MANDY FLYNN: A grouchy letter to Santa

I hope this little note finds you doing well and getting plenty of rest for the big day fast approaching. I can’t even begin to imagine the pressure you must be under, but hopefully you still have great help, good health, and plenty of that magic dust that makes dogs go to sleep so they don’t bark and ruin your cover.

Is that really a thing or just another one of those stories my parents told me when I worried our dog would bite you and you wouldn’t leave me anything?

Never mind. I don’t need to know all your secrets. I would like to ask for a few things this year, if you have time, that is. You don’t even have to drop anything off at my house and, better yet, these are things that will benefit the multitude so, hey, that would be great multi tasking on your part. I’m trying to help you out here.

Before I give you my wishes I feel I should in full disclosure admit that I am writing this letter while under the influence of extreme grumpiness. Or grouchiness. Am I surly? I’m not sure exactly what surly is but I feel I might be. Bad mood. Definitely. Definitely in a bad mood.

So here goes.

Please, Santa, make people put their grocery buggies in the buggy corral when they are done and, if they somehow physically cannot or have some other medical, moral, or family obligatory reason why they cannot, please have them ask the grocery store clerk to help them take their groceries out for them. A rogue grocery store buggy rolled behind my car tonight and I bumped it — or it bumped me — only I didn’t immediately realize it was a grocery buggy and thought it was a person, at which time I came dangerously close to having a heart attack.

And please Santa, tell all people who try to correct me by saying it isn’t a grocery “buggy” but a grocery “cart” to mind their own business.

Please, Santa, could you please miraculously make everyone learn how to park their car between the two lines of a parking space and not three fourths in one space and the rest of it in the space next to them? Maybe you could invent some magic that will make their horn honk annoyingly until they are parked correctly. And, while you are at it, could you please make people stop parking their car five inches from my driver’s side door? My rear end would thank you.

Maybe, if you have time, you could pull everybody’s pants up, make it physically impossible for someone to leave a package of hamburger meat in the toilet paper aisle because they decide they don’t want it after all, and make it impossible for someone to make a left or right turn in their car unless their blinker is on first.

Santa, I know my wishes are petty and there are much more important things for you to think about. But if you have a second, even half of one, could you please take your magic dust and sprinkle it on the people running for president so they won’t bark so much? At least some of them?

Is that really even a thing? Oh, never mind. Am I surly? I’m not sure.

But bad mood? Definitely bad mood.

Email lifestyles columnist Mandy Flynn at [email protected].