Displaced

My friend Molly teaches first grade and got a handmade Christmas card from one of her kids. She produced it the other night and I almost got a cramp I was laughing so hard.

There’s a Christmas tree at the bottom and several oddly shaped gifts floating around it. Across the top, the child tried to write the message, “Happy Holidays Molly,” but a couple of things went wrong.

First, he ran out of space for the first two words on the top line, so “holidays” breaks at the “s”, leaving

HAPPY HOLIDAY
SMOLLY

He also used a yellow crayon on yellow paper for his “h”s, so they’re pretty much invisible, reducing the message to

APPY OLIDAY
SMOLLY

Try saying that out loud. Go on. Say it loudly. Pretend you’re Eliza Doolittle. Or a chimney sweep. “‘Appy ‘oliday, Smolly!” You definitely have a cockney accent. I can hear it from over here.

Now that it’s in my head, I can’t stop using it. The message is surprisingly universal: “Smolly”, being no one’s actual name, makes a good all purpose nickname, and it is Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day, and those are still ‘olidays, so you can get some mileage out of it for another day or two. Enjoy. ‘Appy Valentine’s, Smolly!