I could never tell

Our writing prompt this week was "I could never tell". Did two pieces in the end because I couldn't ignore Trump *shudders* So there's a Santa and Trump medley.

**********

I could never tell my kids the truth about Santa. It’d break their little hearts. In our short lives the feeling of wonder should be treasured, protected for as long as possible, like a delicate nestling. Why break the illusion now?  There’s plenty of time for that when they’re grown up.

But what if they see something? A half-awake glimpse in the shadows? And then it hits them, the fat, jolly red-suited man isn’t who they thought he was all along.

No, siree Bob. Underneath that furry crimson costume beats the callous heart of a monster. We’ve all heard the reports. He runs that North Pole factory like a Victorian workhouse. Those queues of elves, spending hours going through security at the start and end of their shifts. They’re nowhere near the Living wage. They don’t have a union. And it’s fair to say the work is pretty seasonal. But does he care? No, he’s ho-ho-ho-ing all the way to the bank.

And what’s the deal with his list? Fine, at least he checks it twice, I respect that kind of attention to detail, but what sort of judging criteria does he use? The whole process is opaque. I mean, there’s no way he can keep tabs on every kid in the world for the whole year. He must operate a spot-check kind of assessment, but that’s notoriously unreliable. He’s opening himself up to a minefield of litigation in the future.

It’s frustrating, seeing the kids idolise this guy, when in reality he embodies everything wrong with the capitalist system: penalising workers to drive down overheads, spewing toxic fumes into the Artic sky, non-dom tax arrangements: taking out, not paying in. Taking, taking, taking, not giving (well apart from all the presents).

But what can I do? Best not to burst the bubble. Till next year at least. I'll ask their Mum to tell them

***********

I couldn’t tell my 6 year old about the election results this morning. It’s always difficult anyway, trying to negotiate rush hour traffic whilst a little person fires questions at you non-stop. What are they talking about? Who’s Donald Trump? Why are they putting him in charge? 

Mainly it was difficult though, because I didn’t have any answers. Why did they elect this man, whose entire campaign was based around division, racism and sexism? How could this happen? But, once the little dude was dropped off and I was on my way to work, it hit me. Maybe the problem isn’t Trump’s racist and sexist views. Maybe the problem is that these views are surprisingly popular. 

In our post-Brexit post-truth age, perched precariously on our little Blue Marble spinning 30 kilometers per second, people reallyseem to care what tiny part of this infinitesimally small orbiting projectile we are all from. The anger of the disenfranchised is directed not at the establishment or institutions which propagate inequality, but at the other little guy, the weak, those in need, those needing shelter. If you’re a hard-working struggling American, who is going to reform the establishment which has so let you down? I guess the first person to spring to mind isn’t a multi-billion dollar property tycoon who has spent his entire life up to this point milking the establishment for all its worth, shitting over the little guy eh? A guy you wouldn't trust with your daughter has been trusted with the nuclear codes. But who knows? It’s probably the fault of them immigrants anyway.