December 2025 – mydangblog

I got an early Christmas present this year by way of an acceptance for my novella, Nomads of the Modern Wasteland by Running Wild Press, which was awesome. Almost as awesome as having a monkey butler…

Right before my birthday, I got a very cryptic email from my mother. The subject line was “VW”, and the text of the message said this:

“Hi Honey: Bought you a present today to do with the above (hint) his first name is Ralph. See you soon. Love, Mom xxx”

I pondered for quite a while, and came up empty. I asked Ken, “What do you think this means?” and he replied, “Maybe some kind of stuffed animal?” And I was doubtful at first, but then I had an epiphany that maybe it WAS an animal but not the stuffed kind, and I wrote back this:

“Is it a monkey butler?! I’ve always wanted one of those! Also, there was nothing above except the initials V. W. Is my monkey butler’s name Ralph Van Wooster? Can’t wait to find out! Love you:-)”

I was super-pumped, and waited for a while to get a confirmation. And waited. And waited. But my mother didn’t reply back, and I got worried. There were several possible reasons why I had yet to receive a loving message about how clever I was to have surmised that my present was a simian man-servant:

1) My mother was mad that I guessed her riddle and spoiled the surprise. I could see her reading the email, and then saying to my dad in a low whisper, “How does she always know? Well, let her stew, the smartass.”

2) My mother had actually bought me a Volkswagen, and didn’t know how to let me down gently. I have to say though, Mom, that a VW named Ralph would have been almost as cool as a monkey butler, but only if it was a Beetle.

3) Someone had hacked my mom’s email, and I would eventually learn that in “exchange” for the present, I would have to send $5 000 in iTune gift cards to a Nigerian prince named Ralph Varem Wabara who’s being held captive on the International Space Station by Chris Hadley (a Canadian criminal mastermind/astronaut).

4) My mother didn’t know what a monkey butler was, and my email befuddled her, so much so that she didn’t know what to say in return. I could see her reading the email and then saying to my dad in a low whisper, “What is she on about now? I can’t even dignify this with a reply. It’s your fault she’s so weird,” and then my dad would say, “Och! Yer aff yer heid, woman!”

Number 1, of course, was the most likely scenario, so I spent the next few days feeling a little guilty for being so clever. Then my parents came by the house to drop off my gift. I had read extensively on the topic of how to train a monkey butler, and I had the guest room prepared as per the instructions I found on a weird website which was exclusively devoted to the topic of “How to Train Your Monkey Butler”—it contains pearls of grammatically incorrect wisdom like “When you have your monkey butler serve a person let him take his time and serve one person at a time so he doesn’t get confused and start to get angry, a confused angry monkey is no fun for anyone.” I heartily agree and highly recommend this advice to anyone who might find themselves in my position.

Then Mom and Dad arrived, and I was a little concerned when I saw them coming down the walk “sans simian”. What a letdown. But when they came in the house, my mother presented me with a CD of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who, aside from Trent Florence Welch, Reznor, Maynard James Keenan, and Dave Grohl, is one of my favourite composers, and that really softened the monkey butler blow because the other night, Ken had tried to lull me to sleep by playing “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” only he had to find it on YouTube first, then he put his iPad directly on my ear so that the music wouldn’t drown out The Weather Channel, which he was watching fanatically as one does. It wasn’t very lulling and more just annoying, although he meant well. Now I can play that, and “Lark Ascending”, any time I want. But I was still curious:

Me: Why didn’t you answer my email? I thought you were mad.
Mom: Your email? You mean the one about the monkey butler? I would have, but I don’t know what a monkey butler is.
Me: It’s a monkey that’s a butler.
Mom: Would you really want one of those? Wouldn’t it be a lot of work to train it?
Me: Yeah. You’re probably right.

And then I realized that every time I had pictured Ralph Van Wooster in my head, he was actually wearing a bellhop uniform, and not a bespoke tuxedo, so it’s probably good that I wasn’t put in charge of training him, because then he would insist on carrying everyone’s bags instead of serving drinks.

Me: I don’t think a monkey would make a good butler.
Ken: Um, what?
Me: It would be hard to train him. I can’t even get Atlas to play dead—he only plays “wounded”.
Ken: You have to make it submit. You know, like “Shock the Monkey”.
Me: If you think the best way to train a monkey is to shock him, then you don’t deserve a monkey butler. Besides, I thought that song was about a guy who pleasured himself in a sudden and rather violent way.
Ken: Um, what?
Me: Like Spank the Monkey, only–never mind. (whispers) You know I’ll have to make this whole conversation up when I write about it. Forget about training a monkey butler—I need to train YOU to be a better “humorous foil”.

At the end of the day, I didn’t get a monkey butler. But I DID get an awesome CD, AND a publishing contract, so it’s still been a pretty great couple of weeks!!

It all started earlier in the week when Ken and I were at a local holiday banquet. Ken was tasked with creating a ‘fun’ trivia quiz, and I wasn’t allowed to know anything about it so that I wouldn’t have a leg up on everyone else because I’m very good at trivia–my mind is like if a jukebox had a baby with an encyclopedia and they all had OCD, and also, the jukebox NEVER STOPS PLAYING. At any rate, one of the trivia questions was about Good King Wenceslas from the Christmas Carol.

What year was King Wenceslas born?

640 BCE
907 CE
1595 CE
1853 CE

So I said 1595, since none of the other answers made sense, but the correct answer was 907, and I was confused because they didn’t have saints before, like, the late 900s AD or something, being as there was no Christianity before 0 AD or whatnot, but then Ken pointed out that I had misread the question, that it was his birthdate, not when the song was written, and that CE was the same as AD, but that AD was a religious term and Common Era wasn’t so it was better to use ‘CE’, and then I POINTED OUT that AD is the common vernacular, and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, KEN. Anyway, my partner Cathy and I did really well on the trivia, despite the dating debacle. And the wine.

Then, the next day, we were talking about it and I remembered why Good King Wenceslas ranks up there with the most stupid carols. Let me break it down for you:

“Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen”

So he has nothing better to do during a feast but look out the window? Shouldn’t he be hosting the banquet that HE organized?

“When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel”

That’s some heavy foreshadowing right there. Best to stay inside where it’s warm, but no…

“When a poor man came in sight
Gath’ring winter fuel”

Why wasn’t he invited to the feast? Is it because he’s poor? So classist.

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou knows be telling:
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”

So he just assumes that his servant knows every single peasant? Even more classist. Also, it’s like the way people conceive of Canadians: “Oh, you’re from Canada? Do you know Bob from Kamloops?” Narrator’s Voice: She does. Just like the page, because plot twist…

“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain”

And those are some VERY specific coordinates. Like maybe he’s been there before, probably when the weather wasn’t so shitty, maybe for a barbeque…

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear them thither”

Seriously? We’ve already established that ‘the frost was cruel’ and now we’re going traipsing out in the middle of the night into a blizzard to give a guy, who already HAS WOOD, some MORE WOOD, as well as some FLESH? You couldn’t wait until the morning? So impetuous. Also, who’s carrying all the flesh and wine 3 miles through the snow? I bet you dollars to donuts that it ISN’T Wenceslas.

And then of course, you know the rest. The page almost dies of hypothermia, the king is like ‘Oh, just walk in my footsteps and you’ll be fine, and by the way, don’t drop the flesh and wood,” and we never find out if they get to the peasant’s house.

Me (driving): I’ve never understood the popularity of a song about some sundowning old guy deciding to wander off into a snow storm during a banquet that HE organized and almost killing his page.
Ken (on his phone):It says here that the feast of Stephen isn’t an actual feast. It’s Saint’s Stephen’s day, December 26th.
Me: Yes, I’m aware, KEN. That was just for comic effect.
Ken: It also says here that he wasn’t an old guy. Wenceslas was only 28 when he died.
Me: Only TWENTY-EIGHT?! Well, now it make sense. He wasn’t trying to be charitable—he thought the peasant was getting ready for a party and he wanted to horn in on the action. He was just lonely, and the flesh and wood were weird-ass hostess gifts. He and the page were probably already drunk and like, “Dude, it’s so BORING here in the castle–isn’t this supposed to be a feast day? Let’s find a peasant we can hang with. Don’t worry about your coat—it’s only a couple of miles. If you get cold, you can just…I dunno…walk in my footsteps,” and the page was like, “Cool. Maybe it’s a barbeque.”
Ken: Wenceslas was murdered by his brother.
Me: Honestly? Not surprising.