Chapter 40
Why is it that children will believe any reasonable facsimile of Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny or even the Tooth Fairy?
The man in the red suit can say “ho, ho, ho” in a tenor voice or even with a foreign accent and the young’uns still flock around him.
The Easter Bunny can be white, brown, or green striped and no one questions his ability to lay eggs on the right day of the year.
And the Tooth Fairy has a magic wand which changes teeth into money! !
Never a single question!! Not even—Hey, Mom, how can Santa make that sleigh full of toys fly when my paper airplane crashes?
! Or how come the Easter Bunny can’t lay colored, already boiled and decorated eggs all year long, so we don’t have to eat fried ones for breakfast?
! Or even how does the Tooth Fairy get through the locked window…
But you just try telling them a little colorful story about their original appearance. That’s when the magic disappears.
—Son, I went to the garden one day and found you laying right there under a great, big cabbage plant—but, Mom, we don’t have a garden.
How could we in this eighteenth-story apartment?
—Would you believe a stork brought you and dropped you on the doorstep and I was so pleased to wake up that morning and find…
—DON’T give me that line either, Mom!!! I saw a stork last week down at the zoo.
He didn’t have any babies to bring!—Well, IF you really must know the absolute truth, your father and I went to a special baby store and picked you out from among all the little boy babies laying on the shelves.
Oh, yea, how much did I cost?—$2.98 plus tax—how much did Bobby over next door cost?—I DON’T KNOW! Why don’t we drop the subject anyway? Why don’t we discuss something ELSE!!
Okay, okay. Where is this baby store. Tommy wants a brother and he told me he has five dollars he got for his birthday. I’ll buy one for $2.98 and sell it to Tommy for his five dollars then I’ll have enough left to put a sister on lay-away for myself.
OH, NO!! I’ll tell you the truth…
Gee, you don’t have to do that, Mom! Tommy’s big brother told him. He told Bobby and Bobby told me. I already know all about that boring junk. I just like to hear you make up stories. They’re a whole lot better’n the truth. Hey, what’s Santa goin’ to bring me this year?
Listen, kid, if you’re old enough to know all that BORING JUNK, you are old enough to know there is NO Santa Claus…
Sure, and babies grow under cabbage leaves, the stork brings them and they cost $2.98. Come on, Mom, is Santa goin’ to bring me that new bike down in the store window????