‘Twas the night before Christmas, if you believe in that crap,
Not a sound could be heard, ‘cept some faint gangsta rap.
The beer cans were scattered on my sink, desk, and hutch.
(I’d make quite a fortune if I recycled that much.)

I up and passed out, face-down in my bed,
While visions of nude showgirls danced in my head.
With dreams full of strippers and a tummy full of beer,
I hoped I’d be sleeping ’til sometime next year.

When a ways out the window, a loud noise exploded,
I snatched up my pistol an hoped it was loaded.
I dashed for the door, my eyes full of gunk.
I couldn’t see shit; an armed gung-ho drunk.

I finally threw up my arms and said, “Screw it,”
Strutted to the window and strained to look through it.
When, what did I see, though my eyes were still fucked?
Some guy in a sleigh pulled by eight antlered bucks.

Now the dude at the wheel who looked like St. Nick?
He weighed half a ton and dressed like a prick.
So the guy whipped the deer like some S&M dame,
Then he hooted and hollered and called out some names:

“Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On Donder and Blitzen!”
I got pretty excited, and my eyes went agleam,
Cuz Dancer and Vixen were two chicks from my dream!

“What could be better,” I thought, eyes aglow,
“Than a visit from Pimp Santa and a few ho ho ho’s?”
So up to the house-top the deer they did fly,
Before Santa’s fat ass pulled them out of the sky.

And then, with a loud thump, I heard from above,
The arrival of Santa and some hot monkey love.
When he slid down my chimney and his ass hit the ground,
I saw him alone, ne’er a ho to be found.

So while I once was excited and thought he was legit,
It turned out that “Santa” was here to steal shit.
A gigantic sack he had clenched in his fist,
As he surveyed my assets, I began to get pissed.

I leapt out of the hallway and into plain sight
Screaming, “Put ‘em up, Fat Fuck, or die here tonight!”
He put up his hands, dropped the bag and yelled, “Cool it!”
I still squeezed the trigger, but found the gun had no bullets.

I moved closer to hit him; to press the attack,
But he side-stepped and kicked me right in the sack.
Santa started to chuckle and cackle and gloat,
While watching me squirm with my balls in my throat.

Yet just when he thought that he had me outclassed,
I shoved the fireplace poker straight up his ass.
He cursed and he writhed and he wailed and he sneered,
So I picked up my Zippo and set fire to his beard.

Then I found me some bullets and put two in his head,
Making damn sure that Pimp Santa was quite simply dead.
I rolled him up in a blanket, tossed his corpse in the trunk,
But couldn’t drive to dispose of him, cuz I was still drunk.

So I whipped up some egg nog, about 90 proof,
Then shot the eight reindeer that were still on my roof.
Replaced my front door wreath with a big festive sign:
“Get Two Pounds of Deer Meat for $9.99!”

Tags: christmas, the night before christmas, holiday satire

Copyright © 2006 The JagPot

So, back in Part 1, we covered the LASIK consultation and my ignorant decision to sign up even though everything I saw scared the shit out of me.

In Part 2, we talked about the waiting room and how odd it was that they were playing a movie that featured Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, and a form of the word “fuck” every nine seconds.

Where does that leave us?

The Actual Surgery

A lady in scrubs came and summoned me and another guy into the Prep Station. The Prep Station is a small room where they make you put on a silly hat and paper booties over your shoes.

Discussion Question: How do you put size 10 paper booties over size 12 work boots?

Answer: You don’t. You just rip it to the point that it serves no sanitary purpose whatsoever.

At this point, I had been waiting an hour and a half and the guy I was in the Prep Station with was there before me, so for all I know he’d been there since 1988. Needless to say, we were both anxious to get on with it already. Naturally, this was a good reason to make us wait another half hour, only now it was just the two of us in silly hats and shoes with no television or obscene DVD to provide awkward entertainment.

We solved this, as all men do, by talking about football. Turns out the guy’s name was Henry, 48 years old, lives in Baltimore, and was a really nice guy even though he likes all the wrong football teams. The small talk led to a discussion about why we were there. Henry wanted laser eye surgery because he’s a truck driver who cannot maintain his credentials if his eyes get any worse. I, on the other hand, elected to have laser eye surgery on the off chance that the laser would zap my brain and give me super powers.

Then they came and took Henry away. I never saw him again.

When the nurse came to get me, I considered hitting her with a chair and making a run for it, but I’m pretty sure the cap and booties drained all of my testosterone. As I entered The Laser Chamber of Death, I noted that the door I came through appeared to be the only exit. Since Henry was nowhere to be found, it was obvious that they fucked up and disintegrated him.

It was at that moment that they made me lay down on a table built for small people. At 6′2″, this is kinda like laying on a TV tray. As soon I was horizontal, the nurse gave me a teddy bear (seriously), apparently so I would have something to strangle while they violated my peepers. Then they taped my eyes open like you see in movie scenes depicting the type of torture that gives you dry heaves.

Time for something they call “numbing eye drops.” Calling this process “drops” is like using the word “sprinkle” to describe a hurricane. Basically what they did was pour a bucket of something they claimed was medicinal all over my face. This was starting to resemble an elaborate fraternity prank, which would indicate that the whole Wedding Crashers thing was a missed clue.

Then the actual doctor showed up and scrubbed my eyeballs with a toothbrush. This served no obvious purpose, so I think he just did it to annoy me. I expected him to start singing, “You can’t bli-ink! Nanny Nanny Boo Boo!” And it’s not like I could have done anything if he had, because my head was taped to a table directly underneath a Gigantic Laser Spewing Machine. So I pretended the teddy bear was the doctor and wrung its neck like a wet towel.

There’s really not much to say about the surgery itself, other than that I don’t believe for a minute that they did anything. The guy turned on a bright light, told me to stare at it (like I had a choice), I heard a bunch of zappy noises, and it was over. I never saw a laser, which I find odd because they claimed to shoot it right into my eyes.

As of this writing, I’m still convinced that broken eyes can be fixed with some masking tape and a toothbrush. The laser thing is a myth.

Part 4 will wrap this whole thing up. Possible Title: How To Survive For Two Weeks When You Can’t See A Goddamn Thing. Stay tuned.

Tags: lasik, prk, laser eye surgery, wedding crashers

7 dangerous hazards you should be aware of…

Local Kids Sometimes Drag See-Saws Into The Street And Play On Them. This sign is a few blocks from where I live. While I have never personally seen a see-saw in the street, I am always on the lookout for them. Not because I’m afraid of killing children, mind you, but rather because I’m pretty sure hitting a see-saw would fuck up my car. I like my car.

Airbags Are Essential For Automotive Safety, But Will Destroy A Carseat And Clobber Your Kid In The Head If You Forget To Turn It Off. This warning appears on the outside of the visor in my car. So whenever I glance upwards, I’m faced with the unremovable image of an infant getting crushed to death. This might be disturbing if it wasn’t so incredibly amusing. I’ve found that strapping a small child into the passenger seat and pointing to this sign is a great way to keep them quiet when you’re taking them someplace unpleasant, like to their pediatrician or Los Angeles.

Water Is Wet. It is a little known fact that one of the main ingredients in rain is water. Please be advised that when you’re driving your car in the rain, it’s possible that there will be water on the roads, which tends to make roads slippery and drivers stupid. So if you’re stupid and it starts to rain while you’re driving, you should probably pull over and play with the fuzzy dice until the magic water stops.

Don’t Fuck Around Or God Will Smite You In The Neck With A Lightning Bolt. This sign appears on the side of a server rack where I work. We all make fun of the sign because it’s really stupid. “No one gets electrocuted in places like this! Ha Ha!” we say. What a silly sign, right? Well, between you and me, I once got electrocuted in a room just like that, thanks to a broken, leaking air conditioner, a corresponding pool of water, a large amount of electronic equipment that is allergic to water, my brilliant assessment of the situation, immediately followed by me standing in the pool of water and grabbing the nearest large piece of conductive metal. It was shortly after that day that I became so odd. Coincidence?

Children Should Run No Faster Than 25 Miles Per Hour In The Vicinity Of This Sign. Kids routinely exercise poor judgment, because they are small, inexperienced, and attend public school. They are also much faster than we think they are, apparently capable of reaching a footspeed beyond 25mph. And if that is indeed the case, I’m thinking they should stop bugging their parents for rides, if only so I can have that stupid airbag warning label removed from my visor. I’m a Darwinian supporter. Kids playing in the street are fair game, seesaw or no seesaw. Gotta thin the herd somehow…

This Road Actually IS A Through Way, And A Fantastic Shortcut To Boot, But The People That Live Around Here Fucking Hate It When You Use This Street To Skip That Intersection Around The Corner with the 45-minute Red Light, Because Your Car Might Be Shitty And Having Lots Of Shitty Cars Around Might Lower Property Values, Asshole. Some of these are self explanatory, folks. Try and keep up, will ya?

Beware Of This Sign! This is absolute genius. A warning sign that warns you of the dangers of itself. Somewhere out there, there’s a guy whose job it is to make this sign, another guy responsible for deciding that the sign was necessary, and a guy in charge of putting the sign where it needs to go. And if you think about it, this sign is equally useful EVERYWHERE! The production and placement of these signs could solve unemployment nationwide. It’ll be a dangerous nation because we’re surrounded by dangerous signs, but at the same time perfectly safe because we’re surrounded by signs warning us of the hazards of dangerous signs. Fucking brilliant.

So please be careful, dammit.

Tags: warning, warning signs, hazard