Klarinet Archive - Posting 000809.txt from 1997/12

From: mac720@-----. Cullen)
Subj: A play on words...Happy Holidays
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 23:22:19 -0500

'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual
yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic
activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential,
including that species of domestic rodent known as mus musculus. Hosiery
was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood-burning
caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an
imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among those
folkloric appellations in the honorific title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their repetitive
accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual
hullucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically
through their cerebra. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our
nocturnal cranial coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of
the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the
grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt
compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose
of ascertaining the precise source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing
the fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline aqueous
precipitation might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself--
thus permitting my incredulous optical sensor to peruse a miniature
airborne runnered conveyance drawn by an octet of diminutive speciments
of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur so
ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was
indeed our anticipated caller. With his undulate motive power travelling
at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic
alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through
contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her
respective cognomen ... "Now Dasher, Now Dancer ..." et al. -- guiding
them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which
structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the
32 cloven pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
performing a 180 degree pivot, our distinguished visitor achieved ---
with utmost celerity and via a downward leap --- entry by way of the
smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony
residue from the oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated
on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed
largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in
a commodious cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging
amiability. The capillaries of his molar region and nasal appurtenance
were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the
former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter
that of the prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supra
-labials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their
ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and
columnar crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking-piece whose gray
fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a
decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was
high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region
undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical
container.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned hosiery with articles of merchandize extracted from his
preciously aforementioned dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon
completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about face, placed a
single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ,
inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave taking, and forthwith
affected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He
then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a
musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the
antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement
hitherto observable chiefly among the seed- bearing portions of a common
weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior
to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: " Ecstatic Yuletides
to the planetary constituents, and to that self-same assemblage my
sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifying pleasurable
period between sunset and dawn!"

AUTHOR UNKNOWN
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