I believe that what I am currently experiencing is what is known as “withdrawal.” I’m not sweating or trembling yet; but my stomach has been invaded by a mass of imaginary butterflies, and I’ve got a serious case of the munchies. Chips, chocolate, cheese, chalk . . . whatever happens to be in my line of sight when I enter the kitchen.

So I turned on TV, and fell right into a commercial featuring Santa’s reindeer. I don’t know what they were advertising, and it doesn’t matter. What popped into my mind was trying to recall the names of all eight reindeer (nine, with Rudolph) . . . and suddenly I was trying to fit all of their names into the melody of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

You can do that with the Seven Dwarfs, you know. Try it:

“Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Doc and Bashful . . .”

But it doesn’t work with the reindeer — they have one too many, even eliminating poor Rudolph. And even if we cut it back to seven, someone’s name has to be shortened to a single syllable to make it work. The best I could come up with was:

“Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Cupid, Don and Blitzen.”

Sorry, Comet. And Rudolph.

*. *. *

Well, I couldn’t quit there. If I didn’t keep going, the munchies would take over again. So I thought . . . quite illogically . . . what about the planets?

Planets? Why planets?

Damned if I know. But there they were, orbiting what was left of my brain, crying out to become lyrics to a tune from a kids’ movie. And here they are . . . more or less . . . in whatever key works for you:

“Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Earth, Mars and Merc’ry.”

Yes, I know — I yanked a syllable from Mercury, but it’s still recognizable. And I had to eliminate Uranus’ three syllables altogether, which I figured would be okay since the name just makes kids giggle anyway. It’s the best I could do.

Next up: the Von Trapp children from Sound of Music. Wish me luck.

But first, a snack.

Brendochka
11/22/24