Mall Santas are Dicks.

Okay, maybe not the Mall SANTA in general, but the freaking experience.  I've seen shorter lines when Six Flags unveils a new ride.  It's ridiculous.  Now maybe it's my fault for listening to the wife when she says "Let's go to the mall to see Santa...this SATURDAY".  Or like last night when she said, "Bass Pro Shop has Santa for free.  Let's go."  First of all, just looking at me one could figure out that I've never been to a Bass Pro Shop, and later when we got there I could see that I've never been wanted at a Bass Pro Shop.  Now for sure, if you're a white dude with grit in your teeth and a furrow in your brow and you bleed worm juice, then goddammit this is the place for you.  Otherwise I was about as out of place as a cross at a suicide bombing.

Anyway, the kids are super excited, as can be seen here:

Cutest. List. Ever.

And we leave after dinner.  Now on a weekday even I'll admit I didn't figure we'd have too long to wait. Uh, yeah.  We pull in at 6:45, the woman hands me a sign that says 8:30.  I ask what that means.  She says that's the earliest we can see Santa.  I say well that's two hours.  She says yes and she didn't realize my kind could count. So I bought a tackle box and we left, without seeing Santa.  Now, luckily I have great kids and they were fine with coming back another time, but The Wife immediately reminds me that we haven't had too good a luck with Santas over the last couple of years.  Case in point...last year...about a year to the day, we had what could be considered one of THE worst Santa experiences in the history of mankind.  So I figured I'd put up the post I wrote immediately following it.  It was called:  

"HO HO WTF WAS THAT ALL ABOUT??"  Enjoy.

December 18, 2009

You know, I've said it before and I'll say it again...sometimes I believe my life is my own personal Truman Show. The stuff that happens to me is so odd that the only good that comes from these experiences are these blogs, and a ton of scenes that I have stocked up for future scripts. Case in point, today at the mall...a story as unbelievable as it is ridiculous.

So today we went to the local mall, for those of you here in Kansas City, it was the Oak Park Mall. A self-proclaimed "upscale" mall that recently made news for kiosks selling generic toys but saying they're the name brand and selling them at the name brand prices. Yeah. Upscale. That's like a pimp saying his hookers are "upscale" just because they don't do the needle drugs and only have ONE VD. But I digress.

We went to the mall for the annual "Take the Kids To See Santa" excursion. Despite being hungover, I was excited because the kids were excited. They'd brought their lists and even wore Christmas hats. See:

I don't really need a Christmas present. This is good enough. Awwwww. Shut up.

Anywho, after standing in line for about a half-hour, we get to the inside area of Santa's den. Heh heh...Santa's inside area. Now, as with every Santa display we've ever gone to, they offer these photos for an ungodly amount of money. However, you just take pictures with your own camera and call it good. This place even had a sign once you got inside the den. It said "No cameras past this point". Fine, no problem. So I decided I'd just go outside the den and take pictures from the mall floor. Well, that wouldn't be as easy as it sounds.

I get out there as Amaya sits on Santa's lap. I pull out my camera and a guy comes out with literally two teeth in the bottom row of his mouth, but wearing a tie as if the tie somehow made it okay to be a gargoyle on meth. Anyway, he comes to me, STANDS IN FRONT OF MY CAMERA and says "NO PICTURES SIR. NO PICTURES." Now mind you, I'm outside the barrier, not even near the fence to the den. I'll try as best I can to transcribe what happened next because I don't know how much I can remember from the situation as my blood was boiling.

Me: I'm outside the barrier.

Him: It doesn't matter. No pictures.

Me: That's not what your sign says. It says no pictures inside. I'm outside. 

Him: It doesn't matter. We own the setup and you can't take pictures.

Now at this point I get really angry. Amaya's on the freaking fat man's lap and I'm missing it because some jackass on a power trip is trying to be Hard Guy Johnson. Our voices are raised. I'm aware people are looking at us. The Wife says Santa kept looking at us as well. 

Me: YOUR SIGN SAYS NO PICTURES INSIDE. You're going to forbid me from taking pictures anywhere in the mall?

Him: Sir, it's a business. We don't let anyone take any pictures.

Me: (PATENTED SB FRUSTATED/SARCASTIC CHUCKLE) Why are you being such a weirdo about this? 

Him: We own this setup. 

Me: Well, I'm going to take a picture of my daughter then.

Him: SIR YOU CAN'T. NO PICTURES OF SANTA! Santa works for us!

Me: I'm taking a picture of my daughter.

Him: No! No pictures of Santa!

Me: I DIDN'T SAY SANTA! I'll crop the picture so it's just my daughter!

I move to the side, raise the camera and snap. Dude literally races over to jump in front of the camera:

Asshole.

At this point I'm enraged.

Me: You're out of your mind. How do you know Santa's even in the picture? How can you see what I'm taking?

Then The Wife and the kids come out. I realize I've missed everything. I didn't see Amaya or Sydney on Santa's lap, I don't have any photos, I am pissed. And even more than that I'm pissed because Methhead Reynolds won. He beat me. But for those of you who know me I don't easily let things go. Whether I file a compaint with the mall, the photo studio, whatever, I'm doing something...because this ain't over, bitches.

EPILOGUE:

So anyway I don't think I ever did anything.  I probably got drunk or something.  Or left a message and forgot about it.  Either way.  Here's a picture of me with a bear.