Getting in The Christmas Spirit
“What the hell is that?” I yelled at Hank.
“Uh, sounds like an ambulance, or a firetruck,” he replied.
“No, kidding. What was your first clue?”
“The siren?”
“Good work, Sherlock. Have you noticed that the siren has been going on and on for ten or fifteen minutes?”
“Maybe, they can’t find the fire,” Hank said distractedly. He was in the middle of some very important work. It involved machine guns and killing zombies on a video game.
Then I remembered. It the first week of December. It’s Christmas time. It’s the time of year when the local volunteer fire department decides to parade one of their shiny toys around the neighborhood with someone strapped to the back dressed as Santa. Why strapped? Because he’s usually so drunk you don’t want him falling off.
“Shit. It’s Santa,” I said.
“Really,” said Hank as another row of bandaged brain dean creatures fell spurting blood.
“Yeah, they’ve got some poor slob tied to the back seat of the hook and ladder no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Hank responded as he fired off another round.
“I hate those sirens. They are so friggin’ loud. Scares the crap out of me.”
“Yeah, right.”
I hate it when I’m trying to bitch and the person I’m using as a sounding board is distracted. It’s like the joke about the woman who’s “a reader” when having sex. Or, “Beige, I think I’ll paint the ceiling beige.” In this case Hank was too busy with the zombies to even notice the sound of the firetrucks.
“The sirens scare the bejesus out of me,” I said. “Yet, at this blessed time of year they are supposed to be a symbol of joy and peace.”
“Yeah. Oh got one.”
This was going nowhere. I decided to take action. With the light fading and the sirens still blaring I knew I had some time before they got to my street. I looked out and saw a few houses where children were being forced out to the side of the street by parents. This so they could be subjected to those evil sirens up close. All the while their moms and dads would be trying to convince them it was so much fun while the kids would clamp their hands over their ears and usually close their eyes to block out the terrible “good times.” I wondered if this fire department was like many where in addition to Santa they had some folks dressed up as elves and that pick up gobs of hard candy and fling them at the kids. Where I used to live older kids got in the spirit of the times by picking up the candy and trying to hit Santa with it. Of course that guy was so out of it he’d think it was rain.
I hustled to the back deck, hidden from the street and took the canvas off the trebuchet. Trebuchets are marvelous instruments. Some people think they are catapults but they are wrong. A catapult gets its umph from tension in its ropes when it is cocked in position. A trebuchet on the other hand gets its power from dead weight. A large counter weight is put at the short end of a seesaw like device and then the longer end, the arm, is pulled back and a object to be hurled is placed in the spoon of the arm. Depending on the size of the device it might be a tennis ball or a cantaloupe or a dead cow. Cars and pianos have even been hurled. Trebuchets were last used in warfare by Cortes in Mexico and Napoleon in Egypt. But before that they were used in sieges of cities. Oftentimes to throw dead and diseased animals into the besieged city, but I digress.
Typically, I use my trebuchet to throw the “not ready for the compost pile” stuff into the adjoining swamp lands. But now I turned old Tre around. I had to make some adjustments as I wanted to make a shorter higher throw. Higher to avoid the house; shorter so that it would land in the street. I had to make the stopping point of the arm sooner so that the object being thrown would leave the arm at a higher trajectory than what I normally did for launching broccoli into the swamp. I had fortunately built in a wonderfully simple way to do this. My trebuchet was a tower sitting on a rectangular base of wood. The arm rotated in the tower. I had designed a number of places where a board could be placed across the travel path of the arm, thus stopping its forward motion and allowing the object to be released sooner than the full throw of the arm. I thought it quite ingenious.
It did occur to me that I had never tested this feature of the trebuchet out as I was always interested in how far I could throw something, not how short. In this case I wanted to plop a little bad fruit or rotten veggies on the parade. I know it wasn’t a nice thought, not quite in the holiday spirit - but that friggin’ siren, wandering the neighborhood. OMG. Shoot me now. I had a broom stick for a stop. I cocked the tre and released it. The arm came up and with a resounding crack stopped. It looked about right so I decided to load it up with a small test item. I went to the frig, crossing in front of the TV causing Hank to loose a life to the zombie attack and thus resulting in the warning, “Hey, dude!”
I found the perfect thing in the back of the frig, a beautiful soft tomato, bruised and leaky. I ran past Hank and onto the back deck. I was trembling as I put the ‘mater in the spoon.
I decided to shorten the range a bit more by moving my stop stick down a bit before launching, just to be sure. Standing at the corner of the back deck I can see the street. aWith a long firing string I can yank the string and release the arm of the trebuchet and still see the action on the street while old Tre stays hidden.. I leaned over the edge of the railing to get a good look and gave the line a hard pull.
Harumph! Whack! Splat.
The trebuchet had released all right. Right into the side of the house. The broomstick had broken and the arm did a full throw launching the tomato at full forse into the side of the house.
Not a good thing.
“Jesus,” I heard Hank yell.
I ran inside. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I said. “I think a bird just hit the side of the house.”
“Really? Sounded like a tomato,” said Hank. “Hey, I’m on level thirteen.” He was twisting and turning the controller as if he was flying a spaceship. Maybe, he was. With zombies attacking him.
I went to the basement and got a two by four and some extra line. I wasn’t sure how i wanted to play this arm restraint yet. I got back to the deck and the broom handle was a shattered wreak. I figured the two by four could withstand the pain but thought then the arm might break. I decided to go with a rope restraint. Tying a hitch around the arm about half way up and then tying that onto the back piece of wood I figured I could adjust as needed. Thus the arm would fly up, but be restrained by the tied off rope. I figured it would brake the action of the arm a bit more gently than a piece of lumber in its path.
I trial test with the spoon unarmed - looked good. I shortened it up so I’d have a nice high flight. I loaded it up with the next rotten thing in the frig, a decaying green pepper - better flight characteristics than a soft tomato I figured.
Standing at the corner of the deck I peered once again into the coming gloom of the street. The incessant wailing of the siren only goaded me into faster action. I yanked the chord, a perfect release. As anticipated the spoon let fly the pepper at a high arc. I lost sight of it. I stared up into the sky and seconds later a blur descended with a splat on the roof. Part of the splat caught me in the face.
Damn, too short.
“What was that?” yelled Hank.
“I think it was a squirrel that landed on the top of the house,” I replied.
“Oh, sounded like a soft apple splatted on the roof.”
“Huh.” (I couldn’t think of anything else to say.)
I waited for the zombie killer to get back into it. The siren was wailing in a different section of the neighborhood. It was getting closer. I didn’t have much time. One more test was probably it. I lengthened the restraining rope a bit, gave an empty pull. It looked good. I loaded in an apple. I fired. Perfect! Right in the middle of the street, just shy of the cute mother standing up the road a bit with her kids dressed in Santa hats. I saw them turn but they didn’t seem to see the apple. The mom looked around a bit. Kind of suspicious, like she knew something was going on, or someone was watching them. It gave me that I’m pervert feeling.
I saw the flashing red light of the firetruck coming down the street. There wasn’t anytime left for speculation. This was a time of action. The kids were running in circles and jumping up and down. I could see mom was trying to tell them how much fun this was. The littlest one was having none of it. He was in the classic hands over ears wiggle from side to side, make it stop Mommy mode.
I cocked the trebuchet and loaded three overripe bananas into the spoon. I pulled them apart so I’d have a nice scatter shot. I waited.
Santa was some young kid, probably the junior member of the squad. He was sitting in the back of the hook and ladder just in front of where the guy in the back drives the rear end. They had a chair tied over the end of the ladder and the bright lights usually used to shine on fires were turned directly on the kid. Those lights are probably 50,000 candle power or some ridiculously bright setting. This assured that Santa was completely blinded and the noise from the siren made sure he had no idea where anyone was that might be yelling hello Santa. Nice.
There were two young women in the appropriate tights and elf costume waving from either side of the truck and there were the two guys in the cab: one driving and one riding shotgun looking solemn.
I waited. The firetruck was coming down the road at a nice slow pace. The siren was screaming. As it got close to the kids and the mom, all the kids clamped their hands over their ears and ran behind their mom where they took up position clutching her legs. I could see here bending down trying to encourage them to wave to Santa but that would have required uncovering an ear.
The truck was along side the kids and the elves threw the candy, hitting the mom. I could tell by the way she raised her arms ready to fend off another assault. When the truck was twenty feet away from where the apple landed I yanked the cord. The truck lumbered on and came to where the apple had landed just as one of the bananas glanced across the wind shield. The truck slammed on its brakes, throwing Santa forward onto the ladder and at the same moment one of the elves screamed as she fell backwards off the far side of the truck.
Well, not off just off her perch onto the side of the truck where the hoses are stored.
“Cheryl,” I heard the driver yell as he jumped from the cab, “What happened? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, Charlie. I don’t know. something hit me. Like a bird or something.”
“Yeah, something hit the cab too. Maybe, it was a flock of birds.”
Santa was groaning having done a face plant into the ladder. He was pushing himself up. At least the damn siren had stopped and the big red swirling lights were off.
I walked around to the front edge of the deck. They looked up at me.
“Bats,” I said. “The siren is probably at the same pitch as the bats use. They were probably attacking what they perceived as a threat. They didn’t bite you did they?”
“No”
“No,” they replied. Shaking their heads.
“Yeah, well that’s good. Rabies and all. Shots are painful you know.”
They looked at each other and at me as they nodded and brushed themselves off. They continued to talk for a bit.
The driver was saying, “Yeah, something hit my windshield and left a coat of slime across it.
“Bat expectorant,” I called down.
He looked up at me. “What?”
“Bat expectorant. Don’t touch it. Rabies.” I said. “Hot soap and water and some bleach should neutralize it. It’s the stuff they use to keep the blood veins open when they are sucking blood. Nasty stuff.”
He nodded.
“Hey, Merry Christmas,” I yelled cheerfully. “You might want to lay off the siren right here near the bat nest that will stop the attacks.”
He nodded. I nodded sagely in reply.
They got back in their places and left a little more quietly than when they came. The mom and kids watched the whole exchange. The kids were awe struck. The mom looked at me with the suspicion that only mom’s can harbor when they know something is amiss and they aren’t sure what it is.
I waved cheerfully. “Merry Christmas!” I called out. The three kids went crazy yelling back. Mom stood there and glowered.
I went back inside.
Hank looked up from his game. “What was that all about?”
“Oh, Santa and the elves getting me in the Christmas spirit.” I replied.
“I’m at level 27,” said Hank.
“That’s great. I’ve decided to wash the side of the house.”
he was too busy staunching the latest waves of the undead to realize it was dark outside.
Labels: Christmas, Fire Trucks, Santa
