Christmas in August?

Growing up as a kid in the seventies, we didn't have all the toys or distractions of today's kids. No internet, wii, guitar hero or whatever they're playing these days. I sound like an old coot, but when Christmas would come around their would always be one large surprise from Santa. Usually he was right on the money, didn't miss a beat...until one Christmas I was extra secretive about my true desire. I wanted a Godzilla toy. Yeah, the kind that you pull a lever on his neck and band-aid sized sliver of fire would come petering out. Lest I forget, for some reason he had a shooting claw, too. Don't ask me why, but that was my Christmas wish.

Disappointment wasn't the word to use to describe the next morning around 6 am. I was usually a pretty appreciative kid, so I tried to hide the waterworks that continued to well up as the moments sped along, not wanting mom and pop to sense the least bit of unhappiness on the chrismas morn.Soon enough the entire extended family had come, opened presents and noshed on some roast beast. No, I didn't get shut out; there were plenty of gifts of socks and books and a few Star Wars action figures that I would in later years burn in my pyrotec days. But by in large there was this heaviness of the toy I wouldn't get. Time would march on, and indeed I would get the Godzilla toy. I'm pretty sure my mom still has that stupid thing, but this whole ordeal reminds me that surprises aren't always the ones we want or expect.

The following year, as pictures with my hair sticking straight up remind me, would be the go-cart I had neither asked for or expected. Now that was a great surprise! I wouldn't have expected that my dad would bust my ass with a belt for running into the fence later on, but that's irrelevant to my point. As we wait for news on Brandon Warren's approval, a decision that will have a profound impact on our season IMO, we are most certainly going to experience either the godzilla or go-cart reaction within our Big Orange guts. Here's to hoping that socks and action figures aren't our consolation prize.