Newspaper Column: Get touched by the holiday spirit

By GORDON KEITH

It all started with a large candy cane, a big, giant 25-foot candy cane. Jack, my neighbor, has run up the score on me for years with his over-the-top Christmas decorations: mechanical Santas descending ladders, false reindeer with working digestive tracts, a sleigh that traverses his yard before ascending a fake snow-covered roof and ejecting presents. Once he even hired a "Mary" to simulate birth in a manger ringed with twinkling lights.
Top-notch stuff.
I am different. Outside of that one year the cops made me take down my Santa-on-a-scaffold- with-a- noose-around-his- neck-and-sign- pinned-to-his- chest-that-read-"Joy-to-the- Wurld-I'm-out," I have never done much in the way of yard decorations. It never seemed like a big deal. Until Jack erected the 25-foot candy cane.
"Howdy, neighbor. Gonna put up a couple strands of lights this year?" Jack said as he fiddled with a plug in the darkness behind his hedge.
"Probably not, Jack."
"Yeah? Well check this out, Grinch," and he threw a switch. An enormous candy cane appeared in his yard with a large picture of a winking Jack in a Santa hat. His kids came out and hugged him around the leg, and he sneered at me and cackled as if he had just been named my parents' sole heir.
That's it, I'm going to Wal-Mart, I thought.
The Christmas aisle was teeming, bottlenecks of carts forming and children darting away from barking parents. A man in jogging shorts passed behind me just as I took a step backward, and then IT HAPPENED. My right hand grazed a floppy bit of proud flesh at the point of his shorts. What just happened? After 1.3 second of hang time, the sensation registered, and my eyes got wide.
"What the ..." I heard him utter.
I turned around and immediately avoided eye contact. "Oh dude, I'm so sorry. Man, dude, totally an accident. ..." In my fumbling explanation, I kept repeating phrases often associated with heterosexuals, like "marriage" and "religious right," but he was having none of it.
"I'm getting security. There are kids around here, for God's sake." He disappeared into the crowd.
I scrambled for the nearest fire exit and sprinted across the parking lot toward my car. I ran into my house, jumped into the shower and began to vigorously scrub.
Never envy another man's candy cane. In my case, it led to another kind of envy.


Tell Gordon more sordid Wal-Mart tales at gordon@gordonkeith.com. Listen to him on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 6 to 10a.m.