Windscript Volume 24, 2007-2008 - Saskatchewan Writers' Guild

The Magazine of Saskatchewan High School Writing
Katherine Sthamann
Dear Santa
I’m not going to pretend that I’m the proper age to be writing this letter to you. Let’s just put it out
there, I’m 16. And a half. I’m not going to pretend that I’m even sure I believe in you. I will not sit
here and say I’ve been good this year, because really, I haven’t. But I think I score some points for
honesty, so please hear me out. There’s this boy I know. His hair is always messy and his shoes have
holes in them. He says fuck at the end of all his sentences. I know it’s a far cry from the “tall, dark
and handsome” but I can’t help myself. I wish I could. I like him, Santa. Like a dog to table food, a
math teacher to his calculator, like a preteen girl and the colour purple. You could even say I like him
a lot. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. It couldn’t have been that long ago when
you first met Mrs. Claus, with the snow dancing around her rosy cheeks, the hint of perfume on her
neck. It’s the same thing for me, pretty much, except with fog dancing around the lenses of his glasses,
and a hint of stubble, not perfume, on his neck. I’m a Christian girl so I could’ve very well went elsewhere
with my request. But I figured I’d need bigger issues than teenage romance to go to the boss,
what with acronym pandemics, global warming and all. What I’m trying to say is, I’m not expecting a
miracle. I’m not going to ask you to make him like me back. What I will ask you to work your magic
on, however, is this thing he has. That thing that makes my bladder all crazy so that I have to go to
the bathroom like 5 times a day. His locker is on the way to the washroom. That thing that makes
me giggle. Giggle. What do I want to do with this thing, you ask? Destroy it. Take it and feed it to a
snow blower, burn it at the stake. I want this thing gone, history, finished, if not for my sanity’s sake
but for my friends. I really don’t think they care how cute he looks with his touque on sideways, and
frankly, they cannot analyze body language any better than I can (you’re a guy, what does a side glance
in my direction mean? I think the clock on the wall behind me could be a variable, no?). If you could
successfully exterminate that dreaded thing of his, I would have the merriest of Christmases. Or you
could just give him body odour, one of the two.
Thanks in advance,
Jody Height
P.S. His address is 4210 Jones Road, if that helps. And no, I totally did not follow him home on my
bike that one day in order to find out that information.
P.P.S. Okay, so maybe I did. You see what he does to me?
21
windScript volume 24