Was I the only one that had the hots for cousin Mel in that cartoon?
Maybe Grandpa is a were-elk who knew that Christmas Eve would be the perfect night to strike and have nobody suspect him.
Grandma got run over by a reindeer/Walking home from our house Christmas Eve
First of all, I thought it was good manners to go TO Grandma’s house. She’s elderly, after all. That aside, I notice nobody offered to drive her or call a cab or anything. Nice.
She’d been drinking too much eggnog/And we begged her not to go
Maybe they could have started by begging her not to drink too much in the first place. I wonder what medication she was on, whether it was something that would react badly with alcohol. Well, points for not letting her drive but what if it were, say, heart medication? Trudging through the snow, yeah, that’s great for the heart :rolleyes: Maybe Grandpa made hers extra strong.
And for all we know it was slicker than snot on a doorknob out there; if she fell and broke her hip, what then?
When we found her Christmas morning/At the scene of the attack
Wow, total lack of concern from the family when she didn’t come back or notify them that she was okay.
You may say there’s no such thing as Santa/But as for me and Grandpa we believe.
Put a red suit on Grandpa, rent some reindeer, and what have you got? Santa. The singer is trying to lend crebility to the story. Hmm, a conspiracy.
Should we open up her gifts or send them back?
Indeed…not even what dress they should bury her in etc. :eek::mad:
Would the family be able to sue the DMV, arguing that they should never give a license to a man who drives a sleigh and plays with elves?
I think that would play on Judge Judy.
Why do you think it’s called a sleigh if it’s not a dangerous vehicle?
Funny you should ask, as I just got off the phone with the Nunavut Province [Canada] DMV Chief Administrator, who says that they have records for one “Claus [also Klaus] and/or Nicholas, Saint,” whose age was left unspecified (although someone, perhaps a clerk, wrote “elderly” in that space), and who was last issued a Class One license for a two-reindeer sled in 1932, which was also the last time Mr. or Saint Claus/Klaus/Nicholas had his eyes examined (vision, uncorrected: a remarkable 20/20).
According to the Canadian bureaucrat, an eight-reindeer sled or sleigh requires a Class Two licence [commercial trucking or in this case, non-motorized equivalent of a tractor-trailer], and that driving the latter without the required license is a Class A vehicular moving violation, and driving without certifiably requisite vision is a Class B violation. Convictions for both violations in tandem could result in the levy of heavy fines, permanent revocation of his sled license, and up to five years of jail or probation.
When I informed him of the popular image of Saint Nick/Santa Claus/etc. (the man does seem to use a variety of pseudonyms) as being a man of indeterminate but elderly age, driving a very heavily-laden eight-reindeer sleigh at presumably very high speeds at night, often through driving snows and blizzards and other inclement weather, through residential areas in Canada and most other nations, without wearing glasses (although contact lenses remain a possibility) – and according to uncorroborated hearsay does all this while airborne, untethered by the normal gravitational and aerodynamic constraints of reindeer and heavily-laden sleighs – the government official sounded very alarmed and said he’d be investigating this matter “posthaste”.
Then when I informed him of the unsolved case of the American grandmother who appears to have been fatally run over by a reindeer-drawn sled years ago, the official exclaimed that the situation was most lamentable, that he would notify local law enforcement authorities, make inquiries with the Air Transport Association of Canada, and initiate an internal investigation of the Nunavut DMV to ascertain how this situation [St. Claus] could have escaped official notice for so long. He added that he could only hope that prompt and efficient actions taken now might prevent any further similar accidents and prevent this from becoming an even larger international incident. Then he thanked me for my call and begged my leave, saying he had much work to do and was not in a position to comment any further.
Personally I’m of two minds about this. Although I can’t help but feel relieved that a potentially dangerous driver may be taken off the streets (or flightpaths, as the case may be), I also feel that a fully independently (if rather bizarrely) ambulatory St. Nick is a cherished, traditional part of Western culture, as well as an indelible hero to millions of children, and has been for many years. I fear that while my phone call may have well saved the life of someone’s grandma from suffering a similar fate to that of the grandmother in the song, we may all be in for a lousy Christmas this year… and perhaps ever after…?
I don’t think this can be the saint. Nicholas of Myra (“Saint Nicholas”) died in AD 346. Your man received a license in 1932. Leaving aside the bureaucratic difficulties of issuing licenses to the undead, why would an ethnic Greek from what is now Turkey relocate to northern Canada during the Depression for the purpose of applying for a driving license? I doubt if the Greek saint had even heard of English, much less Inuit, and I think any reasonable person would have to conclude that the gift-giving Canadian must be a different individual.
On the other hand, your dates do check out with the song. According to Wikipedia, the Elmo and Patsy song was first recorded in 1978 in California. If we assume your man was young when he got his license and the duo was singing about a comparatively recent event, he must have been in his 60s or possibly 70s when the old woman was run down. An elderly driver with psychological issues certainly fits the profile of her killer. Still, Grandpa’s lack of grief might indicate some sort of dissociative disorder, and we know MPD runs in the family. So here we have two elderly men with known or suspected psychological issues. Grandpa would seem to have a stronger motive, but all the circumstantial evidence points to Claus. I’d take both men into custody and wait for the forensic report.