Frank looked out the window, watching the carolers fight each other to the
death.  They'd started out singing so nicely, too; it was a real pity.  He
couldn't quite figure out why the fighting had started in the first place.
Apparently, the turning point had been when one of the carolers, fretting
over a large fold-out map, had cut into a beautiful rendition of "Deck the
Halls" with the rather urgent message that the large band of carolers 
didn't seem to be in Tokyo anymore.  After that little nugget of wisdom, 
all hell had broken loose.

"Whose idea was it to follow pig-boy to some street corner?" one of the
youths had yelled.  "We're probably halfway around the world or something!"

"Oh no... We'll never get home in time for school tomorrow..."

"Who're you calling 'pig-boy,' you jerk??!?"

"Hey!  Leave my fiance alone!!"

"YOUR fiance??  Whaddaya mean, YOUR fiance???"

Now, venomous insults were being traded back and forth, and fists were
flying in earnest.  Enormous mallets appeared out of nowhere, and amid
savage yells, shard-filled explosions rocked the streets.

Frank shuddered at the sight of the carnage outside.  Finally, he pulled
the drapes shut, settled back into his favourite chair, and calmly
continued reading his newspaper.

"Frank!" yelled his wife Martha from the next room.  "What in hell's going
on?  Where's all that racket coming from?"

"Just some carolers, dear.  Nothing to worry about," Frank called back.  He
turned to the sports section of his newspaper and began searching in vain
for stats on the Tottenham Hotspurs, when suddenly a caroler bashed 
right through the wall and ended up stretched out on the living-room 
floor.  A very irritated Frank glared at the stunned, battered youth 
lying prostrate on his expensive new carpet, and cringed at the 
sight of the gaping hole in his living-room wall, before grumbling 
meditatively and turning back to his newspaper.

"Oh my!" called a sweet voice from somewhere outside, barely audible above
the shrieks and yells of the ongoing fight.  "Sorry about all this, sir!"

"Damn well better be..." muttered Frank, and started reading an article
about bank mergers.

_____________________________________________________
don't ask me why the Ranma gang went out caroling... 

-Megan


Free, fast e-mail accessible anytime, anywhere http://www.imaginemail.com