December 19, 2022

Thank The Lord For Socks and Carpet

The Christmas forecast is the most bleak in years: maybe a foot of snow followed by sub-zero wind chills.

Chicago is going to get bent over by Jack Frost and pounded home until President’s Day.

And Everett O’Shaughnessey doesn’t have proper snow boots.

He has owned the same pair of winter footwear for many years but the sole of the right one keeps flapping away. The boot unboots more each year.

He has tried glue to fix it with no luck and twice paid someone else to fix it. With glue. Bad glue, apparently, because the shit doesn’t stick.

And now the weather lady is on TV showing us the radar and laughing and she looks Everett O’Shaughnessey right in his beady little eyes and says, “Should’ve bought better boots, asshole!”

Sad.

Sure, Everett could run out to a local store and buy some winter boots but Everett is a vegan and does not want to wear anything that was ripped off an animal. And so he goes online to buy vegan boots and those suckers have virtually no chance of arriving before Christmas. Before the storm. Before the Great Christmas Snowfuck of 2022.

“My feet are going to freeze!” Everett says to a fading photo of his wife who divorced him six years ago because of just this kind of thing.

Everett sips some eggnog, vegan eggnog from Trader Joe’s, that is, and hums a Christmas Carol and looks at his toes. “Goodbye, ugly little friends,” he says and falls asleep dreaming of Santa Claus and Raquel Welch wearing nothing but boots. Of everybody he’s ever known or loved or owed money to wearing boots, boots, and nothing but the boots.

And as he loses consciousness Everett O’Shaughnessey realizes this just might end up being the best Christmas ever. --TK