The story describes a poor family's miserable Christmas where many unfortunate events have occurred. The only gift left under the tree is a bottle, but no one can agree who should have it. Eventually, the father gives it to some carolers outside, but it turns out to be toilet bowl cleaner instead of alcohol as they had hoped.
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The story describes a poor family's miserable Christmas where many unfortunate events have occurred. The only gift left under the tree is a bottle, but no one can agree who should have it. Eventually, the father gives it to some carolers outside, but it turns out to be toilet bowl cleaner instead of alcohol as they had hoped.
Original Description:
A poverty-stricken family finds happiness during a dismal Christmas
The story describes a poor family's miserable Christmas where many unfortunate events have occurred. The only gift left under the tree is a bottle, but no one can agree who should have it. Eventually, the father gives it to some carolers outside, but it turns out to be toilet bowl cleaner instead of alcohol as they had hoped.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Download as RTF or read online from Scribd
Download as rtf
100%(64)100% found this document useful (64 votes)
The story describes a poor family's miserable Christmas where many unfortunate events have occurred. The only gift left under the tree is a bottle, but no one can agree who should have it. Eventually, the father gives it to some carolers outside, but it turns out to be toilet bowl cleaner instead of alcohol as they had hoped.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as RTF or read online from Scribd
Download as rtf
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THE LAST PRESENT by Devon Pitlor
There had been great sorrow in the Milroy family that
year. In October, Father had lost his job at the cannery. In November, Momsy had fallen in the supermarket near a huge piled display of canned crab trimmings, which cascaded down on her and knocked her cold. She had not been the same since and had only drifted around the tiny, unheated house with a bottomless glass of vodka in her hand all the long days since. Brother Tom, perenniallly unemployed, had suffered a crushed leg in a motorcycle accident, and Sister Kylee was hugely pregnant from an unidentified black person of low merit and little promise. The dog, Needfull, had been run down in front of the house by a speeding brown delivery truck earlier that day and was therefore dead, though not yet inhumed. Uncle Phizby had recently learned that he was dying of cancer and would not see another Christmas. In fact, Phizby wouldn't see Easter or possibly not even the intrusively racist MLK Holiday in January. Aunt Rosa had experienced a sudden and unexplained weight gain of over 200 pounds, learning only the week before Christmas that it was a massive, inoperable tumor. The twins had gone on a rampage and broken all the lightbulbs and dishes in the house.
The savage twins had also fought violently over the few presents left for them under the scraggly, undecorated evergreen in the living room. Finally they needed to be restrained with masking tape and put into footlockers and pushed under their beds, where they would remain until the morrow or perhaps later.
Only one unopened present still remained under the
tree. It was carelessly wrapped in soiled brown paper with a dirty red ribbon tied around its middle section and had, for all the world to see, the shape of a bottle.
Momsy and Father eyed one another. The gift had no
tag on it, so no one knew who it was for. Uncle Phizby assumed it was his, as did Brother Tom, hobbling about on a crutch. Kylee felt it was rightfully hers, since her only gifts had been a rosary of latecoming birth control pills and a chipped mug marked "Buzzard's Roost, where dreams come true." Aunt Rosa was sure that the remaining gift was hers, but for reasons she could not easily verbalize, given the size of her tumor.
There wasn't much left to eat or drink. The boiled eggs
were all that was left of the scanty meatloaf which had been the centerpiece of Christmas dinner. A few sprigs of wilted celery were also on the floor by the table legs. Uncle Phizby had put the nozzle of the cheese spread can into his mouth and emptied it thusly of its final contents . However, there was some Wonder Bread and Crisco left, so Momsy spread the white excrescence paper thin over slices of the remaining bread and garnished it with salt and flinty sprinkles. In this way, they all would partake of a final snack before retiring for the night.
But the gift remained unopened.
Suddenly in a burst of yuletide generosity, Father
exclaimed that the lone present should go to Momsy, who in turn asked meekly that it be given to Brother Tom, who refused and with great magnaminity offered it to the belly-bulging Kylee. Kylee said that it should be given to Uncle Phizby because he was going to die soon, but the latter dithered and said he was too sick for presents and that it should go to Aunt Rosa, who, completing the circuit, announced that it was Father's. And the cycle of unselfish refusal was launched again. And again. And again.
The little impoverished family could not decide on who
should get the last present.
Outside in the street was a strolling band of carollers.
They stopped under the dim streetlight before the family's house and began to sing O Little Town of Bethlehem. Their mascot, a little boy with a sever sinus blockage, waved a cardboard effigy of the Bleeding Lamb around in front of them.
Father was abruptly overcome by a wave of the purest
magnaminity and took the gift, which was now definitely a bottle of something, and offered it, with a great flourish of arm and hand, to the lead caroller.
When the song was finished, the lead caroller held up
the poorly wrapped bottle and shouted "Christmas spirits, everyone!"The band of singers all produced either plastic cups or real glasses and gathered around. They were prepared for drinks at each stop. Father, Momsy and the family watched in pride as the lead caroller ripped the paper off the bottle.
It was a bottle Bix Pine Essence Toilet Bowl Cleaner, 16
ounces. The green liquid glowed in the lamplight. Thorough it, albeit distorted, one could see the snarling lips and snot-blocked nose of the little mascot boy with his cardboard Jesus on a stick. "You dirty sons of bitches!" exclaimed the lead caroller. "You expect us to drink this?" He tossed the bottle onto the snow covering the lawn, and, without further comment, the sullen carollers trudged off down the block, pocketing their drinking vessels and muttering grim epithets to themselves.
Father retrieved the bottle and put it next to the toilet.
