cause there was no mantle on the fireplace. So they bought a very expensive mantle and hired Pete the handyman to install it. Now the look was perfect except for the rest of the room. The couch and stuffed chairs were very comfortable but not much to look at. They were faded and the couch had the hole the dog had chewed in one of the cushions. So they gave the couch and chairs away on free cycle and bought the most beautiful new expensive living room set from American of Appleton. It was so beautiful the old woman cried tears of joy. It was so uncomfortable the old man cried tears of pain.

With the new couch and chairs the old end tables and lamps now had to go. They gave them to Good Will and replaced them with expensive, fragile new end tables and lamps. This meant, of course that the grandkids could no longer play in the living room so they stopped visiting.

That was when they noticed the rug. It was not only faded but had that tear in the corner the dog had made trying to bury a bone and that big spot the dog made by doing what dogs sometimes do when they shouldn’t. So they had the rug removed and a brand new expensive rug installed. That’s when they told their daughter the dog couldn’t visit anymore. This made the daughter very angry and she quit visiting as well. The old woman cried tears of sorrow because now they were all alone.

But it was not over yet. The rug reached the bedroom and made the bedroom carpet look as bad as it was so it too had to be replaced. Then all the bedroom furniture including the really comfortable bed on which their children had been conceived had to go and was replaced by new furniture so beautiful and so uncomfortable it would bring tears to your eyes.

They were just about to start on the study when the friendly bank “ that loves our customers” foreclosed on the mortgage because they couldn’t make the payments anymore. They ended up living in the back of the van on the wrong side of town ( every town has a wrong side) and they both cried , a lot.

Now the moral to this story is if you see a drunken elf run don’t walk in the opposite direction and whatever you do don’t bring him home !