Well the reindeer arrived this morning and he's really a cute little guy.......until he opens his mouth. Actually he treats you to a verse of "Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer" and it could be worse! Much worse..................

For those of you wondering about this, Sinsull has some perverse need to send me things that include some kind of "action." There's the turkey for instance. He's a really neat looking "stuffed" turkey about a foot tall and sitting on a little platform. When you activate the bird, so to speak, he sings an incredibly raucous, bordering on cacophonic, rendition of "Turkey in the Straw." At the same time he's also vibrating and buzzing all over the place. He is the Thanksgiving Centerpiece from Hell.

And then there's the Lionel Trains Clock. I credit this particular little gem with cutting several years off my life. Imagine a wall clock with a little toy train on tracks around the outside. Every hour the train whistles and toots and runs around the outside matching it's circuits to the hours. Now all of that sounds pretty innocuous until you actually HEAR it! The decibel level of this thing would make a jackhammer operator stop and take notice. But even that isn't the problem. The real problem is the "surprise" factor. It seems that no matter how long you have it, you never get used to it and when the hour arrives and you're sitting peacefully, this damn thing goes batshit and you leap 6 foot in the air.......and your heart stops.   I have one hanging behind me right now and I will kill anyone who puts a battery in the son of a bitch! My kids got great laughs by sneaking in behind me and advancing the hands up an hour right after I had just gotten done swearing at the thing from the last hour.

On the other hand...........Thank you Dear Heart. Michael and Tris are anxious to open their presents but I'm sadistically making them wait.......Dad getting even for the clock tricks. I also assume the reindeer does not explode or fart or something after the tenth time.

Spaw