A Christmas Card

Everywhere in London during that cold December morn of Christmas Eve, every man and woman, large and small and even the exceptionally large, were filled with Christmas cheer. Everyone, that is, except for one man—Phineas Miser, the un-Christmasiest son of a bitch in all of London.

Once Miser had been full of Christmas cheer, and rum, but that had been a long time ago; the pursuit of gold and capitalist success had tainted him, along with having a terribly on-the-nose name that defined his destiny. No, Miser no longer had any Christmas cheer, unless you count the Christmas cheer in the body of his wage slaves, which technically he owned through wicked and brilliant contract negotiations.

Miser was the proprietor of the most despicable business in all London—a consulting firm that trained business work forces in the ways of Japanese-style management. And chief among his wretched little workers was middle-manager and frequent doorstop replacement Bob Rottencrotch.

"Please, Mr. Miser, may I have the day off?" Rottencrotch asked on this cold December morn of Christmas Eve, though to be fair to Miser, the slacker bastard did ask the same thing virtually every day. "It is Christmas Eve, Mr. Miser, and we're having a jolly good evening planned. We're going to gather 'round our dung-filled stockings and chant slogans from commercials and drink until we've pissed ourselves. Well, all except Wee Willie—he's too small to drink, of course."

"Rottencrotch, I told you never to talk about your penis at work again!" shouted Miser, tossing a humidor shaped like Dolly Parton's breasts at his employee. "Of course you can't have the day off. It's Christmas Eve. We spend 365 days a year working toward the company goal, remember? It's part of pro-improvement empowerment. Now back to your work station!"

Rottencrotch, wounded both by Mr. Miser's crushing words and the sharp-ended nipples on the humidor, dabbed his ratty tie against his bleeding cut and wobbled out of the office. When he was gone, Miser sat back, self-satisfied.

Miser stared into the seemingly-ancient photo of himself and his old business partner, Ziggy Marley, when they had both worked at a pirate-themed fast food restaurant years before. It was right before they had gathered the capital to start their consulting firm, Positive Improvement: A Pro-Action Empowerment Concept, and they both had worked so hard their hands had curved up inside the fake pirate hook prop gloves and their depth perception was suffering from excessive eye patch-wearing. They had been youthful and idealistic in those days—well, Ziggy was always sort of a dick, but he could be alright as well.

"Ziggy, my friend," the insane old coot said to the picture, "these employees today, they lack what we had back then. And I mean not the velvet pants and puffy white shirts. I mean gumption! Why, in my day, remember when we worked through all holidays just to build our pro-positive action plan? We knew the secret to success and happiness, we did."

"Miser!" shouted the picture in response, only dragging it out a very long time in a ghostly fashion. Miser was shocked to see the picture was moving, and he messed the chair. In the frame, Ziggy Marley lifted his eye patch, brushed his dreadlocks aside, and aged incredibly into what he must have looked like since dying, complete with holes in the face and eyeballs falling out.

"Phineas Miser, you crusty old queer! Beware your greed! You have forgotten the true meaning of positive pro-active reinforcement! Or Christmas, actually, yeah, Christmas. And tonight you will be visited by three spirits who will show you what Christmas means—it means creepy-ass ghosts and guilt, to cut to the chase, but I'll let them elaborate. So stay sober! For tonight you will see highly-edited clips from your past, present, and future!"

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