Santa Claus

This can be a very confusing time of the year in a bike shop . Not only are you trying to keep track of all of the kiddies bikes which are being put on lay-away but you must also be able to speedily decipher each individual parents version of the Santa System .

Early on Saturday morning , a mother and son walked into the shop with the Santa look . That is a child with their eyes wide open looking all around the shop trying to decide which bike to make their first beeline for and a nodding and winking parent walking swiftly in behind .

This is where we usually try to head them off with a question which can make the parents life much easier as long as they havn’t concocted some other tale . One favourite is ‘ Are ye in checking the name and size of bike for your letter to Santy ? ‘ This can cover a multitude and we can even write down the name and size on a piece of paper which also happens to be an invoice .

If the parent goes with this format things usually run quiet smoothly and the child is none the wiser . However sometimes we can hit a glitch along the way .

This mother and son were going fine checking the name and size of bike when a classmate of the boy came in with both of his parents . Now these parents came from a different Santa school and had their version out before I could get a word in .

‘Seamus here is in to tell you what bike to tell Santy to bring him !’ said the mother . Being conscious of the other version we had been working through with Seamus’s classmate I answered with ‘ No problem , we can do that I can write the details down for ye to copy onto your letter to Santa ‘

This was where it got confusing . Seamus’s mother replied ‘ No , Santy told us to come in and to tell you what bike he wanted and that you would mind it for Santy’

I acquiesed and decided to just go with the flow of this one and see where it would end up .

‘Of course we can also that ‘ I said hoping that the two boys who were now chatting about school wouldn’t be analysing it too much .

The first mother had by now decided on the bike her son wanted so we completed the transaction nice and smoothly with the son happy to be sending the details on to Santa himself .

Then it was back to Seamus who now wanted to know why Santy was getting us to mind his bike while his friends bike was coming from the north pole . The mother tried to smooth it over by saying that Santy couldn’t fit all of the bikes on his sleigh so he often gets the man in the shop to mind some for him . Seamus didn’t look convinced .

Then as I was writing down the details , the mother asked if we delivered . She had it said before she realised that her son was right beside her . I looked down to see Seamus with a raised eyebrow looking up at me . I tried to brush over it until the father who had been quiet up untill now decided to chime in with ‘ If the child don’t know by now , he’ll never know ‘

I have a feeling that Seamus knows !

Barry

www.thecyclingblog.com