My friend Alan got divorced in July, and was crying to me about the upcoming holiday season being his first alone in years. His pessimistic view of the upcoming Yuletide reminded me of my old buddy Dennis. Now Dennis could be the poster child for bad holidays. His experiences make Scrooge’s apparitions tame by comparison.

I invited Dennis over to reminisce about 1999, the Year of Holiday Hell. I figured Alan could use a few laughs to pick up his spirits. And Dennis is a great storyteller with language as colorful as a Macy’s Day balloon.

Dennis arrived an hour later and began his tale of past festivity failures. “It started with Easter. I just moved to a new house and I was the only bachelor in the plat. The rest of the neighborhood were all in their breeding years and had or were working on having the normal quota of kids.

In an effort to become part of the suburban social order I stuffed every mailbox with an announcement that I’d be hosting a giant Easter egg hunt. I bought about 100 eggs, stuffed ‘em with candy and hid ‘em around the yard. I put a few in clear view on the lawn for the two and three year olds . . . the rest I camouflaged in the understory for the bigger kids.

Everyone seemed to have a great time and I felt welcomed to the neighborhood. About 7:00 pm it started. My phone rang off the hook all night . . . mothers screaming about their Little Billy’s hands being covered in oozing blisters. I mean what am I, a #### botanist? How the hell do I know what poison ivy and sumac look like? One mom said her kids face and scalp were completely covered in weeping sores. What the hell was her kid doing, foraging around my leaf litter like a #### anteater?

That was my last contact with the neighbors . . . . . until July. Still feeling bad about the egg hunt, I thought I should make amends. I bought a shit load of fireworks, figuring I’d surprise the local kids with a spectacular extravaganza to celebrate America’s birthday.”

“How’d everything go?” asked Alan.

“It would have been great . . . . if my neighbor three houses down knew anything about the proper care of fossil fuels. I thought everyone knew not to leave a gas can out in the open with the #### cap off. And you think he’d have had enough sense to run out and grab the can after the first errant Roman candle whizzed across his deck and blew his wife’s potted geranium into the pool.

I think it was the next misguided rocket that hit the can. What followed was a scene from Apocalypse Now. But I still say if my neighbor had moved quicker he could have saved the gazebo.

I was pretty much ostracized from the community after that, even though I settled out of court with the idiot down the street. The bastard ended up with a bigger gazebo AND a sauna from the settlement. He convinced my lawyer that the gazebo was built with some exotic Asian wood like teak. I knew the cheap sucker used regular run of the mill pine, but I couldn’t prove it. All that remained was a pile of smoldering ash. It’s not like I could I.D. the gazebo and deck using dental records for Christ sake.

The remainder of the Summer I pretty much spent in exile like a #### leper. My only contact with the neighbors was limited to the occasional “####!!” being shouted at me as I drove through the plat. I ignored all the threatening letters, knowing full well that no one has actually been ‘tarred and feathered’ in R.I. for at least a hundred years.

I knew inviting anybody over for a Labor Day barbecue was futile. So I limited my guests to the young couple who’d just moved in. They brought their two ‘rug rats’ with them and their little girl even came with her pet hamster to show me.”

“Don’t tell me”, said Alan “the hamster drowned in your pool.”

“Not exactly. It kinda went like this – the hamster’s on the table next to the grill – I’m talking to the couple with the grill open – I close the grill cover – the hamster’s not on the table – I got an extra hamburger with fur. I guess those little ‘mothers’ move quickly. Luckily I convinced the girl that her pet was ‘hiding’ in my yard. A week later I found a replacement that looked identical to her hamster – without the grill marks burned in its ass.

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Come Halloween I made another attempt at peace with the neighbors. I suspected the parents would tell their little ghosts and goblins to avoid my house like I was Jeffrey Dahmer. So I spent a couple hundred bucks decorating the house and yard. I stocked up with an ample supply of every imaginable product that Hershey, PA has to offer.

All was going well on Halloween night – until the Marvel comic characters arrived. I mean Hell, I was just being truthful when I told the kid dressed up as The Hulk that I’d love to see his mother in a French maid costume. How the hell did I know who his trick or treat buddy in the Batman outfit was. I mean what kind of forty year old man walks around in tights and a black leather mask? . . . except for my Uncle Earl, but that’s another story.

Anyway, the irate husband and I end up rolling all around my Autumn yard display. I mean there was hay all over the lawn from the broken bales. My scarecrow ($14.99 at Walmart) lost a leg and half his stuffed head. And there were pumpkins and gourds bouncing all over the #### driveway.

When Thanksgiving arrived I’d pretty much given up on befriending my neighbors. But there was this one house . . . .an elderly couple whose children all lived out of state. I said to myself ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to invite these folks over so they wouldn’t be alone on Thanksgiving?’ I had visions of sitting down to break bread together, you know – like in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Now I’d never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before. I did know you put stuffing IN the turkey, but how the hell should I know you had to take things OUT of the ####. I mean, what kind of sick son of a bitch puts hearts, necks and giblets IN the turkey, that apparently you’re supposed to remove. I thought the turkey tasted a bit ‘odd’, but my guests were so polite and gracious that they didn’t have the heart (no pun intended) to tell me the turkey tasted like ####.

The next morning I was feeling pretty upbeat. Despite the bad tasting bird I felt the holiday had gone pretty well. The phone call from the elderly couple’s son soon dampened the day. I wished the old folks had called me on Thanksgiving night so I could have at least driven them to the emergency room. It would’ve only been right, given that I caused the food poisoning. I was really disheartened to learn about the extent of their de-hydration. Apparently they now had all the body fluid of a potato chip.

Anyway, that ended my holidays for the year.”

“But what about Christmas?” Alan asked.

“I did what you’d call ‘vacate the premises’ two weeks before Christmas. Did you know that neighbors can actually partition the courts to have someone removed as a public menace?”

After Dennis left Alan said, “The poor guy. I feel kinda bad for him, don’t you?”

“Not really”, I said. “Remember his Halloween skirmish? Well it turns out that Mrs. Batman threw the weird #### out a few days later, and Dennis DID get to see her in the French maid dress . . . . and the naughty nurse costume . . . . and the pussy cat outfit…. As Dennis said to me -- ‘Stuff THAT Santa’.”

About the author, J. Elijah Bray: J. Elijah Bray (probably not his real name) lives on The East Side but is most proud of being raised in Oakland Beach – go figure.

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