Listing to Port

Q: What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck?
A: Never cross Santa. Santa has a long memory, deep and mysterious powers, and is pettily vindictive - witness his treatment of children who fail his behaviour test. He has copious free time in the non-Christmas period to pursue petty grudges. It doesn’t matter in what manner you cross him, you will regret it. Go ahead and cross ducks. If you cross a duck, it might quack at you. If you cross Santa, being shat on by a reindeer from 30000 feet will be the least of your troubles.

Q: What happened to the man who stole an advent calendar?
A: The police were uninterested in investigating such a minor crime, so he got away with it. As he consumed the remaining chocolates, he felt a deep sense of shame at what his life had come to.

Q. Why are Christmas trees bad at sewing?
A. Because they are trees.

Q. What do you call a cat in the desert?
A. Tiddles? Tiddles? Please come here, Tiddles. I didn’t mean to let you out. Oh god, that rattlesnake is not a toy.

Q. What does Santa do with misbehaving elves?
A. He fires them, leaving them without a job just before Christmas, which is the only time of year that elves can reliably get work. Many elves who are fired by Santa have to turn to crime to support their families. Never cross Santa.

Q. Who hides in the bakery at Christmas?
A. Interestingly, this is often where elves who have been fired end up. As soon as the staff go home for the night, they make off with the contents of the store cupboard, safe in the knowledge that the theft will not be discovered until after the holiday season.

Q. Why did the turkey cross the road?
A. The turkey lived on the opposite side of the road to a polling station where a referendum on Christmas was being held. Sadly, the turkey’s journey was wasted as only humans were eligible to cast ballots.

Q. How can tell if Santa has been in your shed?
A. Santa is often caught short on his rounds, but the rumour that he visits unlocked sheds to relieve himself is not true. Usually he goes off the side of his sleigh when transiting between populated areas.

Q. What might Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney?
A. Death.

Q. How does Good King Wenceslas like his pizzas?
A. Good King Wenceslas was assassinated in the year 935. If he remains sufficiently functional to like pizza, we can only conclude that he has been raised from the dead for some reason, possibly as part of the zombie apocalypse. Let us not chat about the horrors he consumes upon a thin layer of bread. We need to get to the shelter, and quickly.

The Internet is wise and wide;
The Internet’s a sage
Distilling and distributing
The knowledge of this age.
But when I asked the Internet,
Its words meant naught to me:
You won’t believe this one weird trick
A mom once taught to me!

What trick? I asked the Internet.
The Internet replied:
What happened next will warm your heart,
Just come and step inside.
What mom? I asked the Internet;
It answered, Did you know?
How she looks now will haunt you!
Come on, let me list why so.

And I must have quailed or something,
For it said, with unctuous care,
Well, number six is shocking,
Why not try some gentler fare?
Like this dog whose soldier master
Has returned from years apart,
Or these fifteen gorgeous kittens
Who will truly melt your heart?

But still I went on searching
For the meaning of that phrase.
I’d done this wrong my whole life through,
I thought. I searched for days.
And at last, a revelation
Slowly rolled into my brain,
As I read a list of mysteries
That science can’t explain.

What if my search for wisdom
From our planet’s fount of learning
Had been Byzantinated
By a lack of proper kerning?
There was no mom, no crafty mom
Putting the world to rights:
Instead, the demon Amom
Had me squarely in her sights.

Amom, that great spider;
She who haunts each hologram;
The hacker of dropped packets
And the fountainhead of spam;
Who deep within the darkest web
Encrypts your zombie dreams;
And whose trick is slurping people
Through a portal in their screens.

Amom has my soul now;
In a field of burning bytes
She warmed my heart, then melted it
To feed her kitten-wights.
Ignore that patch upon your screen
That’s sort of like a door
This one weird trick will shock you -
Just lean inwards to hear more…