The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Today, for fun, I walked around town dressed as Santa. Kids stared. Adults laughed. Drivers honked their horns. I waved at people and yelled, "Merry Christmas". People waved back.

A man stopped me. He had two kids, aged around four and six.

"My daughters have their Christmas lists, can they give them to you?" he said.

"Sure," I said.

I took their Christmas lists and read them. The oldest girl wanted a gymnastics bar, peace on earth, and a hula hoop. The youngest girl wanted a gymnastics bar and something called a ballooble, whatever that is.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, tucking the lists into my pocket, knowing full well that peace on earth was a bit of a stretch, even for Santa. "Well, I need to go back to the North Pole and check on the elves."

"Thanks, Santa," said the dad. "Say goodbye, girls"

The streets were packed with last-minute Christmas shoppers. I began to feel self-conscious, wandering around the crowded streets in my Santa costume while everyone else was dressed in coats, scarfs, and woooly hats. Luckily I found a couple of kids from 6-year-old's class and their parents, so I hung around with them for a while, even though I suspected the parents thought I was weird. One of the moms looked over and saw her six-year-old daughter standing next to my crotch. She was adjusting my Santa trousers to stop them slipping down.

"Isolda, get away from him," she said.

Some kids came up to me, thinking I was the real Santa. I was about to stoop down to talk to them when a man cut in from the side and asked me, "Do you know what I want for Christmas?"

"No," I said.

"An NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU."

"Oh," I said as if I knew what an NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU was.

"You can use it to train deep neural networks and simulate quantum chemistry calculations."

"Right."

"And you can use them for molecular dynamics simulations, climate modeling, computational fluid dynamics."

"I see."

As he was talking, two little kids were staring up at me, hoping for a moment to talk to me.

"And do you know how much it costs?" he said.

"No."

He paused. Then he said, in a whisper: "€10,000."

He waited for my response, expecting me to be impressed.

When I said nothing, he said, "Well okay then," and left.

There was a brass band playing. I danced around in my Santa costume in front of the crowd. Finally, I decided to head home. On the way home, I was passing a bar and when I heard a shout of "Hey Santa! Where's my present?"

It was a man standing outside a bar. He was vaping from an electronic pipe.

"It's still too early for presents," I said. "You have to wait until Christmas Eve."

"Oh man, how can you be Santa without any presents?"

I shrugged.

"So where are you from, man?"

"The North Pole," I said.

"No, but where are you really from?"

"I told you, the North Pole."

"Ha ha ha, you're a crazy guy. So are you doing this for money or something?"

"No. Just getting some relaxation in before the big day tomorrow, when I have to deliver the presents."

"Oh, okay, I see. So hey, do you know where I can buy some cocaine?" he said.

"In Girona? No. I'd just buy it on the internet."

"The internet? I'm not buying drugs on the Internet. Hey, by the way, you want to buy some drugs? I have everything except cocaine. I got weed, ecstasy, PCP, LSD...

"How much for ecstasy?" I said. As I said this, some kids walked past with their parents. I waved and gave a merry, "Ho ho ho!" as they walked past.

"Sixty euros," said the man.

"I only have ten euros on me."

"Dude I can't sell you ten euros worth of ecstasy. It'd be like giving drugs away for free!"

"Okay. Well, I'd better go, the elves are waiting for me."

"Wait, so before you go, where are you really from?"

"I told you, the North Pole."

"Well okay, crazy guy. Merry Christmas."

I was almost home when two teenage girls approached me at a zebra crossing.

"Santa! Can we get a photo?"

"Sure," I said.

The girls stood on either side of me and took a selfie.

"We love your costume," said one of the girls.

"Thanks," I said. "Have you been a good girl this year?"

She giggled. "Oh, I've been a very good girl this year."

I turned to the other teenage girl. "And what about you, have you been a good girl this year?"

"Of course I have, Santa."

If I were anything resembling a real man, I would have gone with them to their apartment and ejaculated into their orifices using my copulation organ. But I'm not a real man, so I said goodbye and turned to leave.

"Wait!" said one of the girls. "Is your beard real?"

"Of course it's real," I said. "I'm a hundred years old!"

The girls giggled as I walked away.

By the time I got home, it was late. Girlfriend was putting the kids to bed. I walked in and said, "Merry Christmas!"

"Where have you been?" said Girlfriend.

"I've been walking around outside dressed like Santa."

"Why have you been doing that when you were supposed to be home to help with dinner?"

I didn't have an answer for that.

"Sorry," I said.

1-year-old looked at me and said, "Santa!"

I took off my hat and beard. "No, it's me. Daddy!"

"Paul," he said. He always calls me Paul instead of Daddy for some reason.

Anyway, I put the Santa costume away. Until next year.