and so we like
shopped until we dropped, literally
over the food court rail, falling right into santa’s little
sit-on-his-lap-and-beg-for-that-sega-genesis-saturn-64-bit-system-and-be-terrorized
-as-an-elf-insists-that-you-turn-away-from-the-fat-drunkard-and-smile-for-the-fucking-camera hut.
terry fell onto santa’s lap just as saint nick was getting up,
one big, “ompff!” and a whole mess
of calamity
with the six year olds still waiting on line.
some idiot started cheering and then the rest of the little mob took it for a show,
like we meant to fall through the reindeer and bust our asses in santa’s little workshop,
and before we knew it,
we had little snot-filled tykes tugging on our legs, all cheerful excitement, begging for us to,
“do it again!! pleeese!!! mister, mister, do that again!!!”