Merry Christmas Larry! by Thomas Vand

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Right?

That night, as they were having dinner Larry felt sure of himself, he had left nothing to chance. All security systems were engaged and his decorations were all safely switched on and bathing his house in a multicolored glow. He looked at Barbara and said calmly "They might even give me a prize this year!", she looked at him empathically and smiled. "Yes Larry, they might". He immediately lost his cool, what did she mean by that? Did she emphasize ‘might'? Why would she emphasize ‘might'? "You don't think so? It looks great, doesn't it? I mean with the lights and all..." Again that look, she said "we had lights last year Larry, did it ever occur to you that it wasn't the lights that screwed you? You? Us! You screwed us Larry! Because of you I had to explain to everybody why you weren't around to help clean up after new-years eve! I was the laughing stock of the neighborhood! Did that ever occur to you even once Larry?" Larry was stunned, he had been in prison and all she could care about was what people said of her? "What the fuck Barbara? I was in prison! Not just any place, prison! I had to share a cell with a man with a cold! A cold Barbara! I could have gotten tuberculosis! I could have suffered horribly because I had to share a cell, in prison, with a sick man Barbara! And all you care about is what people say of you?" He was at the brink of hyperventilation now, he would always get that way when he got into arguments with people. He ran out of the room and took his pills. What Larry didn't know was that his physician had long ago switched his anxiety medication for placebos on Barbara's orders. They worked just the same though. Although Larry did not necessarily agree all of the time, he had been lucky to have been appointed such a patient wife as Barbara. Most other people would have left the house screaming within days.

As he descended the stairs to resume his dinner there was an alarm, somebody was outside! He ran to the nearest terminal and yelled at it to show him the intruders. The screen flickered to life and displayed a psychedelic scene of ornaments shining faintly through a foot-thick layer of snow. Larry almost threw up. He had forgotten to buy a heater. All the ornaments were environmentally friendly and wasted virtually no electricity, they emitted light at the regulation lower limit 96% efficiency. His work had become covered and now local law enforcement officers were inspecting a scene of vaguely colored snow. He flicked a switch on his terminal to engage his public address system and looked in complete disbelief as everything suddenly went pitch black. The public address system had caused him to exceed his power-allowance and he had been shut off.

Christmas was ruined. He had failed, again. Barbara would kill him!

Later that night as he lay down on his bunk he heard his cell-mate coughing. He covered his mouth and nose with his sweater as best he could and tried not to think of home, Barbara would have his skin if he ever left this place alive. The view port on the cell door slid open and a guard looked in just as Larry closed his eyes to go to sleep. The guard said "good night you two, have a merry Christmas." Larry and his cell mate almost stumbled over their words to wish the guard a profoundly happy Christmas and a stunning new year.

After all, they didn't take kindly to repeat offenders.