I found this column from the St. Charles Journal amusing. The author republishes an advertisement for a squirrel removal service, replacing the word “squirrel” with “teen”.

It took me back to Evelyn Waugh’s wonderful novel Scoop. In it, a provincial writer named William Boot writes a nature column called Lush Places for the Beast (a London newspaper). William writes “a lyrical, but wholly accurate account of the habits of the badger…” Subsequently, his sister Priscilla:

…in a playful mood had found the manuscript and altered it, substituting for “badger” throughout “the great crested grebe.” It was not until Saturday morning when, in this form, it appeared in the Beast that William was aware of the outrage.

His mail had been prodigious; some correspondents were sceptical, others derisive; one lady wrote to ask whether she read him aright in thinking he condoned the practice of baiting these rare and beautiful birds with terriers and deliberately destroying their earthly homes; how could this be tolerated in the so-called twentieth century? A major in Wales challenged him categorically to produce a single authenticated case of a great crested grebe attacking young rabbits.

After going through the Sun-Sentinel’s Scared of Santa photo gallery and reading Fark’s thread, I was in tears. The Christmas tradition of “Let’s go see Santa” confuses me at best. There’s the typical conversation with the child (assuming that the little one has progressed beyond distinguishing basic verbal commands) about how this isn’t the real Santa, but instead his helper, or delegate, or doppelgänger, or whatever. Then there’s the traditional standing in line, followed by the time-honored shelling out of dough, finally culminating in the forever-captured, cherished moment of childlike (that’s what children do) wonderment and joy.

Or it can go the other way.

For the next twelve days, MrPikes is proud to present some of his favorite images of it going the other way:

Just what is going on with this fellow’s pants? Om nom nom nom?