On Christmas morning when I was little, I'd wake up and run downstairs to the living room. Since I was a very spoiled only child, there were literally several dozen presents in the general vicinity of the tree just for me. It was a well-known fact that these presents were from Mommy and Daddy. Nope, Santa never left me presents under or around the tree. He left a single present--one!--on the bar in the kitchen beside the cookies I set out for him. That one present was always unwrapped. The lazy jerk wouldn't even eat my cookies. Every year he would take a single bite out of a single cookie.
In first grade, kids at my lunch table told me Santa wasn't real. I was devastated. I went home and cried so hard that my parents decided not to tell me the truth. Despite their assurances that Santa was in fact real, I wasn't convinced. I wanted proof. That Christmas, beside the cookies, I left a note for Santa that would, I thought, prove his existence:
X________________________"
The next morning, I ran downstairs and bypassed the mountain of presents in the living room. I headed straight for the kitchen. I saw Santa's single present. I saw the single bite in one cookie. I looked at the note. The bastard hadn't signed it.
