No need to rub it in.
- Little-Known Santa No. 4
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