I’m not entirely sure where I stand on Santa’s naughty or nice list this year. I haven’t been always nice, but I haven’t exactly been naughty either. Unless you count cheating as naughty. You know—cheating on my diet.
I can’t help it. I’m weak. I always tell myself I’ll stop after one more slice of pizza, and the next thing I know that pesky ALF on a Shelf is reporting back to Santa that I didn’t. Do I snitch on him when he eats one too many cats? I think not.
I mean, who decided a sassy, furry alien from the planet Melmac should be Santa’s informant anyway? If this keeps up, I may have to remove every shelf in my house. Between you and me, I don’t think they’re level to begin with. It certainly doesn’t help when you’ve got a slightly overweight extraterrestrial perched on them, just waiting for you to slip up and grab another serving of pie.
So if I don’t land on the naughty list or the nice list, where does that leave me? Does Santa have an “or” list? And what would that mean exactly? Would I get a lump of ore in my stocking? A lump that may or may not contain gold—or iron. Or asbestos, if Santa’s in a mood.
Naturally, I’d prefer gold. But since I already have a Miniature Schnauzer named Goldie, Santa might think I’m covered on that front. Assuming, of course, I even have a stocking left. She has a fondness for chewing socks. Though honestly, it could be worse—if she were a cat, I’d have to worry about ALF chewing on her.
I suppose I could try bribing Santa with milk and cookies to tilt the odds toward gold, but let’s not kid ourselves. We both know exactly where those are going. I may be a little too jolly—especially in the belly region—but at least mine isn’t like ALF’s. I swear a whole solar system has formed around his.
Maybe the “mac” in Melmac is short for mac and cheese. You know what? That actually sounds pretty good on top of my pizza right now.
And if I let ALF have some too, maybe—just maybe—he won’t tell Santa this once. I’d really hate to miss out on that lump of ore this year. It sure beats what I got last year: a Fitbit. And no—Santa doesn’t need to know I cheated on that too by strapping it to Goldie whenever she gets the zoomies.
