Overclockers.com: Merry Christmas, Santa!
Santa: Yeah, sure.
Overclockers.com: A little grumpy today, Santa?
Santa: You fly around Afghani airspace these days wearing a beard, and let’s see how jolly you are afterwards.
Overclockers.com: You delivered Christmas . . . .
Santa: Ramadan, Ramadan.
Overclockers.com: . . . presents to Afghanistan?
Santa: To all Muslim children. That was the settlement of that anti-discrimination suit.
Overclockers.com: I never heard about that.
Santa: We settled out-of-court. Both sides wanted to keep it quiet. Bad for my PR, and it would just give Islamic fundamentalists something else to be against.
Overclockers.com: What is it like delivering presents to Afghanistan?
Santa: It’s tough. Look, I’ve been doing this without ever being seen for hundreds of years. I’ve been evading national defense radars, spy satellites, you name it, for decades. I wrote the book on
stealth technology.
Overclockers.com: Stealth technology?
Santa: Ever try finding reindeer horns on radar?
Overclockers.com: What about the sleigh?
Santa: You load it right, and the gift boxes give you more radar-deflecting angles than an F-117.
Overclockers.com: So what’s the problem?
Santa: Night-vision goggles. I wish somebody would give me a pair for Christmas. If you’re in an F-15 wearing them, Rudolph’s nose looks like a beacon. I’m getting too old to be ducking missiles.
Overclockers.com: They fired at you?
Santa: After 911, you Americans don’t trust ANYBODY.
Overclockers.com: Nonetheless, you got through. How were your gifts received?
Santa: It’s sad. That country is so bad off the good kids want lumps of coal just to keep warm.
Overclockers.com: Sounds rough.
Santa: Yeah. When the good kids want coal, what do you give the bad ones? I ended up giving them Gameboys. No games, no batteries.
Overclockers.com: Have you ever considered FedEx?
Santa: I wish, but I’m too big for them.
Overclockers.com: How’s the rest of the business doing?
Santa: We’re going to have to automate next year.
Overclockers.com: Going into e-commerce, Santa?
Santa: I thought I had pioneered e-commerce until I found out “e” didn’t stand for “elf.”
Overclockers.com: Elves getting overwhelmed, Santa?
Santa: No, we need to downsize the gift end of the business.
Overclockers.com: The gift end of the business? You have other ends?
Santa: No comment.
Overclockers.com: No comment? Hmmmm . . . is business bad?
Santa: Business is never bad in my line of work. We just have to make better use of our resources.
Overclockers.com: Now that you mention it, just how do you stay in business? You give away things without any chance of making money.
Santa: Why are you so nosy? So did the dot.coms, and nobody asked them about it for the longest time.
Overclockers.com: But the dot.coms went out of business and you haven’t. Just where do you get your money, Santa?
Santa: I’d rather not say.
Overclockers.com: Come now!
Santa: Let’s just say we have a lot of slack time after Christmas at the North Pole and take on supplemental work.
Overclockers.com: Supplemental work, huh? OK. You said you were going to downside the gift end. Are you just going to throw excess elves out into the cold, which is really saying something given your business location?
Santa: I’m Santa, not Scrooge. No elf will lose his job. He’ll just be assigned other tasks.
Overclockers.com: More “supplemental work,” maybe, Santa? Cut the crap, Santa. I can venture a pretty good guess what that “supplemental work” is given your comments. Are you going to tell me, or should I tell you?
Santa: You are just too smart for me. OK, we’ve been doing humint contract work for the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies for a long time. We now have a huge new anti-terrorism contract. I just dumped off a bunch of elves at Tora Bora.
Overclockers.com: Just what I thought. Why, Santa?
Santa: It’s all America’s fault.
Overclockers.com: Huh?
Santa: When I got into this business, all I had to do was fill some stockings with candy and fruit. Hardly cost anything. But then you Americans turned Christmas into a gift-giving arms race.
We know how to watch people and get in and out of places
undetected. We needed the money to keep up. What else could we do but intelligence work? Besides, it pays a whole lot better than toy-making.
Overclockers.com: Santa . . .
Santa: Dick Cheney was telling me the other day. “Dubya’s making a list, and checking it twice. He’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice.” We have that routine down cold.
Overclockers.com: Just what are those elves doing in Tora Bora?
Santa: Just reconnaissance and surveillance. No wet work. Besides, we have to spy on all the kids in the world, anyway. Just takes a little more to watch certain adults, too.
Overclockers.com: What if the elves get caught?
Santa: No elf has ever been caught. But just in case it happens, the elves have been told to tell the Americans that they are cast members of Lord of the Rings doing a USO show. If al-Queda or the Taliban catch them, they’re jinn. Pretty good cover stories, don’t you think?
Overclockers.com: Don’t you think this interview is going to wreck your reputation?
Santa: Nah. Let’s see how far you get with “Santa is a CIA operative” in the mainstream media.
Overclockers.com: Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?
Santa: This is the real world, baby. What do I look like, the Tooth Fairy?
(Ed.note: {Insert my usual diatribe} So what are we going to do about Santa? What should we do about Santa? What can we do about Santa? And what about those espionage elves?
Send me a note with your thoughts and suggestions.)
{Closed-captioned for the humor-impaired: It’s a joke, son}
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