As ever, I celebrated Christmas 2008 by improvising a story in one sitting. This year I did it a day early so I could proofread it to make sure it doesn't say anything silly.

SPOT'S TINY WII

(or, Spot's Fourteenth First Christmas)

written on December 24, 2008
Copyright © 2008 James "Kibo" Parry

Spot, the world's only stupid puppy, looked around his home. "This is going to be a fine Christmas," he said to himself, noting that for once he'd managed to decorate the entire tree without swallowing any of the pointy glass ornaments, getting his head stuck in a stocking, or getting the mistletoe up his butt. He was relieved to be spending Christmas at home this year, as he had spent the last two years waiting in line to buy a Nintendo Wii. The 729 days he'd spent in front of Toys R Us had all been worth it, as yesterday he'd gotten a Wii! He turned it on for the first time.

Spot was in the mood for some serious exercise, so he selected the Wii Tic-Tac-Toe game. He grabbed the Wii Remote by its strap and twirled it around his head like a helicopter blade. The strap went *plink* and the remote, and half of the strap, sailed across the room in a parabola streak, destroying Spot's expensive plasma TV. When the glass shattered, the white-hot plasma came out, searing off all his fur. "Waah!" screamed Spot, "The Wii is dangerous when used correctly! I'm going to write a strongly-worded letter of complaint!"

He sat down at his dMac (the computer for dogs) and prepared to write a serious letter. He picked up the computer's mouse by the cord, twirled it around his head, and threw it at the computer screen, which shattered, destroying his $8,000 dMac. "Argh! Why does this keep happening to me? It's like there's a conspiracy to make me look stupid!" Then he fell down the stairs, despite the fact that he wasn't anywhere near them.

In the basement (which smelled like toenail clippings found on the subway), Spot was still determined to write the most important complaint letter ever, so he grabbed a piece of paper and the pencil he'd accidentally stolen from the mini-golf course. "DEAR ANDY ROONEY," he wrote in underlined circled capitals, "BECAUSE YOU DID NOT WARN ME ABOUT THE DANGERS OF THE NINTENDO WII, I AM SUING YOU, NINTENDO, APPLE, AND SIR ISAAC NEWTON. THE END." He then carefully folded up the letter --

-- and accidentally threw it across the room, where it broke his sofa. "How did that happen?" said Spot. "I'm really starting to think there IS a conspiracy to make me look like a doltish idiotic imbecilious doofian nitwinkle!" Then he fell down more stairs, landing in the sub-basement, which smelled like butt mucus and White Castles (though not in that order.)

He thought he heard someone laughing at him, but there was nobody there. Spot knew that nobody could be laughing at him, because he was no longer funny, ever since the doctors had surgically removed the funny hat that had grown into his head. But faint laughter was coming from somewhere. Where? He went to the window to check, but the sub-basement's window still faced the underside of a bunch of dirt. And there was nobody in the room with him! "This is quite frustrating," said Spot as he fell down more stairs.

The sub-sub-basement smelled like the sum of the squares of the two previous basements, plus what happens when you try to make refried beans the wrong way. It was so dark and gloomy that Spot could barely even see the invisible ghost.

"ZOINKS, A GHOST!" yelled Spot.

"I am the ghost of Sir Isaac Newton," said the ghost of Sir Ike Newton, "And because I am so very dead, I am 100% lawsuit-proof."

Spot cowered under one of the layers of stench that blanketed the sub-sub-basement. "Oh terrifying spectre, why have you chosen to haunt me, an innocent, non-idiotic little puppy?"

"Silence, Spot! I am here to warn you that, because it is Christmas, you must according to literary tradition be visited by three more ghosts. The Ghost Of Christmas Past, the Ghost Of Christmas Presents, and the Ghost Of Something Else, I forget what. You know I invented physics, right? If it were't for me, you wouldn't even have gravity sticking you to that floor!"

"Wait, how do I know you're really Sir Isaac Newton? You could be any physicist under that bedsheet! Also, if you're really a ghost, why do you need eye holes in that sheet? And why does the sheet have pictures of Batman all over it?"

"NO FURThER QUESTIONS! I AM SIR ISAAC NEWTON AND HE'S DEAD THEREFORE THAT PROVES I'M HIS GHOST! Now, you will await three more ghostly visitors... three... threeeEEEeee..." With that, the ghost of Newton vanished, leaving Spot alone in the sub-sub-basement with the stringy miasma of stench and the staircase he was about to fall down.

Surprisingly, Spot fell down the stairs. He landed in the sub-sub-sub-basement, which was filled with an odor the exact opposite of bacon. The smell was gooey and yellow and clogged up Spot's ears as it dripped all over him. And, of course, there was another ghost there.

"BEHOLD! I AM THE GHOST OF ANDY ROONEY!"

Spot whimpered in fear, and a little boredom. Andy Rooney looked almost as terrifying as he did on "60 Minutes", but now he had no off switch! Also, he was covered in a mixture of chains, chain letters, and eyebrows. Hundreds of eyebrows, some the size of zeppelins. "Mr. Andy Rooney's ghost, sir, please don't hurt me! I promise I'll never forget to watch your show again, and sometimes I'll even stay awake through part of it!"

Andy Rooney replied, "Well, Spot, you see, it's like this. When you're a ghost, it's your job to haunt people. Some ghosts like to haunt people. Some ghosts don't like to haunt people. Some ghosts just plain need to make up their mind. When I was younger, ghosts would --"

"AUGH! STOP THIS TORTURE!" squealed Spot, frantically packing more of the yellow goo into his ears. But the blurry, desiccated, completely realistic Andy Rooney had a voice that could cut through anything, even goo.

"When I was younger, ghosts would go door-to-door looking for people to haunt. Do people even still have doors any more? I don't know. Do you think the President has a door? Or is he too important? I don't know. I do know one thing for sure and that's that I'm getting older. That seems to happen to everyone. In fact, even ghosts --"

"GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!"

"Spot, I am the Ghost Of Christmas Past. Is it okay to capitalize that 'of'? My third-grade teacher, Miss Blorch, said 'of' shouldn't be capitalized. But it looks wrong that way. It looks wrong the other way, too. There ought to be some rules for writing and spelling, but also we shouldn't all have to follow the same rules all the time. Hitler had --"

"SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!"

"Now, Spot, I am here to bring you a vision of your past. I'm going to show you one of the stupid things you did in earlier times. You know, in the olden days, there were only three TV channels, and the only programs opposite me had no nudity whatsoever, and --"

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANY MORE!" howled Spot as he threw himself down the stairs.

The sub-sub-sub-sub-basement smelled like the drip tray under Jeff Dahmer's refrigerator, with a twist of burning aluminum foil and a sprinkle of grape Pez. The combination was sickening, much like Andy Rooney. And speaking of Andy Rooney, the ghost of Andy Rooney was still speaking of Andy Rooney.

"I can never understand why houses have so many stairs these days. People used to get along fine without these so-called modern conveniences that everyone seems to love. There must be something wrong with people if all of them love something except for me. This morning I was rubbing lotion on my inner thigh, because the doctor said I had a new kind of --"

"AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE! PLEASE KILL ME!"

"Spot, at last you are ready to witness this terrifying vision of your past..."

"Hooray!"

"...right after these commercial messages."

The ghost of Andy Rooney told Spot all about Gold Bond Medicated Powder (and even put some on his inner thigh.) He then grabbed Spot and spun him around to face the spooky mirror that was in Spot's sub-sub-sub-sub-basement.

The ghost pointed at the mirror. "Look into the mirror. LoooooOOOOOooook into the mirror!"

Spot tried to remember how to use a mirror, but he couldn't, so he picked it up and twirled it over his head, then threw it across the room. It struck and killed Andy Rooney's ghost! The ghost's invisible corpse lay on the floor, dripping invisible ghost blood.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," said Spot. "It's all over, it's all really over."

"BOO!" yelled the second ghost. "I am the Ghost Of Christmas Presents!"

"Hey, I know you! You're the ghost of Santa Claus!"

"Yes! Ho ho ho BOO! After I was killed in that toy-factory mishap (while testing a Wii), I became a horrible ghost that torments small dogs who forget the true meaning of Christmas!"

"And what IS the true meaning of Christmas?"

"The true meaning of Christmas is --" but then Santa was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. He sighed. "Sorry, Spot, but I've got to take this call. It's the Feds recalling more dangerous toys I made. Hello? Yes, the Tammy Tinkle dolls are SUPPOSED to be filled with muriatic acid. How else are kids going to learn that children are a pain to care for? All right, I'll stop filling them with deadly acid that can eat through any type of toddler. Geez, you never let me have any fun!"

Meanwhile, Spot was trying to escape by hurling himself down several more flights of stairs. He was now in the ultra-basement, which was infinitely large and had three Suns floating in the middle of it. Also, it smelled like toad farts.

Santa's ghost re-manifested himself there, in a cloud of glittery sparkles not unlike "Star Trek" except without the wobbly black outline around his body. "Spot, I'm here to teach you the true meaning of Christmas. The true meaning is..."

"Yes?"

"The meaning of Christmas, is..."

"YES?"

"The meaning is th --" *SNIK!*

Santa's ghost fell to the ground. A knife was sticking out of his back. A pointy knife! And the murderer was running away! "Stop him!" yelled Spot, "He killed the dead Santa!"

Spot chased the murderer all the way across the infinitely large ultra-basement, past the glowing purple pyramids covered with eyes, past the dinosaurs made out of swarms of bees, and even past the part of the ultra-basement that was so weird that it would disintegrate your brain if I bothered trying to tell you what it was. But the murderer slipped away by running down a flight of stairs. Spot tried to follow him, but these weird stairs were un-fall-down-able!

"WAAH!" cried Spot, "I can't fall down the stairs so I'll never learn the true meaning of Christmas!"

A single perfect tear fell from Spot's eye and landed on the floor of the ultra-basement. Spot had forgotten that ultra-basements always dissolve in water! The ultra-basement melted away and Spot fell into the meta-basement.

The meta-basement was no basement at all. It was actually just the stench of a basement without the basement part. It smelled like those little rubber sleeves Nintendo supplies with Wii Remotes. "Ugh! This is the worst smell of the last five minutes, and possibly of all time!" Spot tried to pinch his nose and mouth shut forever.

A new ghost materialized. Spot asked, "Who are you?"

"Don't you recognize me?"

"No. You just look like a piece of beef jerky, only more dried-up."

"When you killed Andy Rooney's ghost, he turned into me. I'm the Ghost Of Andy Rooney's Other Ghost. And I'm here to bring you the scariest vision of all. Welcome to... YOUR FUTURE!"

Spot felt something happening, and then all of a sudden, poof, he was in a land of large glowing pixels. Spot was inside a Wii! "Wait," said Spot, "so my future is that I'm going to enjoy playing my Wii? I don't see what's so scary about this. Oh, look, here comes Mario!"

"It's-a me-a, Mario-a! I'm-a a-a beloved-a ethnic-a stereo-a-type-a!"

Spot looked him in his tiny square eye. "You know, I met an Italian-American once. He didn't actually talk like that. I grant you, he WAS a plumber and he DID wear bright overalls twenty-four hours a day, and he jumped over giant mushrooms on his way to plunge my toilet, but still, you shouldn't be a stereotype. Ethnic stereotypes only seem funny until a Puerto Rican actually steals your wallet."

"But-a It's-a me-a, Mario-a!"

"Oh, give it a rest. You've been in too many games already, and 95% of them are about as much fun as having your teeth cleaned by Freddy Krueger." Spot walked away from Mario and hid behind some of the Wii's giant pixels. They were about three feet across. The puppy sat down to reason this through logically.

"Did I bring all this upon myself by doing something stupid? Or should I have thrown myself down the stairs more times? Should I have learned anything from the time in 1979 when I twirled my Atari's joystick over my head and threw it across the room and broke my refrigerator? And why does my house have so many stairs? What's with all the stairs? Does anyone really need --"

Spot stopped, with the horrible realization that he was turning into Andy Rooney. "MARIO! PLEASE KILL ME BEFORE I'M ALL EYEBROWS AND CRANKINESS!" he yelled, but Mario was busy jumping on the heads of small animals to crush their skulls for points.

Spot began to cry. He didn't want to be Andy Rooney! This Christmas was starting to turn unpleasant! And all because he wanted to play his Wii...

And then he woke up. It had all been a dream! Turned out he had been dead all this time, after accidentally strangling himself with the Wii Remote's safety strap. Spot was relieved that he was merely dead without being television's Andy Rooney. He picked up his Wii Remote and began a new game of Wii Tic-Tac-Toe.

He played several rounds of the special Wii version of tic-tac-toe -- it had a 2x2 board -- but somehow the computer always managed to win if it went first. This wasn't fun at all! And it didn't even seem like he was getting much exercise. The late Spot decided to return the Wii to the store.

Spot grabbed the Wii and ran to the store. Then he saw the size of the line. Thousands of people were holding Wiis in one hand and their receipts in the other. A sign at the end of the line said:

APPROXIMATE WAIT TIME FROM THIS POINT 73.5 YEARS

And below that, a smaller sign said:

THE END.

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