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I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this show is not about lumberjacks…
My name is Christopher Gronlund, and every month I share a story. Sometimes the stories contain truths, but most of the time, they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny — other times they’re serious. But you have my word about one thing: I will never — EVER — share a story about lumberjacks.
This time, after the success of sharing a handful of stories last Christmas, it’s another multi-tale episode…two of which, are seasonally themed.
All right–let’s get to work…
THE CROCK
The first private words my mother-in-law, Rosalie, ever said to me were, “You’re not good enough for my son, and you never will be.”
In front of others, she smiled and praised me, but the moment she got me alone she became such a witch. She hated that I made more money than Anthony—going as far as saying, once, that I might as well neuter him for real. (She believed I needed to be at home cooking and dropping a steady stream of children while Anthony provided for us—not running my own software company.)
And I understand things were different when Rosalie was younger, but by the time one reaches a certain level of adulthood, they should know when to keep their mouth shut—no matter how much they want to say something snarky. Despite her constant criticisms, I still tried being the better person and giving her a chance in the hope we’d one day find we had something in common.
Months into my relationship with Anthony, when things were getting serious, we had Rosalie over for dinner as a peace offering. Maybe I was showing off a bit by making rack of lamb, but I hoped I’d win her over with my foodie skills.
I realized there was no winning with her, however, when she raised her fork to her lips. I knew she wanted to tell me I was a horrible a cook, even though it was clear she was surprised by how great dinner tasted.
“What do you think?” I said to her.
“It’s…palatable I suppose.”
Anthony shifted in his chair when I looked at him and said, “What do you think, dear?”
“It’s…good.”
“Just good?” I said. “Funny, when I was prepping this dinner, you told me I’m a better cook than your mother.”
I expected Rosalie to confront Anthony, but instead she remained silent and gave me the evil eye.
For our wedding, Rosalie gave us a Crock Pot and a card that read, “It’s hard to ruin a meal using one of these.”
I wanted to reply, “You must use one all the time, then,” but I knew that’s what she wanted. I sent a thank you card and stored the Crock Pot away in the garage.
That summer, when we received an invitation to the family reunion, Rosalie wrote, “We’re having a pot luck, and I do hope to see the Crock Pot I bought for your wedding.”
Anthony begged me to keep the peace and do as I was asked, so I went to the garage and finally dragged it out. As I cleaned Crock Pot before making chili, I noticed what Rosalie had done…
Anthony comes from a large family, and the annual family reunion is a major affair. Held on the grounds of a successful uncle’s small estate, hints of the family’s humble roots are evident: picnic tables covered with plastic, disposable plates and eating utensils, and dingy Igloo and Coleman coolers—probably older than half of those in attendance—holding cheap canned beer.
When Anthony and I arrived, Rosalie seemed genuinely surprised when I set the Crock Pot down on the picnic table with all the other dishes. In no time, praise went up for my chili—to the point the pot was the first to be emptied. Family members demanded I bring more next time. From the corner of my eye, I caught Rosalie scowling. Her plan had failed.
The rest of the afternoon Rosalie lingered nearby, perhaps hoping to hear how I thwarted her. Maybe she wanted to come right out and ask, but she never did. After letting her twist all afternoon, I finally approached her.
“Rosalie!” I said. “Thank you so much for the Crock Pot. It works like magic.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Drop the act and tell me how you pulled that off.”
I smiled.
“The old soured pot? Really? I expected much more than basic kitchen witchery from you—such an easy spell to reverse. I respect the old ways, but they are quite easy to detect with newer magic.”
I won’t say Rosalie and I have become great friends since that day at the family reunion, but we’re getting there. We share our secrets and make Anthony nervous with our whispering. We share cooking secrets as well—we have even discussed having a mother/daughter-in-law long weekend getaway.
It’s funny how quickly things can change when you find you have something in common with another person…
GREETINGS
On December 17th, the week before Christmas, a long-term production I was on ended. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and all that, right? I was out a job during a time when all my office working friends were using time off they didn’t take during the year. Use it or lose it, and many friends—workaholics that they are—would lose time again. So really, I can’t complain. My husband has a good job, and I socked away a decent chunk of money because that’s the way my industry works. One day you’re on set, putting cuts and bruises on a scream queen, and the next: you’re out of work.
I went through the holidays stress-free, the envy of all my friends. January…no worries I wasn’t working. February, March, and into April: I still had money. But as spring turned to summer, I began to get nervous. I needed a job, and a make-up artist for low-budget horror flicks only carries one so far.
That’s when Kurt said, “You know what would be funny? If you used your makeup skills to look like an old man, and…you tried getting a job as a BigboxMart greeter.”
Sure, we were drinking pomegranate gin fizzes at the time, and perhaps we were a little beyond tipsy, but there was something appealing about the idea. Were my F/X makeup skills, and the little acting I’ve done, good enough that I could pull off some Depends-wearing old guy sitting on a stool at BigboxMart welcoming shoppers to the store? I aimed to find out.
The following morning I figured, if nothing else, doing an old man application and inquiring about a job would be funny enough. (Sobriety has a strange way of bringing clarity to what sounded brilliant the night before.) By the time I was done, I looked like a 75-year-old version of myself. It was off to the store.
I puttered along, nice and slow, and approached the self check-out attendant.
“I’d like to speak with a manager,” I said to a 20-something guy paying more attention to his phone than customers in need of assistance.
“I was just checking a message,” he said. He shoved his phone in his pocket.
“Oh, no—not that,” I said. “I’d like to inquire about a job.”
“Ah, one moment.”
The kid with the phone seemed happy to wander off. He returned with a very round, middle-aged woman with a vast grin showing off the whitest teeth I’d ever seen.
“How can I help you, sir?”
“Yes,” I said in the old man voice I practiced on the drive over. “My name is Jeremy Howie. I have a little free time during my day, and wondered if you were hiring any greeters?”
The stool at the front of the store was occupied by an old man flip-flopping between scrutinizing young people leaving the store and trying to stay awake. Clearly, they already had their man.
I was taken aback when the woman with the Cheshire grin said, “This is your lucky day, Mr. Howie. We’re in need of an afternoon greeter.”
It turns out there’s a pretty high turnover rate for the position. Not because they are poor employees, but…well, there’s no nice way to say this: they tend to die.
“My name’s Susan,” she said. “Let’s go get you an application…”
I went through with it. I figured why the hell not? It was something to do until something else came along. And when nothing else came along, I found myself actually enjoying the job.
Each day I refined the character, imagining what I’d be like in my 70s. I said and did things only old people seemed to get away with. I made up stories about years before me I had yet to live in real life. And I greeted and said goodbye to everyone coming and going like nobody ever had before. I was loved more than I ever felt at any other job. I’d be lying if I said, in some ways, that it wasn’t the best job I’d ever had.
And then two things happened. Around Christmas—almost a year to the day I last worked on a movie—I got a call about a production starting up in January in need of my skills. That same day, the local NBC affiliate sent a news crew to BigboxMart to do a human-interest piece on the jolliest greeter in the city.
That night while watching my spot on the evening news, Kurt said, “So what are you going to do?”
I took a sip of my gimlet and said, “I can’t pass up the movie.”
“You’re going to break everyone’s heart at the store.”
“I know.” I watched news footage of me interacting with customers who came in gloomy and left with smiles bigger than Susan’s, all because I hammed it up and paid them attention.
“Are you going to come clean?” Kurt said.
“I can’t do that.”
“Then what?”
I gave it some thought and began to laugh. I couldn’t stop laughing.
“What?” Kurt said.
“I have the best idea…”
I’d like the record to show that making decisions while drinking gin is not in one’s best interests. I strolled into BigboxMart the next morning, sans makeup, hoping I could pull it off. I asked to speak with a manager.
A few minutes later, Susan approached and said, “How can I help you, sir?”
Any fear I had that she’d recognize me was gone.
“Hello. My name is Jeremy Howie Jr. My grandpa Jeremy works here as a greeter.”
“Oh, I see the resemblance,” Susan said. “It’s uncanny how much you look like him.”
“I hear that a lot,” I said. And then: “I…uhm…”
“Yes?” There was something about the shift in Susan’s face that made me feel like the worst human being on the planet. I could try blaming the gin the night before, but maybe I really was the worst. She must have known what was coming next, because she covered her mouth in shock.
“I don’t know how to say this, but…he passed away last night.” I added, “In his sleep,” in the hope of absolving myself of an eternity in Hell.
She hugged me and began to tremble. She was crying right there at the front of the store. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He is—was…such a special soul of a man.”
When she finally let go and pulled back, her face was so red and swollen that it looked like she’d been stung by bees.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said. “I just thought you should know why he’d not be in today.”
I was sorry…sorry I thought what seemed funny the night before turned out to be such a terrible idea.
Susan took my hand in her left palm and patted it. “We’ll mail his last check.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Will you be okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said. It was the most honest thing I said all morning.
As I walked off, Susan called after me. “You’ll let us know about his funeral, right?”
Oh, shit.
When I told Kurt I planned to never go back to BigboxMart, he said, “They have what they believe is Old Man Jeremy’s address. They could just show up.”
“Fuck, you’re right.”
“Or you could…”
“Could what?” I said.
“Give him a funeral.”
I looked at the martini in my hand and said, “We need to stop drinking gin.”
“Hear me out,” Kurt said. “I have a friend who owns a beautiful old building people use for weddings, bar mitzvahs, team-building meetings, and family reunions. Even a few funerals.”
“Go on…”
“He owes me a favor.”
One of the many things I love about Kurt is that he knows everyone. And some of those everyones owe him things.
“I’ll give him a call tomorrow, and you can get back to what you do best.”
I raised my martini. “To the memory of Jeremy Howie the First.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the time I finished my eulogy for the corpse prop I made of Old Man Howie resting peacefully in a rented casket.
“I love that you all loved my grandfather as much as he loved you,” I said.
At the back of the room, Kurt moved to a corner to contain his laughter. As I wrapped up the service, Susan had my dear husband smothered in a tight hug against her ample bosom, reassuring him that everything would be all right.
I feel bad about what I did, but at the same time, at least for a handful of months, something I created made others happy. My former coworkers gained and lost a friend. People stressed out from the holidays watched a news spot that maybe renewed their hope and joy in the season. Perhaps I won’t go to Hell after all.
I didn’t drink gin on New Year’s Eve. Kurt and I spent a quiet night in, knowing I’d soon be on set up in Vancouver. It will be weird returning to a movie after being away for over a year. I might even be a little nervous were it not for one thing: if I bomb out on set, there are plenty of other BigboxMarts in the area in need of old greeters.
NAUGHTY
Bobby Johnson’s mother caught him in her bedroom closet, carefully unwrapping his Christmas gifts days before going beneath the tree.
“Bobby, what are you doing?” she said.
“Fuck you, Mom!”
Deidre Johnson went to get her husband, Ted. From the hallway, Bobby heard his parents talking.
“We can just let him do it,” Ted said. “He knows what he’s getting, now…”
Bobby’s father feared his son ever since the night he tried grounding Bobby and Bobby stabbed him in the arm with a letter opener in his sleep.
“I hear you out there!” Bobby said.
Ted entered the bedroom, but stood back from the closet.
“Heya, pal. Your mom and I work hard to give you things, and part of the joy of the season is seeing you unwrap gifts on Christmas morning and being surprised. Santa Claus has yet to bring his gift for you. If you don’t behave, he might skip our house.”
“Fuck Santa Claus!” Bobby said. “I’ll show that bitch!”
Bobby Johnson was a very naughty boy.
On Christmas Eve, Bobby camped out beneath the Christmas tree with his trusty letter opener. If Santa didn’t deliver the videogame system Bobby wanted more than anything, there’d be hell to pay.
Sometime after midnight, Bobby felt the letter opener slide from his hand. In that state between dreaming and the waking world, he smelled lingering cigar smoke. He looked up to see Santa Claus…only it wasn’t the Santa Claus Bobby expected.
He looked like a homeless Santa Bobby once saw downtown. With a grizzled beard and a cigar plugged between his teeth, this Santa Claus held the letter opener in his right hand. Tattooed across the knuckles: P-A-I-N – and across the knuckles on his left: M-O-J-O.
Bobby wondered if the letter opener being held by the PAIN hand meant something bad was about to happen.
“Santa?” he said.
“Think of me as Not-Santa, Bobby. You know how your parents tell you mall Santas are Santa’s helpers? Well, I’m one of them, but my job is to deal with shitty little naughty boys like you. My brother is the real Santa Claus, and he got tired of keeping two lists and taking shit from kids like you. So, when I got out of prison, to keep me on the straight and narrow, he put me in charge of the naughty ones.”
“W-what are you going to do to me?” Bobby said.
Not-Santa tossed the letter opener over his shoulder and pointed at Bobby with his MOJO hand. Bobby’s head swam; when he woke up, he was lashed to the Christmas tree with strands of colorful lights. The bristly pine needles scratched his back. That’s when he saw the battery and wires.
“This’ll hurt ya, Bobby. But it won’t harm you, if you know what I mean?”
Not-Santa attached the wires to Bobby’s earlobes with clips. All it would take is touching one wire to the battery to complete the circuit.
“Now, are you ready to be a good boy?” Not-Santa said.
Struggling against the light strands, Bobby wriggled free enough to give Not-Santa the finger.
Bobby wasn’t sure if it was the electricity now coursing through his body, or the effects it had on his vision, but the Christmas tree lit up brightly when Not-Santa touched the wire to the battery. Before Bobby could yelp, the MOJO hand went over his mouth.
“You better watch out, you better not cry…” Not-Santa sang. “You better not pout, I’m telling you why…”
When he removed his MOJO hand from Bobby’s face, the naughty boy had no mouth. Tears streamed down his face when Not-Santa pinched his nose, cutting off his breathing.
“I have options, Bobby. Now…” He let go of Bobby’s nose so he could breath. “You’re gonna listen up!”
Not-Santa spent the next ten minutes telling Bobby about all the sacrifices his parents made for him. How even though he was an unplanned pregnancy, and despite an aunt’s suggestion to terminate his time in the womb, his parents went through with it. How his dad rushed through college to get a better job before Bobby’s arrival, and how his mother put in even longer hours at the crafting company she founded so they could give him all they never had.
With his MOJO hand, Not-Santa produced a diary Bobby had never found when rummaging through his parents’ bedroom, looking for things. It was a journal in which Ted and Deidre shared their dreams. Gone were hopes of world travel and so many other wants. But in their place, new entries about how much fun it would be to one day share the world with their new child and all the other things his life would bring.
Bobby had no idea his mother had her thyroid gland removed during a cancer scare, but still tended to her son’s well-being while his father finished school. So many other tales about his parents’ love for him he never knew.
“Look,” Not-Santa said. “I know I’m laying it on thick. It’s a sainted Catholic thing, ya know? But there’s a lotta truth to it all. Most kids would give up so much to have parents like yours, and you shit all over them every god-damned day. If I called the shots, I’d grab your nose and never let go. But my brother gave me the power to make shitty little skags like you a deal.
“You’ve got two choices, kid: the big gift Santa was going to give you, even though you don’t deserve it…or you and me? We’re gonna sit down and spend the next couple hours making something for your folks.
“You get to live no matter what. I’m allowed to scare you, but I signed a contract saying I’d not leave behind any lasting damage. Once I make the offer, you’re free to go, and I can do nothing more.
“So, Bobby Johnson…what’s it gonna be…?”
Bobby woke up beneath the tree on Christmas morning when his parents came downstairs.
“Merry Christmas!” his mother said.
His father cocked his head. “Does anyone else smell cigars?” He looked at Bobby. Given some of the things he’d done, taking up cigar smoking at seven years old would not be beyond a possibility. His mother took a deep whiff.
“Yes, I do.”
They dropped the matter, though, when Bobby shouted, “Merry Christmas!” and ran up to his parents, hugging each around a leg. For a moment, they seemed to wait to see what Bobby’s game was, but when it was clear to Ted that his son was showing genuine affection, his picked him up and smothered Bobby in a hug-sandwich with Deidre.
In no time, the air in the living room became a blur of color as wrapping was shredded from presents. When Ted had handed out all the gifts, he said, “What’s this?”
“I don’t know,” Deidre said.
Beneath the tree was a package neither had purchased. The tag read “From: Santa Claus and his Brother. To: Bobby and his Parents.”
Inside the box were two wrapped gifts. When Bobby opened the one marked for him, he ran around the living room shouting with glee. He’d finally received the videogame console he wanted more than anything.
Ted pulled the other gift from the box and said, “Who’s Not-Santa?” He held it at arm’s length, like it was a bomb about to go off. Seeing how happy Bobby was, Deidre didn’t care. She charged over and ripped the paper off the box, revealing a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Stuck to the box, a note reading: You two have more than earned this. Cheers!
Ted and Deidre Johnson stared at each other, mouths agape. Before they could further question what was going on, Bobby jumped up and down and said, “Now it’s time for me to give you my gift!”
Any onlooker who knew Bobby might have thought, “Ah-ha! He’s about to do the shittiest thing he’s ever done, right here on Christmas morning. This was all a ruse!”
But instead, he reached behind the back of the tree and handed his parents a macaroni drawing of him and a cigar-smoking, rough-and-tumble-looking Santa Claus. Written beneath the drawing, in red and green crayon: Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad. I love you. Bobby…
When his parents finally stopped crying, Ted smiled and said, “How about I make you both the best breakfast you’ve ever had? And then we can set up your game—how’s that sound?”
The Johnsons kicked their way through piles of wrapping paper on their way to the kitchen. Maybe being taken off the naughty list and placed on the good one wouldn’t be so bad after all…
A big thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks. All music by Ergo Phizmiz and Chad Crouch, also known as Poddington Bear. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the show, the voice talent, and music.
Next time, I should finally get to that post-apocalyptic office tale I’ve teased for almost a year. But with a finished novel and some busy time ahead…it might be a story about a kid who makes a monster in his bathtub. We’ll see…
Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!