Sometime on Christmas Eve, the Elf on the Shelf went back to wherever it lives when it’s not spying on kids for Santa. Good riddance.
For those without kids under age 10 or so, the Elf is a fairly recent “Christmas tradition” that entails buying snacks and books and gizmos for this pint-sized creature that moves around at night, wreaking havoc. It spills food, disrupts the orderly array of Christmas scenes on the mantel and annoys the pets. Someone should feed it to a coyote.
I tried to explain the Elf to a kid I know: “Look, physical things are either animate or inanimate. The animate things can move but the inanimate things can’t. This elf is inanimate; therefore, it cannot move.”
The kid just shook his head, “Clark, the Elf is magic.”
And that got me thinking about other curious or downright inexplicable things that have happened lately. Maybe it was the Elf.
For instance, why did Knox County employees making six-figure salaries need to buy shoes on a county purchase card? Or have subordinates assemble a backyard swing set on county time? Blame it on the Elf.
And over in the Sheriff’s Office, why did the civilian employee who oversees inmates working on vehicles conspire with an inmate to steal and disappear a fancy car so the owner could collect insurance? And why did these guys think they could trust a convict? The Elf made them do it.
And why, in the face of a raging virus that’s killing an average of 3.3 Knox Countians a day, did six county commissioners vote to defang the Board of Health rather than just ask the BOH volunteer medical professionals what they could do to help? Reckon it was the Elf?
Begone, evil elf. Live free or die! Proud to be a Merkin. And sure, Merry Christmas one and all.
Sandra Clark is editor/CEO of Knox TN Today.