K is for Kris

Saturday morning, after a night out to see an excellent production of The Elephant Man, Tim and I got up and headed to the Holiday Food and Gift Festival, where I was determined to complete a made-in-Vermont gift basket for someone on my list and where, we hoped, Tim could fulfill his need for a-little-somethings for his hard-working coworkers, a-little-somethings that would perhaps balance the gifts of sugar that would be heading everyone’s way, some savory-little-somethings-in-jars. I, for one, wanted that part of holiday planning to be fini so I didn’t have to think about it anymore.

But when we pulled up to the venue, we both had to pee.

“Is there a bathroom here?” Tim asked.

“There must be,” I said, and then I remembered having been to this particular one-holer before and I knew exactly where in the store it was. We headed there.

The door was closed, and we could hear someone was inside.

We waited. This little nook contained kitchen sale items, so we looked at them. We waited. We waited some more. We bounced around a little.

Should we knock? I hated to resort to that. But it did seem to be taking someone a terribly long time.

Then, we heard a strange noise. It sounded like…wind chimes. What the…? I had no recollection of there being wind chimes in that small bathroom, and really, when one thinks what wind chimes would mean in a situation like this, well, one wants to stop thinking that one is going to be the next one in that room.

Was it a kid messing around? More chimes.

I was just about to knock, thinking maybe this person has no idea anyone is out here waiting, when the door opened. And out stepped Santa Claus, donned in the requisite garb and sleigh bells.

“Ho ho ho,” he said. “Have you been good?”

Tim and I began to chuckle. “Well, we’ll be better after we get into the bathroom,” I said.

“Sorry. I forgot how long it takes to change into this thing. And I’m running late. My pipes froze this morning.” (I wonder how often Santa uses that believable excuse?)

After we’d relieved ourselves, we had a very nice conversation with him. For the record, Santa’s a great guy.

When you’re desperately waiting for a door to open, sometimes there’s no predicting who’s gonna do the opening.