Slut. Slut!

The woman gets a little of Uncle Jerry’s famous eggnog in her and she’s easier than flicking a light switch. Alcohol and her fetish for holiday icons. Disaster.

Now I’m the one who pays for it every damn year. Christmas dinner at Mom’s, then trek 45 minutes to Dad’s depressing apartment in the hinterlands to eat supermarket pumpkin pie while he pumps me for info on Mom and Alan. Are they happy? Did they talk about me? Does Alan have a job? Can he get me one?

Please someone shoot me.

I hate this time of year. I seriously hate it. Guess it’s good my own kids are with their mother. I’m not much fun around the holidays.

Don’t blame myself? That’s easy for my therapist to say. He didn’t write a song about his mom’s infidelity and effectively ruin his family. What was I thinking? It should have been obvious that my dad would hear the song, find out that I wrote it and put two and two together. I might as well have just called the song “My Mom Boffed Santa in My Dad’s Favorite Chair While My Old Man Was Out Busting His Hump Pulling Another Double Shift at the Factory for a Little Extra Pay So He Could Give His Family the Best Christmas Possible.”

It’s not like it even paid off in other ways. I’m not rich and I’m not famous. Here I am driving a beat up Kia Spectra and the only time my name is in the paper is when the police blotter reports my domestic disturbances and DUIs.

I mean, look at me. I’m reduced to answering my own kids’ questions about Santa with a bitterness that frankly scares me. “Daddy, is Santa real?” He’s real all right. A real home wrecker. Oh yeah, the guy’s great. He’ll really give it to you good. Especially if you bake him a batch of pecan sandies and serve them wearing nothing but an apron that says “Santa’s Little Helper.” Cookies and milk? Give me a break. They were chugging White Russians when she wasn’t keeping his chestnuts warm. The family court was right. I’m warping my own children’s minds.

I can’t blame mom. I mean not totally. Dad never paid much attention to her. Sometimes I think he drove her into the arms of Santa. Besides, Dad doesn’t even know how far things went that night. He thinks it was just a kiss, and he moved out anyway. He never even tried to move past it, never tried to make things work. At least she apologized. At least she tried.

When writing the lyrics, I thought I exercised judgment in stopping at the kiss under the mistletoe. Well, I did mention the tickle under the beard. But who knew Dad would flip out like that. Over a kiss! I thought he’d think it was funny. I mean, I even said so in the song: “Oh, what a laugh it would have been/If Daddy had only seen/Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night.” Boy, did I misjudge that reaction.

Guess it could’ve been worse. I could’ve written a song about what I saw that overgrown rabbit doing to my mom the Easter of ’54.