All’s Well That Ends
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
If you remember Mr. Ricketts was writing a letter to Santa Claus and I was pouring a wee dram.
Strangely enough, on the other side of town in the big house on Oneida Street, Mr. Rachmaninoff was unhappy too. He had all the money in the world. He had a lovely young wife who loved him dearly, although she had a headache, now into its fourth year.
Why then was he unhappy? Because he realized he had spent his whole life in the quest for the almighty dollar. (He was no better than a lawyer when you think about it.)
You see – as so often happens when people sacrifice everything for money, they forget what is really important. I would tell you what that important something is, but I forgot.
And Rachmaninoff wrote a letter to Santa Claus too, only he put a stamp on his. Which explains why his letter got to the North Pole in time and Mr. Ricketts’ was tossed in the dead letter box at Canada Post where it remains to this day.
Now Santa was very wise for a big fat guy who never got past Grade Four. Santa called Mr. Rachmaninoff and told him if he wanted to be truly happy, he should find the poorest man in all of Mariposa, go to his house on Christmas Eve laden with gifts, and give him and his family a real Christmas. So on December 24th right after Jessica Fletcher, Mr. Rachmaninoff had Roberts, his butler, pack the Mercedes with toys. Then he gave him his twenty-five cents Christmas bonus, less the usual deductions for Income Tax, CPP and E.I., and drove to the house of the poorest man in Mariposa.
As luck would have it, Mr. Foster wasn’t home so he went next door to Mr. Ricketts’s little lean-to.
Now as you might expect, Mr. Ricketts was embarrassed to have such a wealthy and dignified man show up on his doorstep on Christmas Eve. He had nothing to offer him but a soup can full of grain alcohol he had been saving to pour over the pork and beans, partly for flavour and partly so he could ignite it and cook the stuff. Mariposa Power had cut off his electricity that very morning – as utility boards are prone to do to poor people at Christmas.
Nor did Mariposa Power return little Rosybum Ricketts whom they were holding as a security deposit after they hooked up her iron lung.
Now Mr. Rachmaninoff was a kind man at heart and knew that Mr. Ricketts would feel bad because he was poor. So to put him at ease, he told him how hard he himself had worked all his life while Mr. Ricketts was sitting on his bum collecting welfare – and by the looks of all the paper dinner plates, breeding a lot.
It was much like the usual story a person gets from his bank manager when he is trying to borrow the money for a set of false teeth or a ransom to keep his children from being sold to white slavers.
Mr. Rachmaninoff said, “I have brought a great Butterball turkey with all the trimmings for your dinner tomorrow, lots and lots of presents for your children, and a bottle of twenty-five year old Glenfiddick to take the chill off.
Now I hope you won’t mind me butting into your private affairs, but I paid your bill at Mariposa Power. And while I was at it, I bought you a gas stove with four burners, a light in the oven and a clock that flashes 12:00 o’clock all the time. The man from the gas company is on his way over as we speak, so you can call Mariposa Power and tell them where they can stick their electric company.
And last but not least, in this envelope is a cheque that will cover all your bills and leave you with a couple of hundred grand pin money in the bank.”
Well, as you can guess, Mr. Ricketts was overjoyed and so happy that he would have changed the pants he had just wet had he had another pair but he didn’t.
Now isn’t that a wonderful story?
But wait there’s more! Suddenly Mr. Rachmaninoff was no longer sad. And do you know why? He realized that having all kinds of money means nothing unless you can do something nice for someone. He wanted to share this blessing and he hurried home to tell Rhonda, his pretty wife.
But when he got home, she wasn’t there.
In fact there was nothing there, just one kitchen chair, an empty liquor bottle and a note on the mantle saying, “Thanks for putting everything in my name. I’ve taken off with Rupert, the chauffeur, who is quite a man in the sack. He cured my headache and a few things I didn’t even know were wrong with me. You have until tomorrow at noon to get out of the mansion otherwise the fuzz will arrest you for trespassing. Oh yeah, a bunch of Santa’s elves showed up, gave me quite a frisking and took off with all the silverware and your Ernest Tubb record collection.”
But even with all that terrible news, Mr Rachmaninoff was still happy. He realized you don’t need money when you can do something nice for someone else. He also realized that Rhonda had never loved him at all. She only loved his money. He was still smiling when he put a gun to his head and blew his brains out.
Oh, and Mr. Ricketts, we mustn’t forget him. When he got to the bank with the cheque, the manager said that Mrs. Rachmaninoff had cleaned out the account and Mr. Ricketts was SOL.
Back at his house, little Rapunzel, his youngest daughter tried to light the gas stove. There was a loud explosion and all his kids, his shack and Rusty the dog went straight up in the air and landed on Rhonda and the chauffeur who were parked on the side of the road editing their salients. (I have no idea what that means either)
Mr. Ricketts fell down an open manhole and expired.
I’m sure they all met in heaven on Christmas morning, the Ricketts, the Rachmaninoffs, and Rupert, the chauffeur who was now flatter than pee on a plate. Well, all except little Rosybum, of course. She was all folded up and stuffed in a wall safe at Mariposa Power.
Merry Christmas!
