The Christmas Movie Quiz

Any day now, they will start.  TV networks will broadcast classic Christmas movies, and they won’t stop until Christmas is over.  There will probably even be a marathon of A Christmas Story, as there has been every year since ... please don’t ask me, because I can’t remember.

In order to prepare for this yearly film festival, I have prepared a little quiz that will make you aware of how much you need to bone up on your Christmas movie knowledge, so that you can get up and go to the kitchen at any time during any of the shows without missing anything important.

The Christmas Movie Quiz

1.       Home Alone:  What is the name of the kid who is left alone on Christmas?

a.       Buddy

b.      Ed

c.       Kevin

d.      Krampus

e.       That’s no kid.  That’s a miniature demon.

2.       Home Alone:  Why does _______’s family leave him alone on Christmas?

a.       He’s an obnoxious brat and they hate him

b.      They’re stupid

c.       He’s stupid

d.      They’re late leaving for the airport to go to Europe and, in their hurry, they leave him behind

e.       All of the above

3.      Elf:  What is the name of the man who was raised by elves at the North Pole?

a.       Buddy

b.      Ed

c.       Kevin

d.      Krampus

e.       That’s no elf.  That’s a moron in a green suit.

4.      It’s a Wonderful Life:  What is the famous quote about bells in this movie?

a.       Ring those bells!

b.      Who keeps ringing those stupid bells?

c.       This is the one that made me deaf.

d.      Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.

e.       Keep doing that, and you’ll be hearing bells!

5.      The Bishop’s Wife:  Why does an angel who looks like Cary Grant choose a name like Dudley?

a.       It’s his name

b.      Nobody knows

c.       Nobody cares

d.      He won that name in a lottery

e.       It’s a nice name and he likes it

6.      Miracle on 34^th Street:  Poll:  Is Mr. Kringle really Santa Claus?

a.       Oh, come on!  You always wanted to think he was!

b.      He thinks he is, and that’s all that counts.

c.       Of course he is.  His beard is real, and everything.

d.      Are you joking?

e.       Anything is possible, if you just believe.

7.      A Christmas Story:  What does Ralphie want for Christmas?

a.       A pair of bunny pajamas with feet

b.      Somebody to force-feed his little brother

c.       A supply of Lifebuoy soap

d.     A Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. 

e.       A football

8.      A Christmas Story:  What radio personality lets Ralphie down in a very dramatic way?

a.       The Lone Ranger

b.      Jack Benny

c.       The Shadow

d.      Little Orphan Annie

e.       Ovaltine

9.      The Polar Express:  All of the kids on the Polar Express are traveling to the North Pole in their pajamas.  Why don’t they put on their coats?

a.       Mom isn’t watching them.

b.      The train only stops long enough for them to run out the door.

c.       The look in the eyes of that scary conductor

d.      They don’t want to

e.       All of the above

10.  The Polar Express:  Who sings the theme song in this film?

a.       Some jerk

b.      A guy with a tenor voice

c.       Josh Groban

d.      Luciano Pavarotti

e.       A computer

Okay.  I have given you enough to get you started.  It is now up to you.

The Christmas Song Generator

Are you tired of hearing the same old Christmas music over and over?  The solution is obvious:  create your own song!

The easiest way to do this is to take a pre-existing song and change some of the words, to put your personal stamp on it.

To get everyone started, here is Christmas Song Generator No. 1:

To the tune of A Holly Jolly Christmas:[1]

Have a (insert two adjectives) Christmas

It’s the (insert adjective) time of the year.

I don't know if there'll be (insert noun)
but have a (insert name of food or beverage)
Have a (insert two adjectives) Christmas;
And when you (insert verb) down the (insert noun)
Say (insert greeting) to (insert plural noun) you know
and everyone you meet

Oh ho
the (insert noun)
hung where you can see;
(insert name of person or a pronoun) waits for you;
(insert verb) once for me
Have a (insert two adjectives) Christmas

and in case you didn't hear
Oh by golly
Have a (insert two adjectives) Christmas

This year

At the next Christmas party, you will dazzle your friends with your lyric-writing ability, especially if they have been drinking too much egg nog.

---

[1] “A Holly, Jolly Christmas,” composed by Johnny Marks in 1962.  Sung by Burl Ives in the 1964 Christmas special, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

This is What Happens When You Fool Around on Facebook

Posted to the Writing Prompts Group on Facebook by Author Leland Lydecker:

You've lived in this slum all your life, staring up at the towers of wealth and affluence above and longing for the kind of life where you have clean running water and enough to eat. While hunting for another job, you stumble across a posting for a R&D position with the city's largest cybernetics manufacturer.

The pay is a small fortune in your eyes, and the only required qualification is the ability to pass a physical health exam. One line in the small print catches your eye as you press the button to sign up: "CyberTech Corp now removes the pain receptors of all its R&D subjects in accordance with UN regulations regarding human testing."

How does the new job work out for you?

https://www.facebook.com/LelandLydecker/photos/a.1925095311102443.1073741828.1906593652952609/2028857987392841/?type=3

My Response:

I brush the roach off the computer screen and he falls to the floor behind the old desk. I hope I will never see him again, although it's certain that his family and friends will show up looking for handouts. They always do. Our douchebag landlord refuses to pay for an exterminator, and half the tenants in this dump are slobs. The roaches and the mice are the only living things that prosper here. Don't get me started on the peeling lead paint and the broken steps. The landlord has been jailed twice for these, but he always manages to avoid doing anything about them.

Now that the roach isn't distracting me, I can continue my online search for a job. I have searched through several websites so far and sent my resume to at least 10 places. I am now on a site that advertises jobs in research and development. I figure they won't be too choosy about hiring people to try out new products or new medications, and maybe I can make enough to move to a better hovel than the one I now occupy.

I scroll through a bunch of ads for men to test new anti-impotence drugs and women to test new perfumes. I am not a man, and I'm allergic to perfumes. One ad, though, makes me stop and read. CyberTech Corporation is looking for human test subjects. The pay is $50 per hour, with free lunches and free transportation. "Whoa!" I say to myself. I click on the link leading to the website of CyberTech, where I find more information about the job.

CyberTech plans to do some experimental research to see how much power can be derived from the human brain. For this they need subjects in good health who don't mind lying still for a few hours a day with a wired-up helmet on their heads. For $50 an hour I will do an upside-down pole dance while singing "New York, New York" and slapping myself on the head.

I am poised to click on the "Apply Here" button when my eye falls on some small print near the bottom of the screen that reads, "CyberTech Corp now removes the pain receptors of all its R&D subjects in accordance with UN regulations regarding human testing."

What the hell! Does that mean I'd be numb for the rest of my life? Would I be "mostly dead," like Westley in "The Princess Bride?" If I choose not to have my receptors removed, will I die in excruciating pain? If they remove my receptors, can they put them back after the experiment is over?

On the other hand, a pain-free life might not be so bad: no more headaches; no more backaches; no arthritis pain; etc.

"Okay," I say to myself, "$50 an hour, here I come. The die is cast."

I click the button, fill out the information and wait for them to get back to me.

If I Were on a "Law and Order" Jury

Jury duty stalks me like an obsessed lover.  No sooner has the legal period between calls elapsed than they call me again.  It never fails.  Some people are never called for jury duty.  I wish I knew what saint I must invoke to get on THAT list.  So far, nothing has worked, including moving from one county to another.  They found me at my new address, and I got the summons.  Different courts, same routine.

I am a Law and Order junkie.  I watch old episodes of it, over and over.  I know the plots.  I know Lennie Briscoe’s life story.  I can answer most of the trivia questions that my cable company asks on commercial breaks.  In the Law and Order world, courtrooms are scenes of high drama.  Attorneys shout “Objection!” at the slightest provocation and insult the judges.  They do borderline illegal things to get evidence accepted.  Nobody is bored, including the jury.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

Real jury duty is something else.  If you report in person, you are put in a big room with uncomfortable chairs, where your attendance is noted and where you sit and wait … and wait … and wait.  You’d better have a book, a Kindle, a knitting project, an iPhone or something to keep you occupied, because chances are you will spend a good part of the day bored half out of your brain and wondering if this is what Purgatory is like.

If you are chosen for a jury, don’t expect drama.  Most likely, you will end up having to listen to both sides of a lawsuit.  If you end up on a criminal case, the defendant will probably be someone who was caught with a bag of marijuana or some other penny ante stuff.

So far, I have only made it into a courtroom once.  I was Juror No. 7 in a civil case.  The only drama in that courtroom came from me, when my cell phone rang in the middle of the proceedings.  I tried to pretend it wasn’t my phone, which was hard, because everyone was staring at me.  I pulled the offending gadget out of my purse and tried to shut it off.  The phone continued to ring, even though I was frantically pressing the off button.  The judge, a middle-aged guy with a voice that could be heard all the way to Pennsylvania, yelled at me.  It took some seconds, but I finally managed to hang up. 

The phone rang AGAIN!  My caller had re-dialed when I hung up on him.  Again, I couldn’t shut the phone off.  Again, the judge barked at me.  Finally, I succeeded in quieting the ring and shutting the phone off completely.  I would have crawled away to die, but stepping over six other jurors to get out would have caused more unwelcome attention.  I had to be content with sitting still and trying to melt into the jury box.

Shut that phone off or I will
have you killed!

If I ever did get on a jury in a Law and Order type case, a few things would give me pause.

First, all the male prosecuting attorneys on Law and Order are handsome and sexy.  I have seen male lawyers, and even known a few of them.  None of them looked like Michael Moriarty or Sam Waterston.  I have known a couple of female lawyers, too, and they didn’t look like any of Jack McCoy’s assistants.  The presence of gorgeous, hot prosecuting attorneys would throw a veil of unreality over any trial.

Judges on Law and Order are always telling juries to disregard something that a witness or one of the attorneys has said or done.  I don’t know about anyone else, but if someone tells me to disregard something I just heard or saw, that thing is going to stick in my mind and grow until it explodes.  It’s like having someone tell you not to think about shoes.  You won’t be able to NOT think about shoes and it will drive you nuts.  This is not very good courtroom strategy, unless one of the attorneys WANTS the jurors to compulsively think about whatever they are supposed to disregard.  That’s sneaky, but effective.

If I were on a Law and Order jury, I wouldn’t flirt with the defendant.  That is not a recommended way to liven things up, and a guy who is being tried for a multiple murder might not turn out to be an ideal boyfriend.  The woman juror in that episode should have figured that out before getting herself in trouble, but she chose to check her brains at the courtroom door.  Love is blind.

So here I am, watching and waiting for the next jury summons to arrive in the mail – and it will.

The Discriminating Coffee (Snob) Consumer

Coffee and Cookies -- A Marriage
Made in Heaven!

Yes, I am one of those.  I love coffee, but only the fancy stuff.  I don’t care if it’s mountain grown or good to the last drop or an instant road to romance.  The only time I will drink Folgers or Maxwell House or any of that ilk, especially if it has been brewed in a percolator, is (1) if I am having such a bad case of caffeine withdrawal that I am ready to commit murder, or (2) if there is no other coffee available and there won’t be an opportunity to sneak over to Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or McDonald’s for the next several hours.

You are not hallucinating.  I did include McDonald’s.  Their coffee is pretty good.  I guess they figured they had better get in on the good coffee trend before all the other fast-food restaurants beat them to it.

Brewing coffee in a percolator is a sin against one of God’s great gifts to humanity, the coffee plant.  Coffee beans that have been roasted and ground deserve a better fate than having most of their flavor boiled out of them.  I used to use a percolator, but that was before I knew better.  I have repented of that sin, and I now use only a drip coffeemaker.  The one I have now even has a built-in grinder.  All I have to do to grind my coffee beans is to push a button.  Anything that makes life in the kitchen easier is fine with me.

Some people call me a coffee snob.  I prefer to think of myself as a discriminating consumer.  It sounds better.

The following chart should give you an idea of what a discriminating coffee consumer looks for:

BAD COFFEE	GOOD COFFEE
Church coffee, made in a big urn by elderly ladies	Any coffee grown in an exotic place that has a flavor so strong it would make your grandmother faint
Your grandmother’s percolated coffee	Any of the above, with half & half cream
Dunkin Donuts coffee that has been watered down by employees, so they won’t have to make a new pot so often	Any of the above, with half & half cream and cinnamon
AMC Loews movie theater coffee.  I don’t know what they do to it, and I’m afraid to ask.	Hazelnut and French Vanilla coffee, so long as the coffee that comes with the flavor is good.

The thing is, once you taste a good Vietnamese, Sumatran, Kenyan or Ethiopian coffee blend, you can find yourself hooked for life.  You will do anything to get your fix, including standing in line in Starbucks or ordering it online.  You will be compulsive about watching for specials.  When you get hold of your caffeinated treasure, you will treat it like a valuable piece of jewelry or a roll of $1,000 bills until you put it into the coffeemaker and then into your mouth.  You will keep track of your stash of coffee better than you keep track of your bank account. You will end up a spoiled, compulsive wreck.

But you will enjoy your coffee.

The Litter Tree

The diversity of life forms on this planet is beyond awe-inspiring.  Life forms include trees.  I believe I have discovered a new species of tree, right outside my apartment window.

Horticulturists don’t believe my reports.  The nicest response I received from one of them was the one that stated, “We pass your report around the office every April Fools’ Day and laugh until we wet ourselves.”

Therefore, like everyone else who has seen something unusual, I am thumbing my nose at the scientists and telling my story to the public.

Some trees grow sweet, fragranced cherry blossoms, then sweet, delicious cherries.  Some trees grow apple blossoms, then nice, round, delicious apples.  Other trees grow oranges, apricots, acorns and other nice things.

The tree outside my window is a litter tree.  It grows plastic supermarket bags, two at a time.  I don’t know how this happened.  Maybe somebody back in the 70s or 80s buried a supermarket bag in the yard/garden outside our building and it somehow took root.  Why anyone would bury a supermarket bag is something I don’t understand, but some people will do anything for fun.

Litter Tree in Full Bloom

It is probably the sole tree on earth that grows only two pieces of inedible fruit at a time.  Like all fruit, the fruit of the litter tree appears, grows, then fades and dies.  The big difference, though, between a litter tree and, say, an apple tree is that the two plastic bags hanging from the litter tree never fall to earth.  They shrivel and shred, but the remains hang on the tree, as if trying to cling to a life they have long since lost.  Because they are too high up to be picked by hand, they remain on the tree, a sad reminder of what used to be.

Litter Tree with Rotten Fruit

The litter tree is native to The Bronx, New York.  Plastic bags and wind are also common in The Bronx, but this does not affect the litter tree, which stands tall and independent.

I hope that someday the litter tree will become the official tree of The Bronx.  Until then, I must work to get people to believe it exists.

Mr. Anderson's Birthday Party (A Halloween Short-Short Story)

Dear Sister Hilda:

I am submitting this for the English assignment you gave us, to write a story about something true.  You are going to think I am making all this up, but I’m not.  It really happened.  My Mom will back me up, if necessary.  Even my brother Patrick will back me up, because he won’t tell a lie to a nun.

Theresa McMahon

My parents love old houses.

When I was nine years old, Mom and Dad bought a corner lot in our little town “for a song.”  The lot had a peeling, two-story wood frame house with one of those big verandas that had a swing.  It took them almost a year to bring that old house up to where it could be inhabited again.  It cost them more to renovate that old fossil than they had paid to buy it. When they were finished, though, it was really lit.  Mom planted a flower garden, and Dad re-seeded the lawn.  We moved in right after my tenth birthday.

People would drive or walk by our house, stop and take pictures.  “You should see what the McMahons have done to the old Wilkerson house!  It’s a miracle!” was what everyone was saying.  This got to be a real pain.

We had all heard the stories about the house being haunted, but nothing bad had ever happened there, and if there were any ghosts around, they didn’t seem to mind us or all the renovations.

One night, shortly after we moved in, I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth after having washed my face, including the back of my neck and behind my ears (because Mom loved to pull surprise inspections).  I heard three loud POPs coming from the bathtub.  When I looked, I saw a tiny red bubble sneaking up through the drain and a yellow one trying to hang onto the faucet.  I screamed.

I heard loud footsteps on the stairway, and Mom and my little brother Patrick slammed into the bathroom.

“What is it?” screamed Mom.

All I could do was point to the bathtub.  By this time, it was filling with tiny bubbles of many bright colors, coming from the faucet and the drain.

“Shit!” said Patrick.  His mouth was hanging down about a foot.

“Don’t say that word!” said Mom.

Patrick managed to close his mouth and swallow.  “Sorry, Mom.  It just came out.”

“It must be coming through the pipes,” said Mom.  “We’ll have to go check them out.”  Mom is good in a crisis.

“You mean the pipes in the basement?” I asked.  “But Mom, it’s spooky down there!”

“You two won’t have to go down,” she said.  “I’ll go down.  You’ll just have to stand at the top of the stairs, hold the door open so I can run up fast if I have to and keep a flashlight ready, just in case.”

“Well, okay,” I said.  “But maybe we should call the Psychic Hotline or something first.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Sorry.”

We ran down to the basement – well, Mom ran down to the basement.  Patrick and I just kind of hobbled downstairs and fell over each other on the way to the basement door, trying not to get there too fast.

“Move, you little zit!”

“YOU move!”

We finally reached the basement door, where Mom was waiting for us.  We remained at the top of the basement steps while she went down into the darkness.  For some stupid reason, the light switch is at the bottom of the stairs.

Mom turned on the light.  This made the space even spookier.  It was so quiet I could hear Patrick breathing behind me.  Mom went over and inspected the pipes, but didn’t find anything.  She couldn’t find anything by the boiler, either.

“There’s nothing down here,” she said.  “I guess I’ll just have to call a plumber in the morning.”

She turned off the light and started to come back up the steps.  She was stopped dead by a voice that whispered, “Mrs. McMahon?”

Mom whipped around and turned the light on again.  “Who’s there?” she demanded.

“It’s only I,” said the voice, and a middle-aged woman in a long, pale dress suddenly appeared at the other end of the basement.

All three of us screamed.

“I am so sorry,” said the woman.  “I keep forgetting that one mustn’t materialize so quickly in front of people who are still living in their bodies.  Please forgive me.”

“Who are you?” asked Mom.

“Oh, where are my manners!  I am Rachel Wilkerson.  This was my family home.  We all perished in the influenza pandemic of 1918.  My sister Leah and I were the last ones to die.  She’s here, too.  Leah, come and materialize.  We have visitors.”

Another voice answered, “I can’t.  I’m not dressed for receiving.”

“Oh, nonsense!  You’re a ghost!  Nobody cares how you look.  You’re keeping our visitors waiting!”

A head, two hands and two feet appeared.

“Leah, this is Mrs. McMahon and these are her two children.  They live here now.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. McMahon.”

“Uh, likewise, I’m sure,” said Mom.  “Can either one of you tell me why we are getting colored bubbles in our bathtub upstairs?”

“Oh, goodness!” said Leah.  Her two hands clapped both sides of her face.  “They must have gotten into the water somehow!  How awful!  It’s my fault.  You see, we are having a birthday party for poor Mr. Anderson …”

“The man up the street who died recently?” asked Mom.

“Yes, indeed,” said Leah.  “We felt so sorry for him because he never had a birthday party when he was alive, so we are giving him one now.  I was trying to make colored bubbles and I guess I did something wrong.”

“Don’t worry,” said Rachel.  “We won’t do that again.  You can live in peace.  In fact, we will be leaving soon.  We have been waiting all these years for someone to come and fix this house and make it beautiful again, and you have done a creditable job …”

“A wonderful job,” said Leah.

“Yes,” said Rachel.  “Leah and I have decided that it’s time for us to get a new evaluation and, hopefully, progress on our way to the heavenly realm.  We’ll be sure to say good-bye before we leave.”

With that, they both disappeared, leaving the basement as quiet as before, but a lot less spooky.

“That was Gucci!” said Patrick.

“It sure was!”  I said.

“Okay,” said Mom.  “That was enough excitement for one night.  To bed, both of you!”

Two weeks later, we found a note in our mailbox from Rachel and Leah, saying good-bye and thanking us for being good to their house.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Anderson,
wherever you are now!