January 2nd, 2007

Despite fantasies involving drivers of panel vans who cut me and my motorcycle off in traffic, and nasty speculation about what the insides of pedophiles look like, I am not a man of violence. I don't believe in swinging fists or breaking things, and I think that those who stoop so low as to damage people or property to get their point across need to instead expand their vocabulary. I mean, take it from me: Words can do much more than any swing of the fist. Email me for examples if you like (and if you dare).

But I must admit: This year, Violence Saved Christmas.

Violence against a poinsettia, that is.

It all started with my wife receiving a poinsettia as a "gift" from her work. Everybody got gifts at her work, of course. Why, some people got beautiful gift baskets. Others got boxes of soaps, lotions, and shampoo. My florist wife got a poinsettia. And it was a poinsettia that she herself indirectly supplied (through a dreadful floral supplier—one with whom she has bad blood) to the gift pool. As she says, it's like being a cookie-maker and being given a cookie (and a cheap store-bought one at that). She was somewhat insulted by this. As she said, it would've been better to receive nothing at all than to receive something that was basically "hers" anyway.

And the poinsettia was nothing but trouble from the time it got home.

Danger Vibes

First, it had bad vibes. I am a man of science, but I can tell you in all honesty: This poinsettia made us cranky and sick, gave us headaches, confused us, caused us stress. The vibes were infectious and threatened to turn our happy home into a battleground of pointless stands ... typical holiday stress, you might say, except that the poinsettia caused it all (you'll later see how I was able to conclude that the poinsettia was the culprit). All that misery and stress started at exactly the same time that the poinsettia crossed the threshold to our home. Coincidence? I think not!

Keyboard Killer

And, not wanting the poinsettia to sully the pristine beauty of our kitchen table, we relegated said poinsettia to the top of my piano, where it could be mostly ignored. And the f***ing thing leaked water in significant-enough quantities that the electronics in my beautiful piano got fried. My piano is dead!, and they don't make them any more ... in fact, the company that made them doesn't even exist any more. If you know me at all, you'll know how painful that is to me. Well, sort of: I just had to adopt an air of Grim Determination, rather like a peasant defending his homeland, to replace it as soon as possible.

Seat Soiler

So, almost by instinct, both my wife and I concluded we needed to get that poinsettia out of the house before anything worse happened. We decided to bring it to my parents' house. I mean, it was not like we wanted to visit a curse upon the House of Porter or anything, but we planned to tell them that if they wanted it they could have it, otherwise we would just toss it into the garbage. But on the way to their house for Christmas, the damnéd thing fell over on the back seat and spilled mud onto the upholstery of our beautiful new car.

Brian's Final Solution to the Poinsettia Question

When we got the plant away from the car before it could do more harm, my wife mentioned that one of its little branches was broken. And I smelled blood.

Half-crazed from the stress and sickness that the plant brought us, angered at the loss of my piano, furious with the mud pie soiling the back seat of our car, I snapped. I mean, I absolutely lost control of myself, and focused all my wrath (and there was plenty) on that little plant and grabbed it from my wife's clutches and hurled it down onto the pavement of my parents' driveway. There was a satisfying crunch sound, but I gave it another little kick just to make sure it was terminally wounded.

And, after my sister rather placatingly started to clean the back seat of the car, I shoveled the remainder of the poinsettia into my parents' garbage bin with a rake, then used the handle of the rake to crush it and its little container pot flat, first with fervid devotion to complete destruction, then, after it was clearly losing the battle, I broke into gleeful giggles. I devoted much of my bad mood into crunching it all mutilated and flat; and, by the time it was gone, my dreadful feelings were just as obliterated as that Puerile Plant.

The Christmas Miracle

I said I would show the proof that the poinsettia was cursed and causing all our strife, and here it is: The instant the poinsettia died at my hands, my wife's headache disappeared (and, I remind you, that headache began the moment she received the plant). My stress and bad mood melted away with the last gasps from the dreadful little thing. The car seat came clean miraculously; and although the piano is permanently destroyed, my angst about losing such a faithful old friend is gone, replaced with excitement about the new piano I'm going to buy just as soon as I can find one I like.

And our Christmas presents and dinner were all saved because that accursed poinsettia never made it past my parents' front door!

As I said, I am not a man of violence, but I saved Christmas through violence, and I made the world a slightly better place by removing a Dark Evil Presence.

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