Where in the world is Santa Claus?
Illustration by Killian Goodale-Porter.
Dylan Hostetter, Opinions and Humor Editor
Christmas has always been a time for joy and cheer, but apparently this year it’s also a time for kidnapping.
Who was kidnapped, you ask? None other than Santa Claus himself. Who was hired to find him, you inquire? Yours truly. Where is he, you want to know? Well that’s a dumb question — if I knew, I wouldn’t be looking, would I?
To be fair, it wasn’t the actual Santa. That would be silly. After all, he stays at the North Pole until Christmas Eve, so it would be really hard to kidnap him. The mall Santa that VCU hired, on the other hand, was an easy target.
Apparently the VCU Commons thought it would be a nice end-of-semester morale boost to have a Santa Claus stationed by the ram horns. As soon as he sat down, a line of students was waiting to sit on his lap. Wishing for a professor to magically forget a dozen missing assignments is a little more far-fetched than an iPad, but they made their requests nonetheless.
The next day, though, Santa was missing. In his seat was a poorly-handwritten note that read: “Your Saint Nick has been Saint licked.” I didn’t take kindly to the pun — crime isn’t supposed to be funny. Alongside the message was a crudely drawn arrow pointing downward.
As the campus’ premiere private detective — and it’s only private detective — I was called immediately to join the investigation. The last time I handled a missing persons case, it was for Rodney the Ram. As it turned out, though, he wasn’t actually missing — he was just taking the day off.
My first move was to interrogate one of my trusted sources. Well, trusted isn’t the right word. His name on the streets was Sleepy Simon — that was because he ran the racket that controlled access to the Commons’ new sleep pod.
He had that pod locked down. No student could take a nap in the Commons unless they went through him; they had to trade meal swipes for some shut-eye. As I approached the pod, I found none other than Simon laying in it.
“I guess ‘sleepy’ is more than just a nickname,” I said.
“What’s a good business for unless you can partake yourself?” Simon said. “What brings you here to interrupt my nap?”
“Santa has been kidnapped, and I figure you know something about it.”
“Have you checked the sleigh?” he said with a sly smile.
“Don’t be wise with me or your eyes will be shut, and it won’t be because you’re tired.”
He perked up and got a little more responsive. I’m not above threatening people to get what I need. When you’re a private detective working by yourself, you have to be both “good cop” and “bad cop.” One time when interrogating a perp, I gave him a stick of gum — then I made him swallow it.
After a little more arm-twisting, Sleepy Simon gave me what I wanted.
“Follow the arrow,” he said.
I went back to the scene of the crime, trying to figure out what the arrow could be pointing to. That’s when I noticed it: a small hatch below Santa’s empty chair. I opened it to find a rusty ladder descending down into darkness.
At the ladder’s end was a large, dark room lit by a single hanging lamp. Pasted to its walls were hundreds of posters of Rodney the Ram, and in its center sat Santa, duct taped to a chair. His screams were muffled by a VCU basketball jersey. It was pretty easy to solve the case then and there.
It was then the criminal revealed himself. Out of the darkness stepped Rodney the Ram, or should I say, Kevin. This crime was an inside job, like when I cleaned out my summer internship of all their office supplies. Free pens are free pens, and I never know when I need a fresh box of paperclips.
I had my questions and Rodney had answers. I have found that, given the opportunity, criminals really like to tell you all about their ornate plans. This one time I busted a guy for trying to steal a bike and he proceeded to give me an entire PowerPoint presentation on the state of city transportation.
Rodney thought Santa was stealing his thunder, angry that VCU hadn’t hired him instead. Needless to say, Kevin was no longer allowed to wear the Rodney suit. As a means of making up for his kidnapping, VCU offered the Rodney job to the mall Santa.
He moves a lot slower at basketball games, and his belly sticks out of the suit a bit, but most of the student body doesn’t seem to notice the difference.
Editor’s Note: The characters and events depicted in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
