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I have a best friend called Peter, he's a sales rep within the printing industry. He meets a lot of people and is an unusual and interesting personality, part of which is that he often ventures into the difficult to believe realm. He's full of shit, usually, but sometimes he's right and these are the times that give him any credibility at all. Anyway, he told me a thing that, quite frankly, I find difficult to believe. His source is the guy he shares his office with, who in turn has a friend who supposedly works for the Star Force, Adelaide's "elite" police trained to deal with terrorism and hostage situations and stuff like that. I guess it's possible that Peter's office mate does know such a person. The story has many factual elements to it and relates to the Adelaide Christmas Pageant which was held last Saturday morning. Two or three weeks ago there was a story in the news about some guy who was going around town, dropping his wallet at peoples feet and, as he bent down to pick it up, whispering "don't go to the pageant" and then mysteriously walking away. The police chief even went on tv telling people that this story was an urban myth and had cropped up numerous times about various events worldwide since "Sept 11" and that we should all ignore it. Well nobody crashed any aircraft into the procession but there was controversy all the same.
It was quite a hot day on Saturday but all of the floats made their way through the city streets and then, at the end, came the final float bearing Santa himself on his way to the magic cave at the sponsoring department store. This last float, however, didn't get off the starting grid before Santa slumped in his throne and started to fall off. People panicked, commentators speculated that he might have actually been shot, the rumours had come true. He was lifted down and sped away in an ambulance. He'd fainted, possible heat exhaustion. All rather disconcerting for the kiddies I imagine. Lots of delay announcements that Santa was running half an hour late behind the rest of the pageant. All of this, so far, is true. Where Peter's story kicks in is that the Star Force officer said that the reason Santa was so hot was that under his suit he was wearing a flak jacket - and that all of the elves walking alongside the float were Star Force officers with guns under their costumes. Then, apparently, one of the Star Force officers had to don the Santa suit (wearing dark sunglasses for some reason) and the float bearing him sped hastily through the streets, past the waving kiddies and, at the end, Santa literally ran along the walkway into the store.
I thought it made a pretty funny story even without that last bit but, if it's true, then it's an excellent story indeed, I think. |
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