"I really did used to like the holidays," grumbled Ralph Persons Junior as he rubbed the same spot on his head that he'd whacked several times in a row on the same slanted ceiling beam. It was the first weekend in December and he was crawling around the attic looking for boxes of holiday decorations that his mother wanted hauled downstairs and put up the day after Thanksgiving. Having just started his first term at community college, he managed to dodge that bullet by complaining that he had a couple of papers due in English Composition and Early American History. The papers being due the Monday after Thanksgiving was true, but he'd left out the part that they were already finished. With a mighty grunt, he shoved a box of Easter lawn decorations aside and hit his head again. That time he saw stars. "If she wants them down so bad, why doesn't she do it?" he grumbled louder to himself.
"Because she's more than twice your age, she doesn't like to hit her head, and she's got you to do it," said Ralph Sr., looking like a disembodied head sticking out of the floor of the attic. "Now, if you're done complaining, if you've got some boxes to come down then pass them to me and I'll take them down the ladder for you."
That suited Ralph just fine, because trying to balance the boxes as he slid out the access hole and then find his footing on the ladder was no easy chore. He pushed what he already had found toward the opening and looked for more. After hitting his head once more, he was convinced he'd found them all. "I think that's it, Pop."
"You're missing the box with the tree ornaments," came his mom's voice through the access way.
Ralph took a deep breath and counted to ten. "Alright mom, I'll keep looking," he said, sounding a bit miffed. Actually sounding a lot miffed.
"We're gonna go and start setting up the outside lights and blow up characters," said his Pop through the hatchway. "That'll keep us out of your way a while and let you blow off some steam. I don't want you saying something to your mother the wrong way and have you regret it later."
"Okay," sighed Ralph, nodding his head as his Pop disappeared down the hatch. He took a long look around the attic and didn't see a box marked ornaments, so he decided to straighten and organize the entire loft by opening each box and marking them. He found that some of the boxes had his old clothes that he wore in grade school.
"Why doesn't she get rid of this stuff?"
he thought to himself. Then he chuckled.
"If she's waiting for grandkids she's got a long wait."
He didn't really have a girlfriend but his parents thought he did. For some reason they both kept pushing the idea of him and the girl he took to the prom, Louise Johnson, as being a couple.
"A couple of dorks,"
he thought. Actually, he did take Louise AKA 'Looney Louise' out on a few dates during the summer. She was kind of funny and interesting, but her shenanigans and her perpendicular hair far outweighed the positives, except for her tits. "Whew," he said, shaking his head at the thought of them. He remembered when she showed them to him and he started to daydream.
*
They were in the back of the movie theater and she was jamming popcorn in her mouth. He saw that she had as much 'fruit of the Redenbacher' on her shirt as she still had in her trough of popcorn. "I think you better do something," he said, pointing in the general direction of her breasts.
She put the bucket under her boobs and pushed the lucky kernels back in causing her breasts to bounce several times. "There, better?"
Other than a few genuine imitation butter stains she was all clean. She settled back in her seat and shifted around a bit almost slumping, forcing her breasts up and out. Between the seat in front of her and her tits in her face, Ralph didn't think she could see the screen. He didn't realize he was staring at her until her eyes slowly turned toward him. "Imagination running wild?" she whispered, placing her trough of corn on the floor. "I bet you've got a hundred different visions of what they look like going on in your head. What do
you
think they look like?"
Ralph sat there with his mouth agape.
"Oh come on. Maybe they're perky, droopy, hard, or soft. Maybe they have veins all over them. Maybe my nipples are large like acorns, small like cherries, or even big and puffy," she whispered, encouraging him in her game.
Ralph still sat there with his mouth agape.
She sighed. "No idea, huh? Okay," she said, unbuttoning her blouse down to her navel and unclasping the front hook on her bra. She snapped them open and said, "Behold!"
*
"Junior, did you find them yet?" his Pops voice said from the hole.
"No, I decided to go through everything while I was up here. By the way, why is Mom saving all my old clothes? Some of this stuff goes back to first grade," he yelled loud enough for his Pop to hear.
"I don't think she's actually saving it. It was more like putting winter or summer clothes away till next year but you grew out of them and they just didn't come back down. Mark those boxes 'Donations', slide them toward the hatch, and we'll get them down the road to the Goodwill later. Just make sure you go through every box you want to donate to make sure there isn't anything important in them," yelled Pop.
"Okay," Ralph yelled back.
Thinking back to Louise as he continued his work, it reminded him that he hadn't heard from her since she went out west to college. She didn't come home for Thanksgiving and he wondered if she was coming around for the Christmas break. Several times, he thought to call to just say hello but she didn't have a cell phone (something about messing up her brain waves). He didn't have any idea exactly where she was staying out there so that was that.
Eventually, Ralph found the ornaments and pushed them toward the hatch. The other holiday decorations were neatly stacked by which came next and all that was left was for him to go through the boxes he marked 'Donations'. Most had nothing but clothes in them and a few had some old grade school projects in them like a Thanksgiving turkey made from a tracing of his hand. He put that kind of stuff aside for safekeeping and opened the last box. Under some toddler clothes, he found some folders and wire notebooks that belonged to his Pop. The folders contained some receipts and warranties for products long gone. The wire bound notebooks had some recipes and newspaper clippings about people his parents knew. One of the books had some writing in it, kind of like the notebook he'd found in the garage that spring. He flipped through it and saw some of those same magic words he'd seen in the last book like, 'boobs and tits'. On the first page, it had a header and a title:
"Thursday, December 26, 1974."
"Christmas With the Ditz"
Ralph settled himself under the dangling light and pulled the string to turn it on. "Okay Pop, entertain me," he said as he began to read...
***
It's been two weeks since she came back into my life. Donna. Ditzy Donna. I figured I'd write this down while it's still fresh in my mind. It's been kind of a crazy two weeks but what other kind would it be with her? She made the decision not to move in permanently with me until she found a job to help contribute. The job hunt took exactly fifteen minutes when she walked two blocks to Kiddie City and landed a job demonstrating toys. That sure took a stretch of imagination to see her potential as a goof-ball playing with toys for kids. At least she didn't have to go too far for the party favors she wore out on a regular basis. Her smock was always loaded down with a usual assortment as well as her favorite, a pair of Groucho glasses. The guy that hired Donna remembered her from somewhere in the past and gave her a huge starting rate. Most people started at two dollars and hour but he gave Donna six. I'm still a little jealous of that, considering I've worked for the same place since junior high school and don't make much more than that.
By Wednesday of her first week, the manager realized he had a goldmine with her and worked her as long as she wanted. When they closed Saturday night, they gave her a paycheck for sixty-four hours at $6.00 an hour plus overtime, plus a hundred-dollar bonus for a job well done. The boss even cashed the check for her. Suddenly Donna was a rich ditz with the next day off and Christmas coming a few days later. On that Saturday night, the 21st, the true meaning of Christmas started to come shining through: Love, generosity, and ditzyness...
*
I heard the door slam and came out of the bedroom.
"Look," yelled Donna, fanning her riches out in front of me.
"They could be all ones," I said, standing on the other side of the room.
