The (Bad) Elf on the Shelf

I am dressed in all green from my head to by toes,

except for what's red, my eyes and my nose.

Santa sent me to sit on your shelf,

and not cause he thought it was good for my health.

I am here for one reason and that is to spy

on you and your habits while I get high.

You probably wonder how I come up with trickses,

it's to occupy time in between all my fixes.

And with all my habits I am just where he wants me.

Saint Nick and his dope, he constantly taunts me.

And so it is that on the first of November,

I come to your home to watch and remember.

I will sit here all quiet, I'm a toy you will think.

I sit and I sit and I never do blink.

But all of your actions and all of your deeds,

will go right to Santa through satellite feeds.

Like that time in the bedroom, your nose you did pick,

Santa saw that down to the last lick.

When you took from your brother his favorite car

there was a loss of another gold star.

Nothing alarming, just simple infractions.

On the nice list you were still gaining traction.

Yet for me all these things this just were not enough,

I was waiting for fuck-ups, the really bad stuff.

There was that time I was sure would just suffice

to put you on naughty and take you off nice.

That time you and Susie locked all the doors,

and she showed you hers and you showed her yours?

St Nick saw that one too and twas he that insisted

posting to YouTube (which I thought was twisted).

Santa loved what you did, he was so entertained

to the point on the nice list you were maintained.

So I sat on the shelf and bided my time

still as a statue, silent as a mime.

I thought and I thought and I thought once again,

how could I screw you, my naïve little friend?

First I put down a few lines on your dresser,

with just a few snorts you'd be that much the lesser.

Instead when you saw them your fingers you flicked,

the lines blew away and I thought, “What a dick.”

I picked up your juice and I spiked it with gin,

you smelled something off, in the trash it went in.

The the bottom of your drawer, I filled that with porn,

no way you'd resist cause a boy you'd been born.

The moment you saw it you threw it all out,

and me, the bad elf on the shelf, had to pout.

Surely I knew there's a way to cause trouble,

a way I could burst your goddamn Christmas bubble.

So I slipped a crisp 20 out from your mom's purse,

took it to your room and then hoped for the worse.

Of course your mom found it, she's nosy like that,

she went to your closet and grabbed your own bat.

Here we go, this is it, now we are talking.

When Santa sees this, out of Nice you'll be walking.

On Christmas Day with the lights all a'blinking.

When mom's finally sober and dad's eyes are a'twinkling.

You'll rush to the fireplace and rip down your stocking,

cause you know what's inside will really be rocking.

But reach deep inside, you dumb little troll,

cause all you'll be finding is one lump of coal.

Times are so tough, even at the North Pole,

and to make all ends meet we have only one goal.

The level of naughty must reach 30 percent,

or else there's no way Santa can pay all the rent.

While Santa gave out all those toys by the millions,

he was racking up debt in the billions and trillions.

Though he loved to shout out, “On Donder, on Cupid.”

he did finally mutter, “It's the economy, stupid.”

The elves went on strike, and it only got worse.

Santa poured a neat bourbon to take care of his thirst.

And you know that reindeer whose nose is so red,

last week in a snowbank he was found to be dead.

The man who had done it was a sad little runt,

an elf who'd gone rogue when he decided to hunt.

With Rudolph deceased it was found to be time-a,

so Santa sold out to a consortium in China.

And that, my young friend, is where I finally come in.

My role here to play is is to encourage the sin.

I am here, don't you know, just to fill up one list.

I must find all the naughty as my bosses insist.

With elves out of work and no money for toys,

I'm an assassin for hire, here to kill Christmas joy.

I am Santa's one out in his odd little game,

Finding bad things with which you I can frame.

By reducing the lists of the kids who are nice,

By reducing the gifts that all come with a price.

Then Christmas for me and for you and for all,

Will go on for now, if at a slow crawl.

While it may seem right now that I'm bad for your health,

who's saving Christmas? The bad elf on the shelf.

I watch a lot of TV. OK, I will clarify that. I watch too much TV. But if I did not watch too much TV, I never would have stumbled upon my next too-good-to-fail career.

I am going to be the Demonic Collector.

I had no ides such a career path existed unit I found "Haunted Collector" on SyFy. The title alone hooked me. Who wouldn't want to see a guy looking for cool stuff while being stalked by spirits ("Ooooo, that antique gaaaaassssss puuuump would so niiiice on your patiooooooooo!!").

As it turns out, the white-haired Haunted Collector isn't haunted at all. He seeks out items that are haunted, placing them in his Haunted Museum where they will no longer bother anyone.

He and his team (apparently one guy cannot possibly find and isolate haunted objects) spend a night in the house where odd things are going on. It could be cold spots, a tapping when no one is there, disembodied voices, apparitions, objects that skitter across tabletops, or the feeling you are trapped in your own bed and unable to move (which describes my usual morning when the alarm goes off).

In one episode he'd determined that antique swords were responsible for the oppressing sense of dread a young man felt each time he walked into his bedroom. After the investigation, the team was feeling somewhat the swords could possibly be a potential cause (when you are dealing with haunted objects, proof disappears along with the ghosts).

"Though these swords are for decoration only and have never seen battle, the people who made them do so with the intent they are making a weapon, which can deposit a lot of negative energy into the object," the Collector said. "Anything can set off that energy later, usually with dire consequences."

Every item has some sort of energy, the Collector says. And all of them could harm you. Though I will admit, the only objects that I've ever felt threatened by are Precious Moments figurines. Porcelain has never been so creepy.

In the last scene, we usually see the Haunted Collector place the dangerously haunted object in his museum, putting in under glass, apparently the one substance that can contain the evil (and perhaps why no one has ever heard of a haunted greenhouse).

The Collector has hit on a brilliant business plan, one I will replicate (OK, steal) in such a way as to beat this recession. And once I establish it locally, I will gladly franchise it because every community is going to need a Demonic Collector.

I am not demonic (though some might argue that finding), but I will look for and confine demonic objects.

Did you know, for example, that the substance capable of holding the densest concentration of malevolence is gold, followed closely by diamonds? The molecular structure of each not only holds evil, but actually invites it in (thus the biblical saying, "money is the root of all evil," which actually was "Gold and diamonds are incredibly malevolent" in original Aramaic).

As the Demonic Collector, I will isolate these items through careful detection ("Is that 24 karat? Yes? I'll need that") and contain the evil the only possible way -- sell it on Craigslist. Because when the evil of the object meets the evil of most people looking to score bargains on Craigslist, the malevolence cancels one another out. The evil-on-evil reaction turns what is beastly into bliss, as all parties (the original owner, the Demonic Collector, the demonic buyer) are happy.

By the way, I could not help but notice all the negative energy flowing off your watch. A Rolex, right?