Conference thebay::joyoflex

287.0. "Morse obfuscated" by GRECO::FRYDMAN () Wed Dec 10 1986 14:57

Just got this across the net and thought you would appreciate it.

 
          Twas the Night Before Christmas
 
  	Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the
 annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence,
 kinetic energy was not in evidence among the possesors of this
 potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as
 MUSCULUS. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge
 of the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to out anticipatory
 pleasure regarding the imminent visitation from an eccentric
 philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations is the honorific of
 St. Nicholas. The pre-pubescent, comfortably esconsed in their
 respective accomodations of repose, were experiencing sub-conscious
 visual hallucinations of variagated fruit confections moving
 rhythmically through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I
 attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumberous
 advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior
 portion of the ground were ascended by such a cacaphony of dissonance,
 that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose
 for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof. Hastening
 to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this
 fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
 reflected as it was upon the recently crystalline precipitation, might
 be said to reveal that of the solar meridian itself, thus permitting
 my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborn
 runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminuitive specimens of the genus
 RANGIFER, piloted by a miniscule, aged chaufeur so ebullient and
 nimble, that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our
 anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power travelling at what
 may have been vertiginous velocity, than patriotic alar predators, he
 vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted
 labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective
 cognomen--now Dasher, now Dancer, et al., guided them to the uppermost
 exterior level of our abode through which structure I could readily
 distinguish the concatenations of each of the thirty-two cloven pedal
 extremities.



 	As I retraced my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
 performing a 180 degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved,
 with the utmost celerity and via a downward leap, entry by way of the
 smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts, soiled by the
 ebony residue of oxidations of carboniferous fuels, which had
 accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblence to a street vendor
 I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings, which he
 bore dorsally in a commodious cloth recepticle his orbs were
 scintillant with reflected luminousity, while his submaxillary dermal
 indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The
 capilaries of his molar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged
 with blood with suffused in subcutaneous layers, the former
 approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter
 that of PRUNUS AVIUM, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and
 supra-labials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, tabular
 and columnar crystals of frozen water. Clenched firmly between his
 incisors was a smoking piece whose gray fumes, forming a tenuous
 ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal
 circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high and when he
 waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdomenal region undulated in a
 manner of inpectinated fruit syrup in a hemisherical container. He
 was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund,
 multi-genarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me
 visibly frolicsome, despite every effort to refrain from being so. By
 rapidly lowering and then lowering one eyelid, and rotating his head
 slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was
 groundless.

 Without utterance and with despatch, he commenced filling the
 aforementioned hoseriery with various of the aforementioned articles
 of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally
 transported cloth recepticle. Upon completion of his task, he
 executed an abrupt about face, placed a singular manual digit in
 lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium
 forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his
 egress by renegotiating, in reverse, the smoke passage.

 	He then propelled himself, in a short vector, onto his
 conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted
 oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceded to
 soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed
 bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting
 exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the
 limits of visibility, an ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary
 constituency. And to that self-same assemblence, my sincerest wishes
 for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period
 between sunset and dawn.
.........................................................
    

    Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific,
    Fain would I fathom thy nature specific.
    Poised above in the ether capricious,
    Glowing as to a gem carbonaceous.

    Three handicapped rodents, three handicapped rodents.
    See how they perambulate, etc.
    They all ran after the agriculturalist's spouse,
    Who bisected their spinal columns with a culinary article;
    Did you ever behold such an occurrence in your allotted time,
    As three handicapped rodents.

    Propel, propel, propel your craft,
    Placidly down the liquid solution
    Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically.
    Existence is but a delusion.

    Re: .4, .5
    
    See page 460 in your DEC-issued American Heritage Dictionary (pocket
    siezed version) for translation.

    Re: .5  That's not what I asked! :-)
    Re: .6  Being a Readingite, I don't get a DEC-issued American Heritage
	    Dictionary (fortunately).
    
    Jeff.