Twas the morning of Christmas when all through the house Lulu was stirring quiet as a mouse. Her stocking was hung by the chimney right there so she reached up to grab it, quite unaware. Granny still snored in all warm in her bed, while Lulu went creeping one thought in her head. She wanted a bike to ride round the block and a great big cattle prod to give out a shock. So she pulled down the stocking and to her surprise the sight of nothing soon met her eyes.
"Hmmm," she wondered, "what the..."
Lulu stood there, her limp stocking hanging pathetically from her hand. She looked down at the flaccid thing and her eyes settled on her Magical Ruby Witch Repelling Bling Ring. Suddenly she understood.
The Wicked Witch of West Texas had finally done it. She had stolen Christmas. Lulu wondered where in Sugarland she had gotten such an idea.
Then a face appeared on the television screen. A familiar, wicked face.
"Well, Lulu merry Christmas," the Wicked Witch of West Texas said with a smirk.
"This is the worst thing you've ever done," Lulu yelled.
"Thank you. I was hoping you'd like it." The Witch smiled, her satisfaction obvious.
"You'd better bring back the presents," Lulu demanded.
"Ahh, Lulu, I see you continue to underestimate my capacity for pure cruelty. I don't have your little presents."
"Yes you do. Who else would?"
"Why Santa, of course."
"He would have left them," Lulu objected. "I was mostly good most of the year and half the time when I wasn't, nobody found out."
"Oh, I agree he'd have left them Lulu. If he could have," the Witch paused to watch Lulu grow even more confused. Then, "Waaaa, haaa, haaaa, haaaaa," she cackled. "You see, Santa didn't leave your presents because he is somewhere near the Andromeda galaxy right now having a lovely spa holiday with the grays."
"You had Santa abducted by aliens?" Lulu asked, letting the sheer evil of the thing sink in. "How could you? Why would you? This is Christmas!"
"No, Lulu, it isn't Christmas," the Witch answered. "I stole Christmas. Literally. You see I used my magical carpet steamer to create a traversible wormhole whereby I was able to move ahead in time and create a warp in the space-time continuum causing the entire world to skip right over December 25th. Today, therefore, is actually the day after Christmas. The good news is that the sales are still on."
"You really have outdone yourself," Lulu commented. "But you still haven't told me why."
"It involves my presidential campaign, of course. I need a running mate to soften the widespread perception that I am wicked, manipulative, phoney, opportunistic and cruel. That's where Santa comes in. People love the merry old elf and are willing to forget almost any wrong-doing when it's wrapped up in a merry populist package. Santa is my secret weapon on the campaign trail."
"Nobody is going to elect a Wicked Witch president."
"I don't see why not. They elected a reanimated flesh puppet with an evil necromancer handler as his running mate. Well, with a little help from some corrupt judges," the Witch pointed out sagely. "I see no reason why a Wicked Witch/Santa ticket wouldn't be just the thing. And I can easily hex the Supreme Court."
"Because Santa will never go along with it, Witch."
"That's where the aliens come in. I guess you don't know how persuasive they can be. By the time the return Santa to me he'll be putty in my very dexterous hands. I will then re-educate him."
"Lulu," Granny called. "Let's get ready to hit the after Christmas sales."
"But we never had Christmas," Lulu answered.
"Don't be argumentative, Lulu. Get dressed so we can stock up on wrapping paper at 75% off."
Lulu looked back at the television screen which was, once again, dark.
Lulu knew she had to do something, but WHAT? She had to stop the Texas Witch or things would never be the same. The Witch would stop at nothing to increase her power. The consitution would be turned into so much litter and civil liberties would be a vague memory. No Texas Witch could be trusted with that kind of power. Something about the whole scenario did seem creepily familiar, but she had no time to contemplate it. This was a moment for action. She sat down to think.
Then she had it. She took off her Magical Ruby Witch Repelling Bling Ring and set it down. Then she yelled, "That stupid Witch can't get me." No sooner had she made her risky pronouncement than there was a pop and a hiss....
"Well, Lulu" the Witch said, with an evil smile, "I see you finally understand the inevitability of my ascension to power. Your choice to join me before the Caucus Race is very wise indeed."
"What IS a Caucus-race?" said Lulu; not that she wanted much to know, but the Witch had paused as if she thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else was there to say anything.
"It's a race in which everyone runs faster and faster just to keep from standing still," the Witch told her as if it should be obvious.
"But when you're running you can't be standing still," Lulu pointed out.
"Oh never mind that. Right now we have to get to work on project WW Ultra. We're going to pass out comfits with a mind control curse just before the voting. Come on." With that the Witch waved her wand and zapped them all the way to Sugarland Not-Texas.
"Here is your box of mind control comfits, Lulu. Just be careful not to eat any of them no matter how delicious they may appear, or what people tell you they taste like." The Witch handed her a tin of comfits. "They've been treated with a special extract of pure dumbness that I developed while working with the CIA. Just make sure you don't open them until I tell you."
"What DO they taste like?" Lulu enquired.
"Turkish Delight of course," the Witch answered. Lulu had no idea what Turkish Delight was or how it tasted but she was afraid to ask the Witch any more questions for fear of ruining what seemed to be a fairly good mood. Good moods are rare enough for a person who's first name is Wicked without children asking too many questions, Lulu thought. Then she realized that she was engaging in dysfunctional behavior if she let the Wicked Witch's foul wickidity dictate her reaction.
"Turkish Delight doesn't even exist," Lulu sassed, feeling quite proud of herself.
"That's the point," the Witch answered, unfazed.
"So, when is Santa going to return," Lulu asked.
"The aliens should be beaming him down any minute now. Which is why we'd better get back to real Texas, because they can't put him here after he's been brainwashed. He'd simply cease to exist, or the brainwashing would be reversed. I can't be sure which, but either way it wouldn't be good."
Lulu had no idea how she was going to undo Santa's brainwashing and get Christmas back, but she had to try. Then she got an idea. While the Witch was busy counting tins of comfits, Lulu quickly broke the seal on her tin and opened it, closing it again before the Witch saw what she had done. She had no idea whether it would work or not, but it was her only hope.
"Okay, it's time to go. Step up to the carpet steamer and we'll be gone."
Lulu did as she was told and before she knew it they were surrounded by litter. This was obviously the real Texas. She was still trying to get her bearings when there was a whooosh and the UFO appeared above them and beamed Santa down. He looked confused and disoriented.
"Where am I?" Santa asked. His red fur outfit was all disheveled, his beard stringy and his eyes strangely vacant.
"Well, I'm glad to see you're just in time to prepare for the campaign trail," the Wicked Witch remarked.
"Campaign?" Santa asked.
"Yes, now you just hand out candy and keep saying that as soon as we're elected there will be a new SUV in every driveway," the Witch instructed him. "They just want freebees and that's your gig, so make it good. Now let's hear a "ho-ho-ho" and make it merry."
"Ho, ho, ho," Santa answered in a tone too flat to convey merriness, but the Witch didn't notice, unaccustomed as she was to merriness.
"Have a comfit," Lulu said holding the box up to Santa. The Witch was busy handing out tins of comfits to her troop of flying chupacabras and took no notice.
Santa looked at the comfits like he wasn't sure what they were.
"Come on, Santa," Lulu urged him. "They're very tasty."
He took one and placed it on his tongue. The moment he did the expression on his face changed. He looked at the Witch, then at Lulu. Opening the comfits in Sugarland had worked. Santa was coming out of his stupefaction. You see, Lulu had correctly reasoned that if she opened the comfits in Sugarland, a which is an alternate universe anti-Texas, the curse on the comfits would be reversed to it's exact opposite.
He smiled at Lulu with an unmistakable twinkle in his eye and placing his pinkies in his mouth he produced a loud whistle.
The Witch turned a look of shock on her face as a sleigh, pulled by reindeer appeared in the sky. With a wink and nod up to the sleigh he arose. Lulu heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight, "Merry Christmas to all."
"What happened?" the Witch demanded.
"I wouldn't know," Lulu answered.
"My plan, my beautiful plan. My comfits don't work..."
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