This is an article submitted to a 1999 Louisville Sentinel contest to<br />find out who had the wildest Christmas dinners. This won first prize.<br /><br />Christmas With Louise<br /><br />As a joke, my brother used to hang a pair of ***** hose over his<br />fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill<br />them. What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true<br />because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids' stockings were<br />overflowed, his poor *****hose hung sadly empty. <br /><br />One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and<br />went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things<br />at Walmart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown. If you've<br />never been in an X-rated store, don't go. You'll only confuse yourself.<br /><br />I was there an hour saying things like, "What does this do? You're<br />kidding me! Who would buy that?" Finally, I made it to the inflatable<br />doll section.<br /><br />I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also<br />substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane<br />during rush<br />hour. Finding what I wanted was difficult. Love Dolls come in many<br />different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box,<br />could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled<br />for Lovable Louise. She was at the bottom of the price scale. To call<br />Louise a doll took a huge leap of imagination. <br /><br />On Christmas Eve and with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came<br />to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the<br />wee morning hours. Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the<br />dangling *****hose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate<br />some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby<br />tray. I went home, and giggled for a couple of hours.<br /><br />The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his<br />house and left a present that had made him VERY happy but had left the<br />dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and<br />bark some more.<br /><br />We all agreed that Louise should remain in her ***** hose so the rest of<br />the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional<br />Christmas dinner. <br /><br />My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. "What<br />the hell is that?" she asked. My brother quickly explained, "It's a<br />doll." "Who would play with something like that?" Granny snapped. I<br />had several candidates in mind, but kept my mouth shut. "Where are her<br />clothes?" Granny continued. "Boy, that turkey sure smells nice Gran"<br />Jay said, to steer her into the dining room. But Granny was relentless.<br /><br />"Why doesn't she have any teeth?" Again, I could have answered, but<br />why<br />would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the<br />ambulance saying, "Hang on Granny, hang on!"<br /><br />My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me<br />! and said, "Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?" I told him<br />she<br />was Jay's friend. A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel,<br />talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was<br />then<br />that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home. The<br />dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who<br />was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise<br />like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from<br />the ***** hose, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front<br />of the sofa.<br /><br />The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa<br />ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering<br />mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. My brother fell back over his chair and<br />wet his pants. <br /><br />Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the<br />car.<br /><br />It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember. Later in my<br />brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the<br />cause of Louise's collapse. We discovered that Louise had suffered from<br />a hot ember to the back of her right thigh.<br /><br />Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her<br />to perfect health!
