The Sacking - by Rick

The countdown clock for Christmas is ticking. Santa's elves begin working their magic on the assembly lines, but the line comes to a screeching halt when rumors leak that one elf is going to get let go that day.

The Sacking
“Pssst”, Elvis stage-whispered over to Elvira who was opposite him on the Transformers assembly line. “Did you hear what happened to Alf?” Alf, who normally sat beside Elvis, was mysteriously absent that morning.

“No. It’s not like him to take a sickee so close to the Big Day. What have you heard?”

“Well,” Elvis went on in a voice that could barely be heard above the clanking and banging of the line, “word has it that he’s been given the sack by SC himself.”

“Oh, I can’t believe that. Alf is one of the best workers ever. Master would never let Alf go. There must be some mistake.”

“That’s what I thought at first when Evelyn told me this morning over cocoa. You know how she gossips. But she swore that when she was leaving yesterday, she walked by Master’s office and couldn’t help but overhear the conversation he was having with Alf. ‘You’re getting the sack Alf’ was what she heard the Old Man say. Then she snuck off before she was found out eavesdropping.”

“Goodness,” replied Elvira. “That might explain why I smelled loganberry wine on Alf’s breath last night when he passed me in the hallway. He did seem a bit tipsy.”

“Well if it could happen to a hard worker like Alf, it could happen to any of us. I say we’ve got to do something.” This time Elvis wasn’t so quiet and the elves over on the Chatty Cathy line glanced over.

“Do something?” stammered Elvira. “What do you mean by that? We don’t have time to do anything what with Christmas just 4 days away.”

All the elves’ ears were turned Elvis’ way now. He went on, “I hear that way down in Australia they do a lot of what’s called Industrial Action. When the workers are downtrodden or abused, they stop working and stay that way until the abuse is fixed. That’s what we should do. We should stop working until Alf is fixed.”

Elvira went white, which isn’t easy for a green elf. “What are you saying, stop work? Millions and millions of children depend on us. We just can’t stop.”

“That’s what Master is counting on. We’ll never stand up to him because we never, ever did. But we’ve never had a sacking before either.”

“Dear me,” squeaked Elvira. “I suppose you’re right, but stop working? Couldn’t we just write a note after Christmas is over and leave it on Master’s desk?”

“No, Elvis is right.” “We have to take action now.” “Power to the workers.” The other elves were throwing in their opinions now.

Buoyed up by the votes of confidence all around him, Elvis leapt to his stubby little legs, ran over to the end of the line and pressed the big red button. Bells started clanging all over the place and all of the lines jerked to a halt. Elves came running over from all directions to find out what happened.

“Who pressed the emergency stop?” screamed Evelyn. “Did someone fall under the conveyor belt again?”

Then from the second story balcony a booming voice rang out that overpowered all the cacophony. “What’s going on down there? Who stopped the production lines?”

Elvis, Elvira and all of elfdom gazed up and there was Santa himself and standing beside him was Alf.

With a puzzled look on his face Elvis yelled up, “I did Master. We want to know why our good friend and hard worker Alf, was given the sack.”

With that Santa gave one of his best “Ho, ho, ho”s ever with Alf coming in a close second. After he got his breath back Santa he paused and looked sternly over the assembly. “I can tell that somebody was putting their not so little ears where they don’t belong. We’ll talk about that after Christmas but yes it’s true, Alf is being given the sack.”

There was a gasp from the collective and when the rumblings stopped Santa continue. “You’re right Elvis about Alf being a good worker. He’s been so good in fact that me and the missus decided that he should be given the Christmas sack. Christmas Eve Alf is riding the skies with me and will be the first elf ever to be given this honor. I was going announce this at lunch today but circumstances changed my plans. Alf and I have been going over the logistics of it all if that’s ok with you all.”

There was a hushed murmur from the elves which then broke into a long and hearty ovation. When it stopped Elvis sheepishly replied, “Yes Master, that makes us all very happy and I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions like that.”

“Apology accepted my friend. Now back to the lines everyone and let’s make up for lost time. The kiddies are waiting and we mustn’t let them down.”

As they walked back to their places, Elvira whispered to Elvis, “Let’s chat a bit more about this Australia thing. I was thinking we haven’t had a pay raise in 1300 years and working 18 hours a day sounds a bit much too, and then there’s the issue of …..”