The 100% Spurious History of the Little Drummer Boy

boyI’ve always known that the Little Drummer Boy was put on this earth to annoy me.  However, over the years, I think I’ve been decent about it, and I’ve tried to be fair with the smarmy little bastard — but to no avail.  He refuses to meet me halfway and every year he sneaks back into Christmas, banging away on that stupid little headache-maker of his as if he’s God’s gift to rhythm.  “Hey, Ginger Baker! Give it a rest!  There’s only so much ‘pa-rum-pum-pum-pumming’ one man can take!”  Clearly, it’s impossible to negotiate with unreasonable jerks like the Little Drummer Boy, so the only way I can stop his Yuletide reign of terror is to expose him for what he is — a charlatan and a rogue.  This is The 100% Spurious History of the Little Drummer Boy.

Despite Claymation’s claim to the contrary, there actually was a Little Drummer Boy.  He was a small-time sneak thief who spent his nights picking the pockets of decent folk in the souks of Baghdad.  He wasn’t very good at it though, and after getting caught — a lot — he was told to either hit the road or become the newest member of the one glove club.  Drummer Boy skulked out of town on the next full moon and was well on his way to anonymity when he ran across the Three Wise Men who (as everybody knows) were on their way to Bethlehem.  LDB travelled with them for the next several days, shamelessly fawning and groveling in the hope of gaining their trust and getting his mitts on some of their treasure.  Unfortunately, wise as they probably were, when it came to street smarts, the Three Wise Men weren’t exactly the sharpest scimitars in the desert, and they fell for this blatant con.  Drummer Boy made off with a jar of frankincense and headed for Damascus.  The Three Wise Men journeyed on — just a little wiser and one jar of frankincense lighter.  However, rather than admit they’d gotten scammed by a petty little crook, the Wise Men decided to rework the story in a more favourable light and so emerged the tale we know today — “pa-rum-pum-pum-pum” and all.

And what happened to the Little Drummer Boy?  He was arrested for selling stolen frankincense, convicted and sentenced to 10 years hard labour in a Damascus prison — which is exactly what the treacherous little bugger deserved.

And, BTW, many people believe “The Little Drummer Boy” was written, in 1941, by Katherine Kennicott Davis, a mild-mannered New England music teacher.  This is not true.  The song was written by Nazis — flesh-eating, green-saliva Nazis — who were trying to undermine our morale during World War II.  Just sayin’!

Pneumonia!

pneumoniaFor those of you who noticed that WD was missing from the Internet last Tuesday, December 5, I have one word for you — pneumonia.  For the first time in my life, Flu Season means a lot more to me than, “What a pain in the ass!  I have to get jabbed in the arm again this year.”  Apparently, this year’s flu is particularly vigorous, and in my case, it was downright rambunctious.  In fact, it invited pneumonia over to play, and when the two of them got through with me, I ended up in the hospital.  Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of health care, but this is the first time in a long time that I was the guy on the stretcher.  My, my, my! How the medical profession has changed!

First of all, everybody is really, really young — so young “tummy” and “bum” are now acceptable medical terminology.  It was all very much like High School Musical without the music.  However, I know there were drugs involved because, at one point, I thought I was Gulliver lying there, watching a bunch of little people scampering around, acting liked they’d just captured a being from the land of the Old Buggers.

Second, everybody dresses the same.  I remember when doctors wore white coats and looked like serious storks, nurses wore green scrubs, were two ax handles across the shoulders and could flip a 100 kilo man over on his stomach (tummy?) as easily as a fry cook flips bacon.  These days, the guy in purple could be anything from a cashier to a cardiologist, and I have the feeling I gave most of my medical history to a very polite young person who was on her way to get her swollen wrist x-rayed.  C’est la vie!

Finally, and this is a biggie, the wards have gone co-ed — and, even though I believe in a lot more gender equality than most people (for example, I’m a big fan of women in combat) I do not approve.  Why?  Because men and women don’t get sick the same way.  When men get sick, they revert to their childhood and have one thing on their mind: IT’S ABOUT ME!  However, when women get sick, they go a lot further back than that.  They return to a time when plague, and famine and pestilence roamed the Earth, and women were the dominant gender.  This was long before the trauma and drama of shaming and blaming and feminine hygiene, at a time when serious girls didn’t get pushed around by sleazy Red Carpet Romeos who thought they had an Oscar in their pants.  (Kate Hepburn dealt with guys like Sam Goldwyn, she would have laughed Weinstein off the planet, and Ava Gardner probably would have introduced him to her size 5 patent leather slingbacks — but I digress.)

The reality is, sick women are the busiest beings on the planet because, for millennia, they had to be — or our species would have died out.  Think about it!  Give a man a cold and you get a useless mass of whining, crying and complaining — unable to defend himself.  Give a woman a cold, and you will get a clean house, the laundry done, the car washed, a gourmet meal, two kids bathed and in bed and a pot of chicken soup for the guy on the sofa, with the sniffles — and that’s all after she’s come home from work.  So, putting men and women in the same hospital room is just throwing fuel on both fires.

Let me demonstrate.  I was in the hospital, battling the worst strain of influenza this planet has seen in 50 years, with a whack of pneumonia on the side, and when I got out, I discovered I’d gained weight.  Impossible?  No!  You see, every night the girls from beds 1 and 2 would sneak down to the nurses’ station to use the microwave.  They’d come back with batches of homemade cookies, and we’d all watch Riverdale.  I was so sick I could barely eat seven per episode..

I’m Not A Cynic, But …

bicycle-1455776_1920When I was a child, I thought that most of my friends were just a little bit higher up on the scrotum pole than I was.  I didn’t have low self-esteem or anything.  First of all, that’s a modern affectation, and secondly, I was a very confident kid.  It was just that they always seemed to have cool stuff going on while I was permanently chained to ordinary.  For example, my buddy Wilfred and I both had bikes, but he also had another one that was way better than mine. It was Toronto Maple Leaf’s blue and white (just like in the Sears catalogue) but it also had a basket so he could get a job delivering groceries and such when he got older.  Plus, it was a CCM (just like in the Sears catalogue) — the Holy Grail of two-wheeled transportation in our neighbourhood.  Unfortunately, Wilfred’s parents made him keep it at his grandmother’s house, so I never actually got to see this magnificent conveyance — but I certainly believed it was there.  There were other stories, too: Dorothy Becker’s cousin had met The Beatles, Kelvin’s uncle was going to give him his entire collection of winning marbles from the time when he was World Champion, and Doug Sanders’ dad had won the war — when he secretly shot Hilter.*  Yes, I was a naive youth and even today, I’m embarrassed by the number of years it took me to realize that Wilfred’s extra bike only existed in the pages of the Sears catalogue.  However, I bear no animosity to the Wilfreds of the world.  This is just what people do  They have a burning need to look good, and sometimes they’re willing to bend reality into a circus of contortions to get there.

Think about it!

Even though used car salesman has become synonymous with shyster, when was the last time anybody didn’t get a great deal on a used car?  I’ll tell you when.  My 1963 Triumph Spitfire — $300.00 to buy it, $1600.00 in estimated repairs and 85 bucks to tow it away.  However, since the day I waved that piece of junk goodbye, I haven’t heard of one person on this planet who didn’t get a totally smokin’ deal, buying somebody else’s automotive problems.  Not one!  In fact, I’m surprised, given that every used car in the last 40 years was sold at cost or below, that there are any used car dealerships left in the world.

It’s the same with Vegas.  I don’t know anyone, or know anyone who knows anyone who lost money in Las Vegas.  Ask anyone who has just returned from the Seed of Greed in America, and they will tell you either: a) “I came out about even” or b) “I won enough to pay for the trip.”  Nobody says, “Holy crap! That place is so totally cool we spent way more money than we thought we were going to … but it was worth it.”  Oddly enough, people will sometimes say that about Paris, London, New York or San Francisco — but never Vegas.  Nope!  The first thing out of their mouth is how much money they didn’t lose.  Even though everybody knows, in the end, the house always wins, and the boys running the casinos didn’t build them so we could all take our money home with us.

And it goes on and on — mortgage rates, computer prices, cell phone plans, extended warranties, etc., etc., etc.  There’s no end to the wonderful stuff that always seems to happen — to other people.  I’m not a cynic, but … these days, when I hear someone puttin’ on the brag about something that seems too good to be true, I usually figure it is.  Thanks, Wilfred!

*Just to clarify, I didn’t spend my childhood surrounded by a pack of pathological liars.  These stories (and a select few others) happened in three different locations over the better part of 18 years.