Amanda's Revenge 2008

I always knew it was a mistake to teach Amanda to read. This ability has not only allowed her to unmask clandestine, spelled conversations between parents, but also provided her access to the tawdry world of print, including our annual Christmas letter, in which we have been known to parody the oft humorous circumstances of her life (along with those of the less interesting members of her family). Last year, she took verbal umbrage over fun poked at her expense. This year, she took revenge.

A full text of her unexpergated work is included below. Keep in mind these are the thoughts of a nine year old -- the same nine year old who is wont to sit down at her desk and crank out fifteen, double-sided, letter size pages (complete with dialogue) on the fictional adventures of her friends, family, and/or Scooby Doo.

Seems it's time for the real writer in the family to stand up and be heard.

Dear Dad,
This year I am going to write YOU a Christmas letter and get revenge. Now let’s talk hair. You really don’t need that stuff anyway. Now you know, some bald men are very attractive to women that have just got out of jail or are mentally confused , but your lucky you got mom because you would have NEVER stand a chance. Christmas is the subject, so let’s get to it. This year your spending your Christmas Eve down stairs, because one, you have so much work to do that you can’t even move your butt upstairs and two, moms horrible snoring keeps you up all night so you go down there to sleep. Then you sleep late. (good job mom). From sleeping down stairs you say you got a sinus infection. Well I say you have it because you take TOO MANY VITAMINS! What about all those pills! You take so many of those that you could turn into one. (moms says that you are already one and not me). Allyson feels super bad about the whole thing, sort of , kind of, not really, nope, sorry and my favorite-man falling off of a cliff,Nooooooooooooooooo boom. Well that raps up this master piece. So, next year, Christmas time and see ya! Oh! Almost forgot that this MASTER PIECE is written(typed) by


AMANDA!!!

P.S. you don’t stand a chance to me next year!

2008 Layne Family Christmas Letter

It seems like yesterday we sat gazing upon the carnage of last Christmas, listening to the kids squeal with delight as they played amongst the heaps of boxes, bows, and diabolically impossible to open packaging, having lost interest in the contents of said parcels long before breakfast.

The Layne family spent the past year working to reduce their carbon footprint, while simultaneously increasing their Hannah Montana footprint, having spent close to the gross national product of Ecuador on every licensed Hannah Montana product in existence including HM cereal, underwear, toilet paper, floor wax, and motor oil – not to mention advance booking a week long stay in the yet-to-be-constructed Best of Both Worlds Resort at Disney World where every guest will be greeted with a blond wig upon arrival. Mark is looking forward to spending his first week since high school with hair.

Of the more significant events of 2008 was our temporary acquisition of a six week old Wheaton Terror named Daisy. The product of two years of incessant begging and whining on the part of Amanda, Daisy was with us for ten remarkable days during which she taught us all the meaning of the word “animal.” No one will ever forget returning home that first night after Daisy’s departure to a quiet, virtually excrement-free house.

In other scatological news, Karen tricked Mark into briefly joining a bowling league. An accomplished bowler herself, Karen felt compelled to explore her inner cheese head. Conversely Mark is to bowling as what cataracts are to a neurosurgeon. His sole contribution to the effort was to give his team a name – Bowl Movement – and, as it turns out, its identity.

Not unlike the intrepid American pioneers who braved harsh conditions and an unforgiving land to expand the frontiers of this great country, the Laynes piled into their air conditioned, video-screen-equipped minivan this past July and fought their way west to the renowned Black Hills of South Dakota. There they celebrated the birth of our nation beneath the mocking gaze of our forefathers who stand in proud, silent testament to the subjugation of native peoples and the desecration of their most sacred places. Afterward, they went out for ice cream. Much like National Lampoon’s Vacation, the kids most enjoyed the free dinosaur park, fighting at Wall Drug, and the ice-cold, insect-encrusted pit that passed for the resort swimming pool.

In September, Allyson began kindergarten. As with all things, she approached the experience with grave determination and sobriety. At Amanda’s urging to loosen up and have some fun, Ally cautiously abandoned her place in line to join the rest of her class on the playground, and promptly broke her right arm. The first ensuing days were pure anguish as Karen, Mark, and a team of psychiatrists worked round the clock to comfort and console their agonizing daughter. Amanda eventually recovered, able to accept the accident wasn’t her fault. Ally never skipped a beat, quickly adapting to her one-armed existence, rather enjoying her new fiberglass appendage and the damage it could inflict upon her sister.

Amanda continues to be the gasoline to Allyson’s fire. Earlier this year, Allyson began channeling deceased actor and comedian, Sam Kinneson, responding to requests such as get dressed, brush your teeth, get out of the street, and stop gouging your sister’s eye, with a resounding, “Ah-h-h! Ah-h-h-h-h!” In sporting news, Ally was fortunate to have her father co-coach her U6 soccer team (team motto: Come for the Game, Stay for the Snack). Mark was able to impart unto the team his wealth of soccer knowledge including useful tips on “kicking,” “passing,” how to achieve a “first down” and successful implementation of the “Tampa Bay Cover 2 Defense.” They didn’t win many games, but all enjoyed the camaraderie and tackling drills. When not practicing her penmanship – which she does indiscriminately, tagging the Layne household like a New York City subway platform – Ally continues to enjoy her after school opera lessons.

Amanda was invited to join a competitive dance team which has the family traveling to far off venues to watch her perform a hip-hop number featuring a complex series of twists, kicks, gyrations and twirls. When not competing, Amanda practices – incessantly wherever she happens to be, causing passers-by to stop, afraid she is having a seizure. The teachers at Amanda’s school are working hard to keep Amanda challenged. Next year she will be teaching eighth grade. Outside of dancing, Amanda enjoys finding new ways to make her sister cry, watching age-inappropriate television programs, and writing – her latest project translating classical literature into Sanskrit.

The extended Layne family gathered in Door County, WI, this year for Thanksgiving (since all the nearby indoor pools were booked). Still stinging from the turkey tar tare incident of several years previous, the group opted for the restaurant buffet. It was good to see Leslie and Jayson; the girls enjoyed having their cousin there to fight with.

Not much different in the lives of K & M. Karen spends her free time perfecting a whole-house Febreeze system (similar to a restaurant fire suppression system), while Mark continues his job as a high priced call girl.

In keeping with last year’s theme, as Aristotle once observed, “Melancholy men, of all others, are the most witty.”


Merry Christmas to All, and to All Good Grief,

Good Eats at Zoo

BROOKFIELD, IL – Dusti the giraffe is dead.

In a sad but true story, the eleven year fixture of the Chicago Zoological Park located in Brookfield, Illinois, somehow hanged himself in the ropes and rigging used to suspend baskets of food at mouth-height inside his enclosure.

Perhaps more troubling than the leggy creature’s demise, however, is the reaction of zoo staff to this unfortunate event.

My initial thoughts upon hearing this tragic news were, “Do you think it was a suicide?” and then, “Wonder what they’ll do with the meat?”

In his article, “Giraffe Recipes Reshelved Over Lack of Ingredients,” Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass posed just such a question to horrified zoo employees who expressed outrage at what they considered an impertinent – nay, sacrilegious question – as if John had suggested they were all baby-stealing, cat-torturing gypsies.

I don’t get it. If 3,000 pounds of choice meat fell out of the sky onto my dinner table, I’d mutter a quick prayer of thanks, then fire up the grill.

Say, for instance, a prize Angus steer wandered into your yard and died of a heart attack (no doubt from eating too much red meat). The last thing I would be inclined to do is tie it to my lawn tractor and drag it to the curb for garbage day. Angus beef? That’s good eatin’. And while
I don’t know whether giraffe meat is fit for the human palate, I must imagine any of the zoo’s many carnivores would find its tasty goodness reminiscent of home on the range.

Yet the zoo, a not-for-profit institution which relies heavily on charitable contributions, public patronage, and sales of $4.00 boxes of popcorn, to support its research, sought fit to cremate Dusti rather than do him the dishonor of returning him to “the circle of life” (quoting a bit of Disney dime-store philosophy), thereby reducing his existence to nothing more than fertilizer for next summer’s butterfly garden.

Shame on you, Brookfield Zoo! Since when did zoo animals become pets? And why is it suddenly more about the feelings of the milk-toast, overly sentimental zoo staff than the enrichment of the zoo’s paying customers? Last I checked, the zoo was a place where local folk could come to experience glimpses of life in other parts of the world – to learn about exotic creatures and distant habitats – without ever leaving the quaint confines of Cook County. Take away the patrons, and what is a zoo but Riker’s Island for animals?

Yet here we are, crying alongside the poor zoo workers whose pet giraffe just died. Never mind that Dusti could have fed all of the zoo’s meat eaters for at least one day, thereby ensuring he didn’t die stupidly and without purpose.

Somebody needs to consider the welfare of the animals. You think the animals – especially the big predators – want to lie around all day in a tiny enclosure waiting for someone to toss them a chunk of horse meat? Hell no! They want to roam, hunt, mate – all those things animals do when their kids aren’t watching.

I offer proof of this claim by way of an anecdote from my own experience. Before we had kids, my wife and I lived in Brookfield. Owing to convenience, we used to visit the zoo regularly. One fall day we were standing at the viewing window outside the lion enclosure watching a male lion sleeping against the glass. Just then, a slight, three or four year old girl walked up with her mother and pushed her way to the front. Realizing a one inch tempered pane was all that separated her from the king of beasts, she retreated to her mother’s leg.

“Does he bite, Mommy?” she asked.

A zoo veteran, wise in the ways of all deadly creatures, I interjected, in my most avuncular, condescending, know-it-all manner, that the animal had been in captivity so long, it was probably tame as a house cat.

No sooner had the words left my pursed lips when a Canada Goose perched high on the enclosure’s rocky back wall, made an ill-conceived decision to glide down from its safe roost into the center of the enclosure where lay a chunk of soft pretzel tossed by a misinformed onlooker who believed he was at the seagull exhibit.

Before the foundering foul’s second foot lit upon the ground, the comatose lion had sprung to life, closed the twenty or so feet between the window and the center of the enclosure in a single bound, and swiped the landing bird from the air, and dragged its now limp form into his cave.

As the folks on the open side of the enclosure cheered the gander’s demise with rousing applause, I looked down at the terrified little girl and said, “Don’t believe everything grownups tell you.”

Though shocking, I was intrigued by the spectacle.

It seems we’ve become a society of special- interest-touting activists. Animal rights. Children’s rights. Convicted criminal’s rights. Vegetable’s rights. You can hardly do anything nowadays without offending someone, somewhere.

That being said, would it be so bad to add a little circus to the zoo? For example, what would be the harm in turning a few tigers loose in the Okapi enclosure, or a boa in the rodent house, or a perhaps a snow leopard in the Children’s Zoo?

Given the popularity of television programs like Wild Discovery, where on any given night you can see a cheetah take down and devour an Ibex in all its gore, I have to believe people would flock to see the same sort of thing live, up-close, and in person.

The US has already been accused of following in the footsteps of the Roman Empire. Why not embrace our destiny and have a little fun in the process? Not only would we be providing an enriching, affirming experience for the animals, but think of all the $4.00 boxes of popcorn they’d sell!

Animals will be animals. It’s not their fault (or ours) they taste good.


© 2008 Mark J. Layne/Layne-Duck Productions, Ltd.