By Ashley Toland Editor

So I called up this elf buddy of mine up last week to see if he could get his stubby little hands on Mayor Sam Jones’s wish list for Santa. He told me he “miiiiight” could find that list for me, if I could find him a carton of smokes, some “nudie pictures” of Bob Grip (elves love the Gripster) and a couple of cases of Tab. Apparently all things hard to come by at the North Pole.

After I secured the Tab and smokes and then Photoshopped Grip’s head on Ron Jeremy’s naked body, I mailed the package up to Santa’s workshop.

A few days later, he called me and expressed his gratitude (he seemed especially “touched” by the Grip photo) and told me there were only a few things on the mayor’s list. Jonesie had asked for 300,000 bumper stickers that say “Love thy Neighbor,” water skis and some way to make the people of West Mobile vote for annexation.

“Well, I guess you elves can handle the first couple of requests, but I bet he’s going to be a little disappointed on Christmas morning when he doesn’t get the last one,” I commented, knowing the folks in WeMo aren’t too crazy about just being Mo.

“Oh, no, we got that, too,” Santa’s most unethical elf bragged. “Claus just sent that one over to our ad agency and had them work up some TV spots to make sure those folks out in West Mobile vote to get into the city.”

“Ohhhh, I’d love to see those. Any way you could send me down a copy?” I begged.

“Ummm. That’s not going to be easy. I’m really busy right now. I miiiiiight could find some time to do that if you could, um, get me some of those, um, you know, special pictures of Mel Showers,” Santa’s nastiest little elf demanded.

So I worked my Photoshop magic on Mel and sent them up to the filthy-yet-resourceful elf. A few days later, I got a tape with a label on it that read “Annexation: Your Life Depends On It.”

Apparently Santa and his in-house agency feels the mayor should threaten to take away police and fire protection if the WeMobilians vote against annexation. That may be illegal and the Jonester probably won’t go for it, even though it’s not fair that we have to pay more sales tax in the city than those in the jurisdiction and they get the same services. But if he does decide to play hardball with them, I can assure you these ads would be quite effective.

The first one went something like this:

Scene One: A shot of a house in the WeMo community of Smithfield on fire.

Scene Two: A woman dials the Mobile Fire Department and screams, “Help! Help! My house is on fire!”

Scene Three: Cut to a dispatcher who is filing her fingernails. She stops the filing for a moment and nonchalantly asks, “What’s your address ma’am?” You hear the woman spout off some WeMo address. The dispatcher turns her attention back to her nails and says, “Yeah, remember you voted against annexation. So we’re just not going to be able to help you, ma’am. I know it sucks, doesn’t it?”

Scene Four: You see the house in the background (now fully engulfed) with the woman screaming into her cell phone “Well what am I supposed to do?”

Scene Five: It cuts back to the dispatcher, who says with great indifference, “I don’t know. Maybe one of your neighbor’s has a water hose or a bucket or something you could borrow.”

Scene Six: You see the woman holding a little green garden hose spraying a tiny stream on her blazing house. Then James Earl Jones says “Annexation: Your life depends on it,” as those same words are stamped across the screen.

The next ad would show these folks what their world would be like if they didn’t have any police protection. It went something like this:

Scene One: A woman is hiding in her dark bedroom closet, whispering loudly into her phone, “Help me! Help me! There’s a man trying to break into my house.”

Scene Two: A dispatcher is leaning back in her chair reading a National Enquirer. She asks, “Yeah where did you say you lived, ma’am?”

Scene Three: It cuts to the woman who is shaking and crying. She says “In Windmill Place. Please hurry!”

Scene Four: It shows the burglar halfway in the bedroom window.

Scene Five: The dispatcher, still reading, says “yeah, remember you guys voted against annexation. That means no police or fire for you (she says in the “Seinfeld” Soup Nazi voice then giggles silently and winks at another eavesdropping dispatcher). There’s really nothing we can do for you ma’am. Do you have a baseball bat or something?”

Scene Six: You see a stream of urine running out from the closet, which catches the burglar’s attention as he walks by.

Then it fades to black and James Earl Jones says “Annexation: Your life depends on it.” It is followed by a woman’s blood-curdling scream.

I swear no one is a more perfect gift-giver than that Kringle fella. I’m just hoping he’ll stuff my stocking with some “special pictures” of John Edd.

Ashley Toland is Lagniappe editor. Contact her at ashleytoland@lagniappemobile.com.

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