Stories From My Past: Bad Santa

At my previous job, there was a gentleman who I will refer as "The Bad Man". He is pure malevolence - a fact in which he takes great pride.

One Christmas our department decided to have a small holiday party, and that we would play "Dirty Santa". For those who have never played this game, it involves everybody bringing a gift, and then people stealing those gifts from each other in a semi-orderly fashion.

We were emailed instructions about the game, including "... if you wish to participate, please bring a gender-neutral work-appropriate gift worth $10 or less."

The Bad Man immediately had a lengthy, sparring discussion with the event coordinator about what exactly "gender-neutral work-appropriate" meant. He felt those terms were too vague. The rest of us started to get nervous. When the Bad Man's wheels are turnin', nothing good can come of it.

For the next several weeks, every time the holiday party was mentioned, the Bad Man would grin wildly. If the Dirty Santa game was mentioned, he would laugh outright and say things like, "oh, just you wait...".

Apprehension started to build.

On the day of the holiday party, the Bad Man showed up last. He had a simple yellow gift sack, with lots of frilly tissue paper covering his offering and poking up out of the top of the sack. Such a delicate, innocent-looking gift was anything but reassuring. After all, it was carried by a grinning man known to be very bad.

All he did was walk in, and he had everybody's complete, undivided attention. This was his moment - this was his time to horrify the masses. He stood there a moment, basking in the glory. Then, he put his gift down under the tree. Then, impossibly, his grin widened even more. He reached down into his gift sack, and touched something.

The sack started to vibrate.

There was an audible gasp from the assembled department. Several shouts of "Oh my...!" were heard, and nervous laughter filled the gathering. Once the commotion died down a bit, the Bad Man reached in and touched something again. The sack ceased its movement. Then he sat down.

Several incredulous questions were shouted at the Bad Man at this point, along the lines of, "What the heck is that thing?". Grinning like a madman, the Bad Man replied, "It's perfectly safe. Although, it's not exactly hygienic if more than one person touches it."

Men of lesser stature would have fled in terror! But *I* stayed! Mighty is the Jeff! *I* alone was... well, er... OK you got me. Nobody ran away. But we were all pretty concerned about what the "hygienic" comment really meant.

The time eventually came when somebody had the Bad Man's gift in their hands, apprehensively pulling back the tissue, tentatively looking down into the sack... and then bursting out in wild uncontrollable laughter. Then, she pulled out the Bad Man's gift for all to see.

It was an electric toothbrush.

Oh, so *that's* what he meant. Gender-neutral, work-appropriate, and unhygienic if more than one person touched it. He fooled us all. Nobody expected a joke from The Bad Man that was rated less than "R".

Merry (early) Christmas to all, and to all a good night!