I am an imposter. I can admit that now, but

I am an imposter. I can admit that now, but on that fateful Chrstmas Eve so long ago, ringing my bell & smiling benevolently at anyone willing to drop a few coins in my red kettle,

I was shocked how credible people were. The gullible will never be in short supply. "Joe Kringle," I would introduce myself, "brother of Kris." It was addicting, and lucrative.

I kept the ruse going for awhile. I was Joe Kringle, Santa's brother. While I was pan frying some calamari, there was a noise on the roof.

I put the calamari on simmer and grabbed my baseball bat. Santa, my brother, knew of my ID theft. I swung down on the head poking out of the fire place and clocked his lawyer.

As my squid rings transformed from deliciously tender to a soggy, overcooked mess; my bat cracked across the man's skull and he tumbled out of the chimney, soot everywhere.

He pointed a quivering finger at my squid rings and quavered, "Saturn!" I looked at the squid rings, back at sooty man, then back to the squid rings. It all made perfect sense and

stuff in HIS mind, maybe, but certainly not to me. I quickly dialed the nearest insane asylum to have him carted away. But when they came to my house, they carted ME away instead!

The Nurse, Misses Biggs called me Squigly. I think she was taunting me. My inky tuds & tendency to eat my children notwithstanding, I felt it was an epithet undeserved, but Nurse B

iggs would live to regret that unfortunate appellation for a very long time. "Nurse Biggs, I just want you to know that wherever you go, I will be there in the inky shadows."