CHRISTMAS WRAPPINGS

Hi Guys, it’s been a while. But don’t worry. I’m still creepy and still out here writing about it. Still I imagine you’ve felt neglected by my lack of attention over the past few months. Please accept this reminiscence as my attempt to get back in your good graces. It’s true, every word of it. From the glass eye to the outcome of my small bit of thievery.

Merry Christmas

My grandmothers junk drawer was a source of endless fascination for me. Carelessly assembled one piece of detritus at a time well before I was born it was located in a chipped and faded dresser that sat at the end of the hall adjoining the living room and kitchen. How it came to be I cannot say. Suffice to note that it was the receptacle for all manner of unrelated and curious objects and the red hot focus of my curiosity. Any visit to grandmothers house included some time rustling through its contents which could range from broken watches, old costume jewelry, and unwanted eyeglasses to her now grown children’s (my aunts and uncles) baby teeth. There were locks to guess the combinations of. Old keys that might or might not work somewhere in the house. Balls of string. Others made out of rubber bands. Hot wheels cars. Chatter teeth that bounced and bit at the winding of a key. Once, I even found a plastic pencil sharpener in the shape of a nose. Only one rule stood sacrosanct. Ask first before taking something home.

It was the Christmas of my seventh year and family crowded every inch of my grandmothers home. Presents were piled waist high under the gaudy silver aluminum monstrosity that passed for a tree and drinks flowed freely through the hands of cousins, aunts uncles neighbors and assorted family friends. My own taste ran to the table bearing baked goods and candy. Cookies in the shape of trees crystalline and green, candy canes and Hershey’s kisses. Long ribboned multi-colored hard candy’s inevitably fused together by time and a massive chocolate sheet cake in the shape of Santa’s Head which by this time was missing a right eye and left ear.. Another favorite was the table laden with smallish salami coins and assorted cheeses, smoky link sausages, chips and dips. Olives, black and green. Cream cheese celery (two things I would never eat unless combined) and various tiny breads which always made me wish for a tiny toaster to complete the tableau.

I remember also, George Carlin’s brand new album Class Clown blaring through the speaker system my uncle Brian had wired so as to reach every room in the house. Playing at this particular moment was the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” monologue. I could not understand what any of these words had to do with Christmas but when Mr Carlin imitated an irritated housewife screeching, Shit! I dropped the meatloaf” I thought that he must be a family friend who knew my mother quite well. No matter where I turned excess was in the air. Excitement both licit and illicit. Mother, poor long-suffering mother had stressed prior to our arrival that under no circumstances was I to take home anything from the junk drawer that evening. No doubt she was anticipating the explosion of bits and bobs that would cover our own floor Christmas morning.

She spoke in vain. Maybe it was all the chaos around me, maybe it was because I saw the adults were clearly too drunk to care anymore. Do as I wilt became my only law. I crept catlike and wide-eyed toward the junk drawer. I got out the little stool that grandmother kept underneath it and carefully inched it open afraid that every squeak would bring me to the judgement seat. It was madness. Surely I would be caught. But no one came. Hurriedly, I sifted. I considered. What was it that I could hide well enough on my person to avoid discovery? Quickly I settled on three items. A glass eye of unknown parentage. A long dead stopwatch that rattled when shaken. Lastly I stole a long dark blue ribbon wound on a plastic spool. I shut the drawer. The rest of the night was spent wondering if I’d be caught. Only when it was time to open the gifts did I think about anything else but my ill-gotten gains.

The gifts flew. One for you and one for you and one for you, but even as my fingers shredded paper and emptied boxes I could feel the glass eye staring, the dead stopwatch signifying my time was up, the ribbon winding tightly around my heart. By night’s end I could barely breathe. Still I endured the midwestern multi-phasic goodbyes, the mustachiode grandmother kisses and the ride home. Time to play.

I stuck my bounty under the mattress and dressed for bed. More kisses. More goodnights. But my plan had worked. My mother and father, none the wiser, went to bed to sleep the party off. Alone, in the dark, the house quiet I retrieved my treasures and opened up my bedroom curtain just enough to let the moon cast a jaundiced film onto the glass eye. It glared as I quietly disassembled the stopwatch and marveled at the tiny gears and springs. Then…I picked up the spool of ribbon. A ribbon is a magic thing to a young mind tying them to other worlds. Unwinding it I soon lost myself in adventure as it cast a snaky shadow on the wall. I lassoed imaginary horses. I played tied-up POW waiting to be rescued by my army platoon. I whipped it through the air imagining the horrid beasts I held at bay. Then, it struck me. What else could this satiny sinew of cloth be but a moldering bandage fit only for a mummy. I wrapped my head, my face. I moaned. I even risked a decrepit shuffle around the room, arm outstretched, fingers grasping for the necks of innocent victims. It was glorious.

I know not when I fell asleep but I did so in my ancient wrappings. Waking suddenly the terror of possible discovery was upon me. Quickly unwrapping myself, I stashed the ribbon, the watch and the baleful eye back into the mattress and waited for my mother’s Christmas greeting. Some few minutes the door to my room slowly opened. I pretended to be asleep, facing the wall, the covers up over my head. Quietly, calling my name, she inched toward the bed and I turned to face her. The bleary-eyed nausea of her morning hang-over gave way to a look of horror. She screamed! I panicked. The jig was up. I blurted it all out. I thrust my hand under the covers and threw my loot at her feet. “Im sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again!” But the scream faded replaced by laughter. Long, unceasing. My father, drawn into the fray, entered the room, and upon seeing me sputtered, “What did you do?!”

My mother still laughing. Clutching her sides in fact, stumbled to the bathroom returning with a small hand mirror. The mirror shook and I had to steady it with my own hands. But what cosmic justice greeted me. What cruel deity had condemned me! I stared into the face. Though my wrappings were gone the visage of a mummy remained! My mother retrieved my items from the floor. Pocketing the watch parts and the glass eye she then held out the spool that had held the typewriter ribbon I had mistaken for a hair ribbon.

I remained an ersatz pharaoh for several days despite much scrubbing. Like Lady Macbeth my sin would not wash off. But I never forgot the less I learned that day. It is better to unwrap presents meant for me than to become wrapped up in those which are not.