Mr. Grump, there's a man here to see you, claims he's the Ghost of Christmas past.
The Ghost of Christmas past, eh? Never heard of him. Shall I tell him you're not in, Sir? No, wait a minute: 'The Ghost of Christmas Past', you say? Yes, Mr. Grump. Sounds like a euphemism for an IRS agent. Better send him in. Welcome to Grump Towers, my good sir. That's it, leave your hat on the $900 custom-made bull horn hat rack and then sally forth. Well, don't just stand there at the far side of this chandelier-lit football field that I call an office. Trip the light fandango over the 16-color Axminster carpet and join me athwart this cherry-stained office desk. The answer is yes, by the way: this desk IS hand-carved from solid camphor wood. I wasn't going to say anything about that, but seeing as your eyes are positively popping right out of your head...
Yes, that's right. I imagine you're here about that trip that I took to Sandals Cay in the Bahamas. Now, I know it might seem a little odd that I claimed that as a business expense, but a guy like me has got to have some serious peace and quiet if he expects to get any work done. Well, actually -- As for the young lady who accompanied me down there, she was serving in a strictly secretarial capacity at the time. Mr. Grump, please -- True, her job description in 2009 was actually 'customer service agent,' but I like to take my secretaries for a trial run before I officially promote them to a secretarial position. I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding here. Do what? What? You're actually here to WHAT? No, don't tell me: You're actually here to waste my time, is that it? Well, mission accomplished, bunkie! Now beat it! No, Sir, I am actually here to... Out with it?! Well, doggone it: I'm here to remind you of what a hollow and meaningless life you've been leading over the course of the previous year. What? Well, shut my mouth with sweet potato pie! You're not an IRS agent after all? Not a bit of it! I am literally the Ghost of Christmas Past. Well, I'll be -- Of YOUR Christmas Past, Mr. Grump. But I always understood that the Ghost of Christmas Past was just that: a ghost. You appear to be flesh and blood -- or rather, 'flesh and blood and worsted,' on account of you're wearing a three-piece Armani (or possibly Valenti?) suit, which is not exactly my idea of metaphysical attire, my good sir. Well -- What's more, you didn't materialize in front of me, like any self-respecting ghost would do, but you bumbled your way awkwardly through my enormous hand-carved oaken door like a regular office boy delivering a pizza. Well -- An APPRENTICE office boy, at that! You looked positively lost when you first came in here. First of all, I apologize about confronting you in this admittedly rather prosaic manner, but so few people believe in us ghosts these days that we find it expedient to manifest ourselves to the living as actual human beings -- at least that way, the folks with whom we wish to communicate will "give us the time of day," so to speak. Speaking of which, it's 3:30 on Christmas Eve afternoon, and I've got plenty of actual work to do, so go bother some other phenomenally rich executive -- that's a bank building next-door: you'll find all the imperious skinflints that you can handle in that high-rise over there, believe me. Ex-squeeze me? I am an actual real ghost with an actual real message to bring you! Well, sort of. What do you mean, "sort of"? It's a long story. Give me the "dummies" version, then. Well, I don't know the physics behind it, of course... Yes? but it's somehow been determined that human beings who travel into the past with us a la Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol can only do so by leaving an unacceptably large carbon footprint in their wake. Oh, dear. So the Guild of Christmas Eve Ghosts has forbidden all members to carry moral bankrupts into the past until a planet-friendly work-around can be found. You don't say?! But not to worry: I've brought some Polaroid photographs of your life over the past year, instead, so that I can show you the errors of your ways without simultaneously mortgaging your children's future by unnecessarily contributing to global warming. What? Do you mean you've been spying on me this whole past year? That's part of our job, Mr. Grump.Well, I suppose...How do you think those 19th-century ghosts got the skinny on old man Scrooge? I never thought of it before, frankly.As a practical matter, of course, these days we can "let go and let Google," as they say in the trade. Yes, Google does most of the spying for us nowadays and we just download the results, as needed -- and usually gratis at that! What? Oh, sure: Google takes pictures from space of everything that happens outdoors on God's green coconut (providing that it happens in the cloud-free daylight, of course).Whatever. Look, I'm a busy man. Well, my schedule is not exactly wide-open today either, Mr. Grump: In fact, I've got two more rich misers that I need to haunt after I leave here today. Oh, great: So I suppose I'm a miser, too, because I secretly established a trust fund this very year to put Tiny Tim through college. Oh, yes, of course! Oh, yes, you did do that, didn't you?Yes, I did, didn't I?Well, we spirits obviously can't argue with that. I would think not!Yes, it could very well be that we won't be able to make the "miser" charge stick in your particular case, but...But what? But wait till you see the other evidence of moral turpa-- turpa--Moral turpentine?Close enough: Wait till you see the other evidence of moral turpentine that we've got on you!Fine. I thought you guys only went after misers, though!Oh, no, Mr. Grump. It's true that virtually every millionaire that we ghosts have scolded in the past has been miserly (as a sort of logical extension of their other vices, such as avarice, jealousy, and hate), but our ancestors could have legally gone after Scrooge himself if he had been a great social benefactor, providing that they had enough evidence of wrongdoing in other areas to justify dragging him over the red-hot coals of their finely tuned sense of moral indignation. Excuse me, Sir, there's a Ghost of Christmas Present here to see you. What? Oh, tell him that his predecessor is running behind schedule with me, but I'll be with him as soon as possible. Right, tell him I'm almost done. Secretary Firefox, tell the quote-unquote ghost out there that his counterpart is almost done.Oh, Sir, he says there's no hurry, he'll just browse a Sports Illustrated magazine that he found on the waiting room coffee table, says he'd like to find the latest college basketball standings.Oho! I bet he would! Ha ha! What's so funny?The only Sports Illustrated magazine that we have out there is our much-worn copy of the 2004 Swimsuit Edition starring Veronica Varekova!So?So? So? Fancy waiting to lecture me about morality while first greedily thumbing through a veritable girlie magazine! Forget about him -- I'm talkin' 'bout the man in the mirror. You're talking about yourself?No, the man in YOUR mirror: You! Where? I don't see me anywhere in that crowd. You're the guy wearing the lamp shade. Oh, yeah. I forgot. And look behind you, over in the corner. Who is that? Heaven help my eyesight... but it looks like... Yes? Why, that's Bob Cratchit and his poor little crippled boy, Tiny! Please, Mr. Grump: such language! ('Poor little crippled boy,' indeed! Humph!) But I don't understand: I invited both of them to my office Christmas party and even plied them both with drinks (rum in the first case and fruit juice in the second): Surely, that should be a point in my favor and not something that the Ghost of Christmas Past should be taking me to task for one year down the line! But what? Well, look at these next half-dozen pictures of that self-same party! Yeah, what about them? It looks to me like everyone's having a great time at the party, including Bob and Little Pegleg over there. Mr. Grump, please: language! I'm sorry: You just look so funny when you get on your linguistic high horse like that. 'Bob and Little Pegleg,' indeed -- what next? Look, is there a point to all this? You've either brought the wrong set of photographs with you, or you've got a very thin case indeed when it comes to proving that I've been a moral wretch over the past 365 days. Ah, but take a closer look at these pictures: notice how you are always on the other side of the room relative to the location of Bob and Tiny Tim! Um... right. Okay. And that would be wrong of me because...? Don't you see? You're cutting your guests cold! Oh, honestly! It's the cardinal sin for any party host! Tell me, something, Mr... Mr. Ghost or whatever. Yes? Has it been a real slow year for ghosts when it comes to finding rich, heartless misers to harass on Christmas Eve? Okay, I admit it. Maybe we were, in fact, "reaching" a little bit on that one. A little bit?That's weird, though: It seemed like such a convincing argument when I practiced my lines in front of the mirror last night. I thought ghosts didn't show up in mirrors.We didn't -- until the March 2009 discovery of light-bending nano particles at Rice University. You don't say?That discovery has yet to pay dividends in your world, but it almost immediately led to the development of Ghost-friendly mirrors on our side of the Great Divide.How interesting.Anyway, I'm willing to overlook your still vexing (and, indeed, ultimately shameful) lack of knowledge about proper social etiquette, but... Yeah? Go on. Just hold on one second... What, this picture here? Yes! Talk your way out of that one, if you can?! Now maybe you'll understand why we immediately thought of YOU when our union boss told us to go out and find an evil millionaire! There is nothing for me to be ashamed of in this picture!Nothing to be ashamed of?! Of course not.Why, look at that picture, man! You've just thrown Tiny Tim, that poor disabled child, into the stocks, like he was some kind of colonial-era prisoner of yours!!! Okay, fair cop. Ya got me.Finally, he comes clean! Yes, I admit it: I took Tiny Tim and his father to Colonial Williamsburg last year and photographed them both in the stocks. Big deal.What?If it makes you feel any better, they photographed me in the stocks, too, okay? right after these pictures were snapped. Excuse me, Mr. Grump, but now there's a 'Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come' here to see you. Oh, blimey. Tell him that his predecessor-but-one is running WAY behind schedule, but I'll be with him as soon as I can. But -- Just admit that you got the wrong man this year and then clear out.What?You'll find the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Future in the waiting room on the other side of that door Oh, dear me. I --Sorry to disappoint you, but I was not the moral bankrupt that you imagined me to be in 2009, was I? But buck up: I could still lose my way in 2010. You guys should have been around 20 years ago: I was a regular scamp back then!That's me for you: a day late and a dollar short.If you had confronted me with a set of Polaroids from THAT epoch in my life, I would have told you to put them back in your pocket and save yourself the trouble: guilty as charged, your honor: Now, please: Send in the ghosts! So, you say you were, indeed, downright wicked 20 years ago, eh?And don't get any bright ideas: There's a statute of limitations, even for the spirit world.Oh! Oh? Oh? Stop saying 'oh!' and leave my office! Aha! What?What about that trip of yours to Sandals Cay that you confessed to at the beginning of our conversation?Hey, wait a minute, now.Yes, that little 'business trip' of yours sounds like it might have gotten quite racy, indeed, Mr. Grump, eh? eh? Did it get a trifle (ahem!) immoral, too, perhaps? Hee hee! What?Did you by any chance wake up in the morning to find a brassiere in the microwave and two mismatched socks in the sink?Of course not! Whatever makes you think that?Just a hunch.If you must know, it was the other way around: the socks were in the microwave and the brassiere was in the sink. So, it sounds to me like you've been bad during the past year after all.But wait a minute: I thought you nailed Scrooge on a charge of miserliness.Yeah. So?So? Even if we grant your point that I'm a moral wretch, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm a miser.Oh, yeah? Well, where there's smoke, there's fire, Mr. Grump.What is that supposed to mean? Hey, wait a minute: I divulged that information about Sandals Cay and the Bahamas under the belief that you were an IRS agent.So?So, you can't use it against me in a court of law -- much less in some ad hoc morality play premised on a fictional metaphysical occurrence in a Dickens Christmas story.Oh, rats. I'll let you run it by my lawyer if you like, but he'll only tell you what I've just told you. Without actual photographs of my alleged hanky-panky, you have no right to lecture me about my lack of morals (or about the, at best, tangentially related subject of my shortcomings in the Christmas spirit department) much less to pass me off to two additional ghosts, who no longer have a moral leg to stand on after their shameful behavior in my waiting room. Would you listen to that? I can hear them even now, arguing over that admittedly somewhat titillating copy of Sports Illustrated. Okay, okay: don't rub it in.Anyway, I would have thought you guys would keep a photographer or two on call down in the Bahamas to document these shenanigans that you obviously think I was up to last year with my quote-unquote secretary. Well, we haven't fully adjusted to the new system yet.How do you mean?Well, we only recently realized that carrying humans back in time contributes (again, don't ask me how) to global warming...Yeah?So, this is the first Christmas Eve during which we've been forced to shame scapegraces with photographic evidence alone, without confronting them with a rerun of the actual experiences that they, by rights, should be ashamed of.Well, then, go easy on yourself: You've still obviously got to work out all the kinks. That's for me to know and for my secretary to take with her to her deathbed. Oh, could I, now? Then we could process you as normal, so to speak, by showing you your past, present and future (albeit with an admittedly limited supply of corroborating photographs) and you could STILL wake up Christmas morning a new man! No pain, no gain, Mr. Grump.Ah, but you see, you haven't yet proven that I NEED to be a new man, have you? I know that, but -- 
It's not me: I only cover the future, remember?
Don't look at me, I only cover the present! But last year WAS the present -- at the time. How's that? Oh, never mind: Just stop fighting over that copy of Sports Illustrated and come with me. Where are we going, exactly?Back to the drawing board: We've obviously got to work out a whole new plan when it comes to monitoring the moral shortcomings of ridiculously rich people in 2010!
