I Know A Guy…
that were a little better known than the others because they were the Mall Santas. In our neck of the woods, we had four or five of them, three of which were in line for a haircut. There were a few freelancers “who know a guy” and they are the Christmas party Santas, like the “guy I know,” and most of them will turn their performance honorariums over to charities.
The “guy I know” supports his two favorite charities, the SPCA and his local foodbank, and he gets a tremendous amount of joy by doing that for over 30 years. In total, there were six of us who “know a guy,” and we couldn’t have been a jollier bunch. The one guy in line for a haircut that seemed out of place was a clean-cut, beardless millennial and the other guys who “know a guy” all agreed that he should move to front of the line to allow for the secret handshakes to take place and the stories to be told. He accepted the honour, and I am sure he never realized the common thread among those who let him go ahead… other than we were all old. As soon as he left the small barbershop with a fresh haircut we allowed the oldest guy “who knows a guy” to lead our little haircutting parade and then we all began to brag about our various non-monetary rewards for helping out the Jolly Old Elf. One guy who knows a guy mentioned that he may have had the youngest visitor of his career at the ripe old age of two days old, which of course led to a discussion about the oldest person to sit on Santa’s lap this season. That honour went to a freelancer who visits seniors’ homes and his oldest lap-sitter was 103 years young (who apparently challenged Santa to prove he is 400 years old). One of the mall guys who knows a guy told the story of an eight-year-old son of a friend who claimed that his dad said he wasn’t the real Santa. Santa, knowing the dad really well, told the son, “That’s okay, he’s not your real dad,” and our jolly old bellies shook with laughter.
The cool thing is that every-one of us guys who know a guy had a beautiful story from this season or from the past and we all agreed that, yes, sometimes it is nice to get an honorarium, but our rewards are the smiles and joy that a certain jolly old elf can produce. Only 50 weeks ‘til Christmas.