Part I
Once upon a time, there was a wee little elf named Rand… Harri…. Harry? Whatever, let’s call him Justin. Now, Justin was a very unhappy little elf indeed, because his job in Santa’s workshop, while an important one, was not very glamorous. You see, Justin’s job was to carve and paint the letters into the wooden blocks for toddlers and babies. Justin liked kids just fine. He knew this because he kept repeating “I like kids, I do! I do!” in his head at random times while at work, just to remind himself. So he was able to like kids and even got an OOC urge to cuddle 3-year olds every so often, but he still loathed baby things such as, you got it, blocks. He got the ang… frustration out of his system with some target practice with the gun he wasn’t supposed to carry due to supposed anger issues, which he totally did not have. People said he had anger issues. Like the judge at that bullshit trial! They were obviously jealous. It wasn’t his fault the world sucked! He had a right to be angr… frustrated with it!
You see, Justin’s real problem was his job. He liked the idea of important work he didn’t have. While working at his bench in Santa’s Workshop, Justin daydreamed of taking down major political oppressors, such as, for instance, bad judges or oppressive police chiefs, or defeating oppressive legislation, or servicing the gigantic penises of two hot guys at once in a way that was not at all oppressive. Instead, poor Justin was stuck carving wooden blocks for babies. No one ever made a fuss over wooden letter blocks. They made fusses over cabbage patch dolls, which the elf Greta got to make, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle accessories that were assigned to Peter.
The problem for Justin was two-fold: one, babies were too young to pester their parents, and so marketers didn’t try to sensationalize the product, and no sensationalism meant no excitement which meant no vicarious thrill for Justin who had very few of them (the ginormous hot penis fantasy was just that, a fantasy, as most of the boy elves were chasing the girl elves or pretending to; Justin had his suspicions). Secondly, blocks were a default product. Everyone knew babies liked blocks, and toddlers started learning with them, so every baby in the world ended up with a set. No block mystification was required to sell the damn things. Nothing was required at all. Parents bought them the same way they bought diapers; without thought, without fuss, and then spelled out “CAT” and “DOG” for their children who would abandon the blocks long before they even thought to spell “FUCK OFF AND DIE MUMSY” for themselves. There was no drama attached to blocks; usually babies couldn’t even stack them. In fact, any number of Justin’s arguments with other elves (their opposition was driven, Justin was convinced, by the other boy!elves’ frenzy of denial regarding Justin’s perfect ass), any argument Justin had with the straight-my-ass boy elves usually ended with his opponent taunting him with “Go back to your teething toys!” Since Justin liked to argue, having no response to “blocks are for babies” was infuriating.
On the day of his yearly review in January (down time at the North Pole), Santa finished giving Justin his yearly solid review, and Justin screwed up his courage to ask for more.
“Any questions?” Santa asked, stroking his beard and looking a bit bored.
“Actually… yeah, I have a question.”
Santa looked up, surprised.
“I’ve put in for a transfer before, and I’m just wondering… Can I be moved to work the Wii?” Justin blushed.
Luckily, sexual entendre sailed over Santa’s head. Santa heaved a great sigh. “Unfortunately, Justin, while your work is wonderful, all the positions are full! Plus, well, there was that unfortunate incident…”
Justin managed to stifle his groan. He had hoped that had been swept under the rug; it was YEARS ago. “Well, that was years ago, and I had hoped my steady and loyal work had proven how I feel about the workshop.”
So here’s what happened. Justin had used the blocks for Good, to Fight Oppression. A couple years before, an elf named Chester had started a campaign to pen Santa’s reindeer. The campaign had divided the Workshop, since the reindeer made the Pole seem less like a work house, and more like a zoo. It was fun to be able to claim one had found Dancer doing his reindeer-thing in yet another corner of the workshop, or behind the Barbie display. And dodging Prancer’s reindeer bombs as he flew overhead had become quite the game.
Not all the elves were quite so amused, it turned out, and Chester led the van. Justin, who had heard the whispers about Chester and his pal Leon, launched a counterattack. For four days in row, the elves had arrived to the Workshop to find “Lunkhead Leon kills baby reindeer in spare time!” and “Bad Chester finds baby reindeer drowned in lake and buries the evidence! What’s he hiding?” spelled out in the baby blocks, only without punctuation since the blocks were only letters.
On reflection, it seemed rather strange to Justin that it had taken Santa four days to figure out that Justin was the block-writing accuser. In any case, Santa had not been amused when the matter came to light. “The blocks are not for political campaigns! I may not like Bad Chester’s ideas, but he’s going about it the right way, coming straight to me!”
“You don’t like Bad Chester’s ideas? But isn’t that the point?” Justin had asked.
“No,” Santa said firmly. “You used the resources of the Workshop, and tainted the Christmas spirit.” This, of course, was the worst thing imaginable. “We’re about the spirit of giving! Not reindeer killers! I’m sorry, Justin, I’m going to have to suspend you, unless you apologize to Chester for your tactics.”
Apologize to a reindeer oppressor! No way! Justin had slept in the barn for a few nights, until that lunkhead Leon was discovered trying to strangle Vixen’s youngest. An investigation was launched into Chester’s involvement in previous reindeer deaths, and then Chester had quit in a huff which only confirmed everyone’s suspicions, and a lot started coming out about how big a dick that guy was, which apparently everyone had known all along. Trying to pen up the reindeer like that. OMG oppression!!
And so Justin returned to his blocks, and he was even briefly grateful, but only briefly because Santa had forbidden him to actually spell anything out with his craft, and Justin didn’t dare amuse himself, not even privately with scurrilous messages Daphne could read from across the room. Too many of the other elves knew what had happened and too many of them were ready to suck up to Santa by ratting Justin out.
So his position was precarious there for a while, and it looked like he was going to be stuck with blocks forever.
Unless!
Trudging away from his interview, after Santa had firmly reiterated (again) that no, Justin couldn’t be transferred, and yes, he would have to wait (again) for more openings in the other toys, Justin began to scheme. Now, Daphne would say that Justin’s schemes had gotten him into all sorts of trouble (i.e., “block wank”), but in reality his imaginary schemes provided Justin with mental challenges he did not receive from his work. Carve-A-paint-red-carve-B-paint-blue was hardly what one might call deep intellectual material. And Justin had scored top marks on his elf!exams, so really, he ought to be in charge of at least the Barbies by now, if boy elves were allowed to handle girl toys (they weren’t). So Justin began to think.
He thought, this isn’t about the openings in the other department; this is all about position. And right now, Justin was low man on the totem pole, not because he had been wrong about Chester (because oh my god he had been SO RIGHT), but because he had abused the toys for immoral purposes, i.e., used them in his personal life and not with a thought to the welfare and joy of the babies and their parents, the true Spirit of Christmas and the nature of the totally honorable, but not very well paid elf!work.
So! It wasn’t really about right or wrong apparently, it was about standing, and right now Santa had a hairy eyeball on Justin. So Justin came up with a scheme, and it was a good scheme, if he did say so himself (Justin approved of himself quite a lot).
You see, Santa had an enemy. Yes! It is hard to imagine, what with the generous giving and spirit of the most wonderful time of year and all, but Santa indeed had an enemy, which simply goes to show that not all the dicks are hot and hard, but some are just plain wrong-headed. So to speak. The elves all spoke of him in hushed whispers, calling him the Abominable!Brian, or “The Grumble”, after one of the villains in the cartoon Brian had created to promote Santa’s work (which he later called “total horseshit,” but that was after he’d clearly gone crazy). The story went this way: Once, lo, long ago, there was an elf named Brian who had gone bad, insulting children, and implying that families weren’t all worthy of love and happiness, and some even deserved to go to hell! BLASPHEMY! And this from an elf who had apparently handled Santa’s PR, devising some wonderful Christmas specials and the coup de grace, “A Clay Aiken Christmas,” before starting to tell the others it was all bullshit and Christmas could be a particularly horrifying time of year! Well! Santa couldn’t put up with THAT, now could he? Brian had been banished to the south.
Apparently, he went to Canada, because those people will put up with anyone. Rumor was Brian had holed up somewhere close to the North Pole, where he’d evilly instituted an anti-holiday/no-fly zone over his section of ground. There were even rumors The Grumble had actually taken pot-shots at Santa’s sled on Xmas eve if and when it came too close!
This was a real problem. Canadians were ALWAYS on Santa’s "good" list, but Santa had been forced to get to them last because 1) the direct route was now the new road to Baghdad, and 2) his sleigh needed to be as light as possible to avoid the potshots Grumble!Brian took at the sled as it flew over. Most years, Santa ran out of the best toys before he even got to Maine, and the Canadians so totally deserved the best toys (whereas the Mainers, being Americans, totally did not so that was all right). Santa lamented this completely unfair state of things. The horror of it all was made worse because the Canadians never got angry about the unfair treatment, accepting an inferior position with "It's not aboot us! It's aboot Santa's generosity and universal love, eh?" (The Mainers, on the other hand, were fairly pissed off. So far, they’re four votes shy of the two-thirds necessary to declare war on the North Pole, with the Santa-is-a-Terrorist PAC busy working the problem.) All this gave Santa angina, and Justin thought preventing Santa from keeling over, while it might not get him in good with Santa since Santa was kind of a bastard, Mrs. Claus (sometimes called “Debbie”) might appreciate it. Surely she’d put in a good word for Justin with the big guy! The elves working in Debbie’s kitchen (girls of course, but the girls liked Justin) sometimes heard her bitching about how risky Santa’s flight over Canada had become, what with the Grumble taking potshots at the sled as it flew overhead.
And, bonus points: Justin could fight Oppression, his favorite hobby!! Taking shots at Santa’s sled, that was just oppressive and wrong and shit! Justin decided this was the perfect opportunity for him to fight the Grumble’s oppression of the Spirit of Christmas, while scoring massive points with Santa which would surely result in a promotion to the Wii. Now, if he could just find the Grumble and take him down! So Justin tossed on his cute little pink shirt, grabbed his pistol, and he and his perfect ass took off to the south, to find the Grumble!Brian, and take him down.
Oh, Brian went down all right. Just, not at all like Justin expected.