For Christmas this year my wife purchased me a week of private lessons at the local health club. Though still in great shape from when I was on the varsity chess team in high school, I decided it was a good idea to go ahead and try it. I called and made reservations with someone named Tanya, who said she is a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and athletic clothing model. My wife seemed very pleased with how enthusiastic I was to get started.

Day 1.
They suggest I keep this “exercise diary” to chart my progress this week. Started the morning at 6:00 AM. Tough to get up, but worth it when I arrived at the health club and Tanya was waiting for me. She’s something of a goddess, with blond hair and a dazzling white smile. She showed me the machines and took my pulse after five minutes on the treadmill. She seemed a little alarmed that it was so high, but I think just standing next to her in that outfit of hers added about ten points. Enjoyed watching the aerobics class. Tanya was very encouraging as I did my sit ups, though my gut was already aching a little from holding it in the whole time I was talking to her. This is going to be GREAT.

Day 2.
Took a whole pot of coffee to get me out the door, but I made it. Tanya had me lie on my back and push this heavy iron bar up into the air. Then she put weights on it, for heaven’s sake! Legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made it the full mile. Her smile made it all worth it. Muscles feel GREAT.

Day 3.
The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the tooth brush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I am certain that I have developed a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was okay as long as I didn’t try to steer. I parked on top of a Volkswagen. Tanya was a little impatient with me and said my screaming was bothering the other club members. The treadmill hurt my chest so I did the stair monster. Why would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by the invention of elevators? Tanya told me regular exercise would make me live longer. I can’t imagine anything worse.

Day 4.
Tanya was waiting for me with her vampire teeth in a full snarl. I can’t help it if I was half an hour late, it took me that long just to tie my shoes. She wanted me to lift dumbbells. Not a chance, Tanya. The word “dumb” must be in there for a reason. I hid in the men’s room until she sent Lars looking for me. As punishment she made me try the rowing machine. It sank.

Day 5.
I hate Tanya more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. If there was any part of my body not in extreme pain I would hit her with it. She thought it would be a good idea to work on my triceps. Well I have news for you Tanya I don’t have triceps. And if you don’t want dents in the floor don’t hand me any barbells. I refuse to accept responsibility for the damage, YOU went to sadist school, YOU are to blame. The treadmill flung me back into a science teacher, which hurt like crazy. Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like a music teacher, or social studies?

Day 6.
Got Tanya’s message on my answering machine, wondering where I am. I lacked the strength to use the TV remote so I watched eleven straight hours of the weather channel.

Day 7.
Well, that’s the week. Thank God that’s over. Maybe next time my wife will give me something a little more fun, like free teeth drilling at the dentist’s.

Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 08:49:59 +0500

The Night Before Christmas (New version)

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, except Papa’s mouse. The computer was humming, the icons were hopping, As Papa did last-minute Internet shopping.

The stockings were hung by the modem with care In hope that St. Nicholas would bring new software. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of computer games danced in their heads.

Dark Forces for Billy, and Doom II for Dan, And Carmen Sandiego for Pamela Ann. The letters to Santa had been sent out by Mom, To santaclaus@toyshop.northpole.com –

Which has now been re-routed to Washington State Because Santa’s workshop has been bought by Bill Gates. All the elves and reindeer have had to skedaddle To flashy new quarters in suburban Seattle.

After centuries of a life that was simple and spare, St. Nicholas is suddenly a new billionaire, With a shiny red Porsche in the place of his sleigh, And a house on Lake Washington that’s just down the way From where Bill has his mansion.

The old fellow preens In black Gucci boots and red Calvin Klein jeans. The elves have stock options and desks with a view, Where they write computer code for Johnny and Sue. No more dolls or tin soldiers or little toy drums Will be under the tree, only compact disk ROMS With the Microsoft label. So spin up your drive, From now on Christmas runs only on Windows 95.

More rapid than eagles the competitors came, And Bill whistled, and shouted, and called them by name. “Now, ADOBE! now, CLARIS! now, INTUIT! too, Now, APPLE! and NETSCAPE! you are all of you through,

It is Microsoft’s SANTA that the kids can’t resist, It’s the ultimate software with a traditional twist – Recommended by no less than the jolly old elf, And on the package, a picture of Santa himself. Get ’em young, keep ’em long, is Microsoft’s scheme, And a merger with Santa is a marketer’s dream.

To the top of the NASDAQ! to the top of the Dow! Now dash away! dash away! dash away – wow!”

And Mama in her ‘kerchief and I in my cap, Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, The whirr and the hum of our satellite platter, As it turned toward that new Christmas star in the sky, The SANTALITE owned by the Microsoft guy.

As I sprang from my bed and was turning around, My computer turned on with a Jingle-Bells sound. And there on the screen was a smiling Bill Gates Next to jolly old Santa, two arm-in-arm mates. And I heard them exclaim in voice so bright,

Have a MICROSOFT CHRISTMAS, and TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.

Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 08:38:59 +0500

Santa was very cross. It was Christmas Eve and NOTHING was going right. Mrs Claus had burned all the cookies. The elves were complaining about not getting paid for the overtime they had while making the toys. The reindeer had been drinking all afternoon and were dead drunk. To make matters worse, they had taken the sleigh out for a spin earlier in the day and had crashed it into a tree.

Santa was furious. “I can’t believe it! I’ve got to deliver millions of presents all over the world in just a few hours – all of my reindeer are drunk, the elves are on strike and I don’t even have a Christmas tree!

I sent that stupid Little Angel out HOURS ago to find a tree and he isn’t even back yet! What am I going to do?”

Just then, the Little Angel opened the front door and stepped in from the snowy night, dragging a Christmas tree. He says “Yo, fat man! Where do you want me to stick the tree this year?”

And thus the tradition of angels atop the Christmas trees came to pass……..

Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 08:34:48 +0500

True Story: One Families Traditional Christmas Gift

This beats the stories of the same fruitcake(s) being given back and forth for years…

Roy Collette and his brother-in-law have been exchanging the same pair of pants as a Christmas present for 11 years – and each time the package gets harder to open. This year the pants came wrapped in a car mashed into a 3-foot cube.

The trousers are in the glove compartment of a 1974 Gremlin. Now Collette’s plotting his revenge–if he can get them out.

It all started when Collette received a pair of moleskin trousers from his brother-in-law, Larry Kunkel of Bensenville, Ill. Kunkel’s mother had given her son the britches when he was a college student.

He wore them a few times, but they froze stiff in cold weather and he didn’t like them. So he gave them to Collette.

Collette, who called the moleskins “miserable”, wore them three times, then wrapped them up and gave them back to Kunkel for Christmas the next year.

The friendly exchange continued routinely until Collette twisted the pants tightly, stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide tube and gave them back to Kunkel.

The next Christmas, Kunkel compressed the pants into a 7-inch square, wrapped them with wire and gave the “bale” to Collette.

Not to be outdone, the next year Collette put the pants into a 2-foot-square crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded it with steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel.

The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged. But they were as careful as they were clever.

Kunkel had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had a 20-year guarantee and shipped them off to Collette.

Collette broke the glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can and soldered it shut. The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled with concrete and reinforcing rods and given to Kunkel the following Christmas.

Two years ago, Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel ashtray made from 8-inch steel casings and etched Collette’s name on the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the treasured trousers, but succeeded without burning them with a cutting torch.

Last Christmas, Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it with red and green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel, who is the plant manager for Viracon’s outlet in Bensenville.

Last week, the pants were trucked to Owatonna, 55 miles south of Minneapolis, in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a car with 95,000 miles on it. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched car advised Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment.

“This will take some planning,” Collette said. “I will definitely get them out. I’m confident.” But he’s waiting until January to think about how to recover the bothersome britches.

“Wait until next year,” he warned. “I’m on the offensive again.”

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 15:36:28 -0500

Dec. 1 Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey. Spray-paint gold, turn upside down and use as a sleigh to hold Christmas cards.

Dec. 2 Have Morman Tabernacle Choir record outgoing Christmas message for answering machine.

Dec. 3 Using candlewick and hand-gilded pine cones, fashion cat-o’-nine-tails. Flog gardener.

Dec. 4 Address sympathy cards for all friends with elderly relatives, so that they’re all ready to be mailed at the moment death occurs.

Dec. 5 Get new eyeglasses. Grind lenses myself.

Dec. 6 Fax family Christmas newsletter to Pulitzer committee for consideration.

Dec. 7 Debug Windows 97.

Dec. 10 Finish needlepoint colostomy bag cozy.

Dec. 11 Buy some cockroaches from the less fortunate; decorate eggs.

Dec. 12 Update enemies list. Place in hermetically sealed vault. Remove air, replace with nitrogen.

Dec. 13 Visit crematorium. Collect dentures. They make excellent pastry cutters, particularly for decorative pie crusts.

Dec. 14 Install plumbing in gingerbread house.

Dec. 15 Replace air in minivan tires with Glade “Holiday Scents” in case tires are shot out at the mall.

Dec. 17 Childproof the Christmas tree with garlands of razor wire.

Dec. 19 Adjust legs of chairs so each Christmas dinner guest will be the same height when sitting at his or her assigned seat.

Dec. 20 Dip sheep and cows in egg white and roll in confectioner’s sugar to add a festive sparkle to the pasture.

Dec. 21 Outfit neighborhood rats with tiny antlers.

Dec. 22 Float votive candles in toilet tank.

Dec. 23 Seed clouds for White Christmas.

Dec. 24 Do my annual good deed: Go to several stores. Be seen engaged in last-minute Christmas shopping, thus making people feel less inadequate than they really are.

Dec. 25 Bear son. Swaddle. Lay in color-coordinated manger scented with homemade potpourri.

Dec. 26 Write and mail Christmas thank-yous. Order cards for next Christmas. Estimate number of cards needed by allowing for making new friends and actuarially appropriate death rates for current friends and relatives.

Dec. 27 Build snowman in exact likeness of God.

Dec. 29 Enter Style Invitational; win.

Dec. 31 New Year’s Eve! Give staff their resolutions. Call a friend in each time zone of the world as the clock strikes midnight in that country.

Jan. 1 1998 Catch up on gardening. Sew leaves back onto trees. Do all cooking for 1998.

Jan. 3 Repaint Sistine Chapel ceiling in ecru, with mocha trim.

Jan. 5 Drain city reservoir; refill with mulled cider, orange slices and cinnamon sticks.

Jan. 7 Lay Faberge egg.

Jan. 8 Freshen air in home by sliding a dozen Dr. Scholl’s shoe inserts into heat pump.

Jan. 10 Make steel wool from mussel beards saved over the years.

Jan. 13 Spin silk cord to garrotte squid; fill fountain pen with the ink and hand-write staff their dismissal notes.

Jan. 15 MLK birthday. Find out who MLK is.

Jan. 16 Take dog apart. Disinfect. Reassemble.

Jan. 20 Organize spice racks by genus and phylum.

Jan. 21 Culture ancient DNA into dinosaurs for nieces and nephews.

Jan. 23 Align carpets to adjust for curvature of Earth.

Jan. 25 Receive delivery of new phone books. Old ones make ideal personal address books. Simply cross out the names and addresses of all the people you do not know.

Jan. 26 Review the Christmas ’96 show and try to understand why Julia Child is much beloved even though her croquembouche was very much askew.

Jan. 28 Attend workshop on obsessive-compulsive disorders. Take verbatim notes.

Jan. 31 Gild lilies.

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 15:29:33 -0500