Guest: What I want for Christmas, but won't get

Every year a few weeks before Christmas, my sweet wife asks me what I’d like for Christmas. And every year, I tell her, “Nothing! I’d rather spend our money on the kids,” meaning our three now semi-grown (but fully-spoiled) daughters.

Of course, my noble answer is a huge lie meant to make me seem less Grinchy than I really am. There are lots of things I’d like to have for Christmas, but until our daughters graduate from college, or Elon Musk makes me his personal charity project, I may as well not ask. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m on Santa’s permanent “Grouchy-Dad-Who-Doesn’t-Even-Deserve-Coal, Switches, or Justin Bieber’s Christmas Album” list.

If, though, I were to be honest and present my actual Christmas list to my wife, it would surely elicit an eye roll so acute it might require surgery.

At any rate, below are a few items that any of my dear readers with a bottomless bank account could consider sending me.

First, I’d like a brand new Ford Expedition as a replacement for my decrepit 2013 model, which is basically being held together with repurposed paperclips and probably houses some fugitive gummi bears purchased during the Obama administration. The vehicle works fine, as long as I take it to a repair shop regularly for a lifesaving transplant of some kind. And since new Ford Expeditions cost roughly the same as the gross domestic product of Guam, I’ll probably continue with palliative care until we finally have to pull the plug.

Next on my list is a new kitchen with all the trimmings. We built our house almost 30 years ago – before appliances were disposable – so most of ours are older than my favorite pair of boxer briefs. In fact, they’ve become like family members – the unkempt ones who are still mostly functional but you probably wouldn’t claim in public.

Our stove, for example, works fine, but the door handle broke off in an emergency chicken nugget incident several years ago. So now we feel like we should be wearing one of those aluminum volcano-exploration suits every time we try to open it.

Our vintage refrigerator is also fairly reliable, but it makes creaking and popping noises like my joints do when I get up in the night to go to the bathroom. The ice maker even works if I occasionally wiggle the water line tubing to the beat of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

I’ve written about our temperamental dishwasher before, so let’s just say it works at the moment – but only if we promise it that we’ll limit ourselves to the “Normal” setting. When we try “Express Wash” or “Heavy Duty,” it files a hostile-working-environment complaint, goes on strike and flashes an error code from the Klingon alphabet.

Our microwave oven seems to operate normally, but some of the interior surfaces are cracked and peeling, which is probably exposing us to the same elements found at the Chernobyl nuclear site. The second head growing out of my belly button thinks it’s safe, though.

I’m sure that someday when our daughters are no longer dependent on us (Ha!), we’ll purchase these items on my hopeless Christmas list, and then I’ll drive around in my new SUV wishing I still had a back seat full of little girls spending all of my money, spilling their gummi bears and listening to the Justin Bieber Christmas album.