a blow-up Santa's dirty little secret

Early in our relationship, I expressed to S. my astonishment that people actually pay good money for those blow-up Santas and snowmen and turkeys that they then put in their front yards, announcing to all who notice (which is all, for how can you not notice?) that they've just paid good money in order to have a ten-foot Santa block any view they might have had out their living room windows. S. told me he used to have a plastic Santa--one of those three-foot deals that light up--not nearly as obnoxious as the blow-ups, but not pretty nonetheless. He gave it away long before he met me, he said. I smiled. And I told him that if he ever puts blow-ups in the front yard, we're done.* A dealbreaker, as it were.

Friday night we're driving to the Goodwill store to drop off a whole bunch of stuff we'd cleaned out of his house. It's a relatively windy night, but warm. Too warm to be wearing an entire Santa Suit, even if you are a blow-up beast. Well, apparently, one of the blow-up Santas in Normal, Illinois decided he was gonna show us all just what he thought of his predicament in that front yard. The wind was blowing him just so, my friends. The wind was blowing him, he was spankin' it, and I was peeing my pants. While driving.

*Hillary once told her children that if they ever put a plastic flamingo in their front yards, she'd stop visiting them.