Gifts
I wonder how many pictures tourists have taken of me. During the holidays the MTA moves my homeward-bound bus stop to 7th avenue in the northern part of Times Square to avoid the crowds around the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Just about every night that I’ve taken the bus at least one family of tourists has taken a picture looking south from the uptown side of the bus stop to use Times Square as a background (“look at all them bright and shiny advertisin’ signs Marge!”), which means all of us waiting at this particular bus stop are now immortalized as background for the family photo. Have you ever looked at the backgrounds of your own vacation shots and wondered about the people you accidentally captured? Made up stories about them maybe? I wonder how many people are doing that to me. Thus far I have resisted the temptation to do something like give the finger or stick my tongue out, though I think that being rude to the odd tourist was a public service. That way they can go back to the flyover or Europe or Japan and talk about how they had a gen-u-wine rude New Yorker experience. They’ll dine out on that story for years and years. “Boy I’ll tell you what they say about them New Yorkers is true, this one time I went there and….” It would really be the gift that keeps on giving.
In that spirit of gift-giving, one of our vendors sent us a Hershey’s sampler. The sampler included those “nugget”-sized bars (milk chocolate only dammit, no Krackel or Mr. Goodbar), Kisses and….Rolos. Actually, I’m not sure if you can really count them as Rolos since they’re loose in a gift box and not in roll form. Is it really a Rolo if you can’t roll it to your pal, because it’s chocolate covered caramel? I think not.
There’s a gift that will give for weeks. And by that I mean I’ll have that goddamn jingle in my head for weeks. It’s just like the time I had that Tiny Mighty Mo’s jingle in my head for days. Oh no, I just thought of it again. They’re merging. “Tiny rolo, tiny rolo-rolos. You can roll them to your pal…”
Stop that.
Fortunately at this time of year I can wipe out anything with the Snow Miser-Heat Miser song. There’s a Christmas special that keeps on giving.
As good as that is, there’s another sound that means Christmas to me. The booming voice of the fantastic Thurl Ravenscroft. The lyrics are pure genius as well, written by dear old Ted Geisel himself. In fact the whole cartoon is loaded with talent: Boris Karloff doing the Grinch’s speaking parts and Chuck Jones produced it. Chuck Jones! A god of animation. You can have your freakin’ Pixar pictures; I’ll take a Chuck Jones production any day of the week.
For bonus points, can anyone out there name the Grinch’s dog? No googling please. I remember it clearly because when I started in my line of work there was another member of my department who was so put upon my management that a friend of mined nicknamed her after the dog. Oh, there I go with the remembrances of things past, and without a cookie to be found. Maybe I should have a Rolo instead. A bit of chocolate and then out to stand on the holiday bus stop again. Hope those tourists get my good side.
In that spirit of gift-giving, one of our vendors sent us a Hershey’s sampler. The sampler included those “nugget”-sized bars (milk chocolate only dammit, no Krackel or Mr. Goodbar), Kisses and….Rolos. Actually, I’m not sure if you can really count them as Rolos since they’re loose in a gift box and not in roll form. Is it really a Rolo if you can’t roll it to your pal, because it’s chocolate covered caramel? I think not.
There’s a gift that will give for weeks. And by that I mean I’ll have that goddamn jingle in my head for weeks. It’s just like the time I had that Tiny Mighty Mo’s jingle in my head for days. Oh no, I just thought of it again. They’re merging. “Tiny rolo, tiny rolo-rolos. You can roll them to your pal…”
Stop that.
Fortunately at this time of year I can wipe out anything with the Snow Miser-Heat Miser song. There’s a Christmas special that keeps on giving.
As good as that is, there’s another sound that means Christmas to me. The booming voice of the fantastic Thurl Ravenscroft. The lyrics are pure genius as well, written by dear old Ted Geisel himself. In fact the whole cartoon is loaded with talent: Boris Karloff doing the Grinch’s speaking parts and Chuck Jones produced it. Chuck Jones! A god of animation. You can have your freakin’ Pixar pictures; I’ll take a Chuck Jones production any day of the week.
For bonus points, can anyone out there name the Grinch’s dog? No googling please. I remember it clearly because when I started in my line of work there was another member of my department who was so put upon my management that a friend of mined nicknamed her after the dog. Oh, there I go with the remembrances of things past, and without a cookie to be found. Maybe I should have a Rolo instead. A bit of chocolate and then out to stand on the holiday bus stop again. Hope those tourists get my good side.
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