It was 6:25 P.M. I was canvassing the lower East Side in preparation for my December 24th flight. Christmas was coming, the goose was getting fat, and I had to figure out exactly how many discrete lumps of coal to purchase on the open market in order to appropriately service the stocking-related needs of the world's youngest reprobates. First stop: the condominium home of a notorious 10-year-old bully by the name of Frank Devineaux Jr.

My name is Santa Claus: I carry a sack.

DUM-DA-DUM-DUM.

(A sack full of presents, you understand...)

DUM-DA-DUM-DUM-DUMMMMMMMMMM!

Little Frankie's rap sheet was longer than the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, even after the addition of that 9.5-foot tall Swarovski Christmas star that they added to that holiday icon in 2004. Never had a totally unarmed youngster so justly merited the lump of anthracite that I had deposited in his 2008 stocking by way of punishment. Besides cluttering his family's living room with toys, failing to make his bed, and indignantly refusing to take out the trash, Frankie was often cross with his mother at the breakfast table during the course of the year in question. He never once cleaned up after the golden retriever that he had practically demanded that his parents buy for him back in 2007. Worst of all, he used to tease little Jimmy Pipkin mercilessly at the bus stop every morning over that latter boy's supposed diminutive stature, often reducing that admittedly somewhat "slight" personage to tears with such thoughtless epitaphs as "short stuff," "midget," and "pipsqueak."

An e-mail from Frankie's mother had assured me that Frankie had "reformed" since then, that he had been "a perfect angel," in fact, in 2009, that he was accordingly now entitled to receive the same collection of stigma-free doodads for Christmas that graced the stockings of his peers -- but I had my doubts -- doubts that appeared to be confirmed when I turned the corner at Houston Street in my reindeer-powered sleigh to find Frankie scrawling graffiti on the sidewalk in front of his next-door neighbor's townhouse.




Ho-ho-ho-- I say, ho-ho-HOLD IT there, son! We don't scrawl graffiti on our neighbor's sidewalk!


Oh, yeah? What's it to you, Tubbo?!


Well, nothing, I suppose. I just --


Besides, I don't talk to strangers!


Strangers? But I'm Santa Claus, child!


And don't call me a child!


Look, is your mother home?


Anyway, for your information, Mr. so-called Santa Claus, this isn't graffiti that I'm drawing here!


It isn't?


We're playing hopscotch, if you don't mind, old man!


Hopscotch!? Oh, what a relief!


Now beat it, before I start shouting "STRANGER DANGER" at the top of my lungs!


"STRANGER DANGER"? Why, I never! Oh, very well. "Stranger danger" indeed?!

Giddyap, Rudolph!

Rudolph: Do what?


Oh, I'm sorry about that, Red. I mean: on Dasher, on Dancer, on Comet on Vixen, etc. etc. etc...

And I heard Frank exclaim ere I drove out of sight -- "I expect a PlayStation 3 this year, Santa, and not any more lousy anthracite!"

7:22 P.M. I was writing up the final report on Frankie Devineau to send back to Stocking Stuffer Central at the North Pole: Morality Division, One Elfin Way. I still had my doubts about the boy's supposed reformation, but unlike last year, I had no definite proof of any wrongdoing on his part, in the absence of which, I was obliged by custom to take the no-doubt biased word of his mother on this subject. True, the boy had been the very personification of rudeness with respect to my own person during the curbside interview quoted above, but given the somewhat rough-and-tumble character of the neighborhood in which he lived, such brusqueness could be excused, if not even applauded as appropriate wariness on his part -- although if you ask me, he knew perfectly well who I was, but was just "playing dumb" to put me through my paces. After all, who else motors around the Bowery in a sled pulled by a dozen reindeer? I mean, hello?

Personally, of course, I was still sore at Frankie for calling Jimmy Pipkin "short stuff" (etc.) at the bus stop, but since the latter child had failed to complain about such conduct this year (unlike last year when his tearful whistle-blowing on the subject brought about the Morality Division's wide-open investigation into name-calling in the Bowery, resulting in a virtual doubling of the number of coal-filled stockings in Chinatown in Christmas 2008), I reluctantly deposited his all-too-bulging dossier of naughtiness into the "NO COAL" section of the file drawer marked "Stocking Stuffers" -- but not before penciling in a note on the front cover to indicate that the boy remained a "person of interest" in our department's ongoing investigation of childhood bullying on the lower East Side.

DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM-DUMMMMMM!

The story you have just read is false -- the moral dilemma that it illustrates, however, is true and reflects negatively on the job that we're doing as parents. I mean, come on, folks! Please! As Santa Claus, I naturally want to be generous and forgiving toward your offspring (God love 'em, to be sure), but it's part of my very job description to find out who's been naughty and nice each year and to reward them accordingly. Besides, I have a special place in my heart for the Jimmy Pipkins of the world. After all, I myself was bullied as a child (on account my somewhat "portly" demeanor as a grade schooler, not to mention my somewhat unconventional given name of "Santa Claus"). I, too, know what it's like to stand in the corner of one's bedroom for hours on end, my face burning with maddeningly impotent rage, pounding the thin plaster walls of a poorly maintained brownstone while half spitting, half shouting the words: "It's not fair! It's just not fair, I tell you!" or, to be brutally honest in my case: "Why am I so god-awful fat? Why? Why? Why?"

Of course, my doting mother was soon on hand at such times to reassure me that I was not so much fat, as... oh, how could she put this... a "right jolly old elf" whose stomach just happened to shake a little (something like a bowl full of jelly, you might say) every time he laughed, that was all. But you know how kids are: It took me years to truly accept my inner Santa Claus, thereby finding the inner peace that by rights should have been mine in childhood, if only more young people had followed my lead in forswearing naughtiness in favor of niceness. That's not to say that I'm now on some kind of weird vendetta as an adult, of course -- think of this "coal business" of mine as the stick side of a carrot-and-stick approach designed to shock the brattier element into maturity. (Mind you, I don't know why I'm apologizing to you guys here for simply doing my job: After all, you parents are the ones who keep raising these naughty kids in the first place! You guys are all un-indicted co-conspirators, as far as I'm concerned, every time your brood sends an unsuspecting peer on a head trip. Humph! "Fat," indeed! I wasn't fat at all as a child: I was merely a little plump. There IS a difference!)