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A Holiday Poem Especially for My Stupid Computer

The column which follows is one which was written a number of years ago. Since then I have received a number of requests to run it again. I have done that in past years and am doing it again this holiday season. I need the time to go shopping.

Do you remember the song, “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”? It highlights the fact that when you are a little kid, it is easy to find presents for which to wish. Not so when one becomes a senior.

Some seniors already have everything they could possibly want. Then there are others, and I include myself in this group, who realize that we will never have everything we would like. What we have done is learn to settle for what we have. Not this holiday season. Today, I want more.

I use a computer when I write, and sometimes I think it is smarter than I am. But there is one feature on the darned thing which has been known to make mistakes — the Spell Check program. When a word can be misspelled so that it becomes a different word, the computer can’t figure out which one is correct.

Take the word “days.” It can be misspelled, “daze.” And the computer can’t tell some daze from other days. This triggered the idea for giving myself the perfect Christmas gift: proving that I am smarter than my computer.

What you are about to read is my version of everyone’s favorite Christmas poem. This variation was written just to fool the spell checker on my computer. Merry Christmas:

‘Twas the knight before Christmas and at the North Poll

Santa was playing his annual roll.

The reindeer were hitched to the front of the slay
Weighting to get there long flight under whey.

The toys, awl in bundles, whir piled two a height
That Santa could barely sea left oar sea rite.

Then, too that ‘round elf inn read soot width white fir

As they readied four take off, a thought did occur.

That hee could sea bettor if his lode whir divided

Width half inn a trailer inn back. He decided

That awl of his elves had two dew sum moor work

Every pick see toy maker, rapper and clerk.

Sew the toys whir reloaded and the gnu slay was hung

Width lites and width holly, and a belle too bee wrung.

Now, Santa was set two fly inn too the knight

When hee stopped the procedure because hee caught cite

Of the slay write behind hymn. Write their width her knitting

Mist the toys and the presence, his misses was sitting.

Rite then Santa said that his rain dear won’t fly

Till his deer wife got out and kissed hymn good buy.

Misses Claws flat refused. She said their was space

Inn the slay, sew she staid rite their inn her place.

Well, Santa was stubborn, just like his good wife

And did what hee mussed two get awn width his life.

He reloaded the toys two the front slay and started

Aweigh awn his trip two make kids happy hearted.

Butt that’s knot the end of this story eye tell

Next day at the poll things did knot go to well.

His wife was their angry and saying, “Next year

I’ll bee going width ewe, my husband, my deer.”

Butt Santa then plotted too knot let that bee

“Know back seated driver,” he said, “Knot four me.”

Hee got rid of the slay that had caused the hole mess

And soled off the holly, the lites and the rest.

Except fore the belle from that second olde slay

He kept that until the next Gnu Years day.

Then hee gave it too Baby Gnu Year, just before

The kid made his debut in Holiday lore.

Sew that is the tail that aye came hear two tell

Of the berth of the Baby Gnu Year and his belle.

Humor columnist Larry Miller is a former television writer who has penned lines for Dick Van Dyke, Ed McMahon, Jack Paar and many others, and for shows including "The Dating Game," "Beat the Clock" and "Petticoat Junction." In 1985, he began his weekly newspaper column on the lighter side of getting older.

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