Is Santa Gay?

Christmas wrapping paper, bubble gum stuck to a shoe and two trophies staring back at me, drunken. One of the trophies was from football. On top, a running back doing a stiff arm. The other, a man bowing: from acting. During summer camp, I took the stage as the scrooge in the Christmas Carol.
I can do grumpy.

When I was younger-- four or five-- I tried to steal actual Christmas as the Grinch did. I took all the gifts up to my room and put them in a plastic bag. My grandmother found me out, and I was forced to return them. What kind of kid wants to be the Grinch? Me. And I was a great Scrooge.

Any way, it's June. Hot (fucking hot) yet I promised my six-year-old nephew a Christmas present; I'm trying to wrap it, but I keep getting sidetracked by the trophies on a shelf in front of me. Perhaps I should pick the gum off of my shoe. Or maybe I should just wrap this silly game with all his favorite TV cartoon characters in it, running around shooting at aliens.

Why am I wrapping up a Christmas gift in June? Well, I saw him earlier this week, and he gave those big, chinchilla eyes.

"Alright, alright. Of course I will."

And here I am, staring down at infinite Santas with their hats covering one eye and the other eye is winking. Is Santa gay? Why is he winking at me like that? I did have a couple cups of wine; I should probably stop.

I folded back one edge of the paper, then another--tape--the top edge, then bottom edge--tape--el fin.

He will definitely like this present. I'm such a good uncle. For a broke twenty-two-year-old uncle, I'm damn near Jesus.

All said and done, I put a sticker on the present and wrote his name in my best cursive. The penmanship wasn't perfect; I've done better. I moved on to writing my name next to the "From:". I wrote my name clearly and legibly. I was proud of the whole bit, but that damn cursive I wrote looked like damn chicken scratch. Reluctantly, I tried to make a T more legible by curving the bottom of the line. It began to look more like a J. I licked my finger and and tried to rub the curve off the T. The ink smugged everywhere. GOD WHY?

I scribbled out the whole name, tried to rewrite it, scribbled that out, then ripped all those Santa's faces up. After tearing the wrapping paper off, I took the game out of the box, put it in my PS4 and played it. Whatever. Better luck next time... I'll probably just send him one of those trophies with a quote about narcissism taped to it. He'll get it one day....But tonight I'll fall asleep, hoisting Finn up in the air as Jimmy Neutron, to give him a better shot at an alien who is trying to eat Clarence.
Goodnight.