Making A List, Checking It Thrice

Oh, Diary! I wish you so many returns of the day!

Though really, I've never understood the point of such a greeting. "Many returns of the day." That seems incredibly counter-productive. Imagine, Diary, that I said such a thing to Unca Banquo! Would I be wishing him into some kind of repetitive loop? Why would I be so rude? What if he'd just completed an important task down at the whore mill? He'd have to do all that exhausting work all over again. Again and again and again. The poor man would be spent like a tarnished nickel. Admittedly, he does dabble in more than a little recreational time travel, but that's his own doing and I will not stand in his way. As a free and proud Scot, he has a right to indulge in the occasional irregularity.

(Unless, of course, he starts involving the clergy. That can get a bit sticky.)

But enough of my prabbling on. We've better things to do, dear Diary. We have to make ... a LIST! But not just any list. This is a Wish List for the most stupendous and wonderfulest day of the year! That's right, dear Diary. I can only be talking about ...

KRINGLEMASH! The day when all Scots children hop out of their beds and find their slippers filled with the sugary sweet goodness known as Kringle! How fun it is to shove one's wee toes into freshly baked pastry! All the while, their parents or legal guardians are standing there in the doorway, shouting in faux fury with a frosting-coated spatula in each hand. "MASH THAT KRINGLE! MASH THAT KRINGLE! MASH-MASH-MASH THAT KRINGLE"

Oh, you've never known such joy and terror in equal measure, dear Diary. Primarily, you are ignorant of this because you are an inanimate object possessing no soul or consciousness. But moreover, you do not have legs or feet!

And while I've outgrown most of the Kringlemash traditions -- including the subsequent "Hot Mead Sling-n-Dodge" where the children must make their way downstairs through a gauntlet of elders and older brothers and sisters, diving left and right to avoid incoming missiles of expectorated liquid -- I can still participate in the yearly "Threatening of the Help." What fun for all! Seeing as the Slavs and other assorted helplings are all fitted with merry bells year-'round (so as to know they're coming, says Lady Lennox), the official Threatening of the Help Carol goes like this:

Oh, me shoes is full o' Kringle,
And me clothes is soak'd wi' Mead!
Gimme a gif' wi' a grin n' jingle,
Afore I makes ya bleed!

Isn't that just joyous? It is. And so, you go from servant to servant, collecting presents and gifts all the while.

And so ... I've to start my Wish List -- which will then be taken to the Slavs, who will naturally impart my deepest material desires to their Great and Ferocious Thing-God, SANTATHULHU.

Or so I've heard. I really don't care about the cosmic bits, just so long as I get my prezzies. And I think I will start my list with a simple wish for a chapeau. Which do you think will suit me better, Diary? The Antilles is quite fetching, but I'm leaning positively side-saddle toward the Big Buck!



Oh, almost forgot. I've an appointment with my alienist this afternoon, so I'll leave off here. I do so love talking to the alienist. I yammer on and on, he writes things down and if I stop, he says "Please go on." And then, just before he gives me a handful of peppermint pills, he checks my head for fresh knots. It tickles!

Yours in mental health, Diary! Ta!

Y.B.P.M.