is popular. I went with my brother last weekend. Near the cash register was a bowl of glass eyes and a sign reading 'DO NOT HOLD THESE GLASS EYES UP AGAINST YOUR OWN EYES: THE ROUGH STEM CAN CAUSE INJURY.'
I talked to the fellow behind the counter and he said, 'It's the same thing every time. First they hold up the eyes and then they go for the horns. I'm sick of it.'
It frightened me that, until I saw the sign, my first impulse was to hold those eyes up to my own. I thought it might be a laugh riot.
All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.
There was a big 'Sesame Street Live' extravaganza over at Madison Square Garden, so thousands of people decided to make a day of it and go straight from Sesame Street to Santa. We were packed today, absolutely packed, and everyone was cranky. Once the line gets long we break it up into four different lines because anyone in their right mind would leave if they knew it would take over two hours to see Santa. Two hours you could see a movie in two hours. Standing in a two-hour line makes people worry that they're not living in a democratic nation. People stand in line for two hours and they go over the edge. I was sent into the hallway to direct the second phase of the line. The hallway was packed with people, and all of them seemed to stop me with a question: which way to the down escalator, which way to the elevator, the Patio Restaurant, gift wrap, the women's rest room, Trim-A- Tree. There was a line for Santa and a line for the women's bathroom, and one woman, after asking me a dozen questions already, asked, 'Which is the line for the women's bathroom?' I shouted that I thought it was the line with all the women in it.
She said, 'I'm going to have you fired.'
I had two people say that to me today, 'I'm going to have you fired.' Go ahead, be my guest. I'm wearing a green velvet costume; it doesn't get any worse than this. Who do these people think they are? 'I'm going to have you fired!' and I wanted to lean over and say, 'I'm going to have you killed.'
In the Maze, on the way to Santa's house, you pass spectacles train sets, dancing bears, the candy-cane forest, and the penguins. The penguins are set in their own icy wonderland. They were built years ago and they frolic mechanically. They stand outside their igloo and sled and skate and fry fish in a pan. For some reason people feel compelled to throw coins into the penguin display. I can't figure it out for the life of me they don't throw money at the tree of gifts or the mechanical elves, or the mailbox of letters, but they empty their pockets for the penguins. I asked what happens to that money, and a manager told me that it's collected for charity, but I don't think so. Elves take the quarters for the pay phone, housekeeping takes the dimes, and I've seen visitors, those that aren't throwing money, I've seen them scooping it up as fast as they can.
I was working the Exit today. I'm supposed to say, 'This wayout of SantaLand,' but I can't bring myself to say it as it seems like I'm rushing people. They wait an hour to see Santa, they're hit up for photo money, and then someone's hustling them out. I say, 'This wayout of SantaLand if you've decided maybe it's time for you to go home.'
'You can exit this way if you feel like it.'
We're also supposed to encourage people to wait outside while the parent with money is paying for a picture. 'If you're waiting for someone to purchase a photo, waitoutside the double doors.'
I say, 'If you're waiting for someone to purchase a picture, you might want to waitoutside the double doors where it is pleasant and the light is more flattering.'
I had a group of kids waiting this afternoon, waiting for their mom to pay for pictures, and this kid reached into his pocket and threw a nickel at me. He was maybe twelve years old, jaded in regard to Santa, and he threw his nickel and it hit my chest and fell to the floor. I picked it up, cleared my throat, and handed it back to him. He threw it again. Like I was a penguin. So I handed it back and he threw it higher, hitting me in the neck. I picked up the nickel and turned to another child and said, 'Here, you dropped this.' He examined the coin, put it in his pocket, and left.
Yesterday was my day off, and the afflicted came to visit Santa. I Photo Elfed for Santa Ira this afternoon, and he told me all about it. These were severely handicapped children who arrived on stretchers and in wheelchairs. Santa couldn't put them on his lap, and often he could not understand them when they voiced their requests. He made it a point to grab each child's hand and ask what they wanted for Christmas. He did this until he came to a child who had no hands. This made him self-conscious, so he started placing a hand on the child's knee until he came to a child with no legs. After that he decided to simply nod his head and chuckle.
I got stuck with Santa Santa again this afternoon and had to sing and fetch for three hours. Late in the afternoon, a child said she didn't know what her favorite Christmas carol was. Santa said, ''Rudolph'? 'Jingle Bells'? 'White Christmas'? 'Here Comes Santa Claus'? 'Away in the Manger'? 'Silent Night'?'
The girl agreed to 'Away in the Manger,' but didn't want to sing it because she didn't know the words.
Santa Santa said, 'Oh, Little Elf, Little Elf, come sing 'Away in the Manger' for us.'
It didn't seem fair that I should have to solo, so I told him I didn't know the words.
Santa Santa said, 'Of course you know the words. Come now, sing!'
So I sang it the way Billie Holiday might have sung it if she'd put out a Christmas album. 'Away in the manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord, Jesus, lay down his sweet head.'
Santa Santa did not allow me to finish.
This afternoon we set a record by scooting fourteen hundred people through SantaLand in the course of an hour. Most of them were school groups in clots of thirty or more. My Santa would address them, saying, 'All right, I'm going to count to three, and on three I want you all to yell what you want and I need you to say it as loud as you can.'
Then he would count to three and the noise was magnificent. Santa would cover his ears and say, 'All right one by one I want you to tell me what you're planning to leave Santa on Christmas Eve.'
He would go around the room and children would name different sorts of cookies, and he would say, 'What about sandwiches? What if Santa should want something more substantial than a cookie?'
Santa's thrust this afternoon was the boredom of his nine-year relationship. He would wave the children goodbye and then turn to me, saying, 'I want an affair, Goddamn it just a little one, just something to get me through the next four or five years.'
Some of these children, they get nervous just before going in to visit Santa. They pace and wring their hands and stare at the floor. They act like they're going in for a job interview. I say, 'Don't worry, Santa's not going to judge you. He's very relaxed about that sort of thing. He used to be judgmental but people gave him a hard time about it so he stopped. Trust me, you have nothing to worry about.'
I was Photo Elf tonight for the oldest Santa. Usually their names are written on the water cups they keep hidden away on the toy shelf. Every now and then a Santa will call out for water and an elf will hold the cup while his master drinks through a straw. I looked on the cup and saw no name. We were busy tonight and I had no time for an introduction. This was an outstanding Santa, wild but warm. The moment a family leaves, this Santa, sensing another group huddled upon his doorstep, will begin to sing.
He sings, 'A pretty girl. .is like a melody.'
The parents and children enter the room, and if there is a girl in the party, Santa will take a look at her, hold his gloved hands to his chest, and fake a massive heart attack falling back against the cushion and moaning with a combination of pleasure and pain. Then he slowly comes out of it and says, 'Elf, Elf. . are you there?'
'Yes, Santa, I'm here.'
'Elf, I just had a dream that I was standing before the most beautiful girl in the world. She was right here, in my house.'
Then I say, 'It wasn't a dream, Santa. Open your eyes, my friend. She's standing before you.'
Santa rubs his eyes and shakes his head as if he were a parish priest, visited by Christ, 'Oh, heavenly day,' he says, addressing the child. 'You arethe most beautiful girl I have seen in six hundred and seventeen years.'
Then he scoops her into his lap and flatters every aspect of her character. The child is delirious. Santa gestures toward the girl's mother, asking, 'Is that your sister I see standing there in the corner?'
'No, that's my mother.'
Santa calls the woman over close and asks if she has been a good mother. 'Do you tell your daughter that you love her? Do you tell her every day?'
The mothers always blush and say, 'I try, Santa.'
Santa asks the child to give her mother a kiss. Then he addresses the father, again requesting that he tell
