Morris the Forgotten Reindeer

Oh, there’s Comet and Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, Dancer and Dasher, Prancer and Vixen, but do you recall, the most famous reindeer of all, Oh, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer…yada yada yada. Yep, that song made Rudolph very famous, not to mention a lot of money for Gene Autry.

Well, in a word, it's unfair! Unfair, unfair, oh how unfair it is! As a matter of fact, it is discrimination of the worst kind. D-I-S-C-R-I-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N! You ask what kind of discrimination? Ha! Easy for you to say! But, I say, you and everyone else think there are only 8 original reindeer plus that interloper, uh, Roudolph, Rudolph, Randolph, oh, whatever! But there were ten. That's right, count'um. T-I-N! Have you ever heard of Morris? No, not the finicky cat, I mean Morris the forgotten reindeer. Now, I know what you're thinking, “I never heard of Morris the Reindeer.” I rest my case! You see, he's been forgotten. Nobody remembers him. Put out to pasture and do you know how much pasture there is at the North Pole? Very little, there is only one clump of grass on the whole forty acres. That’s not the worst. Nobody comes to see him. Santa doesn’t come to see him even once a year!

You talk about not letting the red-nose what's-what’s-his-name join in the reindeer games; Morris wasn't even allowed to watch the games. He just lay down on his little pom-poms and cried himself to sleep…every night. So there you have the sad story. Put out to pasture in his prime with only one clump of grass in that North Pole pasture. He just stands there all day on that clump of grass. Ain't it sad? Don't your heart just break over poor ole Morris? Poor, poor Morris cold and forgotten.

You might ask why is Morris forgotten? What caused the fat man to put him out to pasture? Was he old and decrepit, used up and on Social Security? Oh, no, he was in his prime, but discriminated against. For the first time, here’s his story.

I though it was kind of picky for Santa to blame the crash on him. Raised from a fawn, his mother had groomed him for stardom. She would tell him, “Morris, you’re different from the other reindeer. You’re special.” And he was special, he had narcolepsy. Yep, be standing there and just go slap-dap to sleep. Once went to sleep in full gallop; he was five miles away before he woke up.

Well, they managed to keep the narcolepsy quiet and one day, Santa chose him to be the lead reindeer because he was big and strong. He did well till somewhere over south Chicago. In full flight he went dead asleep. Dropped like a rock right out of formation and fell 10-15 feet before the reigns stopped his fall. Jerked them other eight reindeer up into close formation and snatched Santa right out over the front of the sleigh and onto the back of a startled Dancer and Prancer.

They started to hollering at Morris, but he was sound asleep, just a swinging to and fro on those reigns under the other reindeer. It was a bad time for this to happen, cause when he fell, it caused the trajectory of the sleigh to dip in a downward path.

It seems there was this poor devil, John Leroy Brown, late as usual, putting up his outside lights on his housetop. He must have had a thousand feet of electric wire and lights, when the sleigh came roaring over his house and Morris struck him just as he was bending over to gather up these wires in both hand.

At this point, things get a little hazy, because we’re not exactly sure what happened or in what sequence. But as Morris hit Mr. Brown, he was propelled over his chimney and caught his belt on the tip of a rather tall TV antenna. The antenna began to bend and twist and it was like a catapult that shot Mr. Brown over three houses where he struck an electric utility pole. All those Christmas lights and wires he had in his hands wrapped around that pole tying him to it, but one end of the wire managed to hang in Morris’ harness which pulled the pole down blacking out all of south Chicago all the way over to Michigan.

That was terrible, but what was worse was the one wire that hung in Morris’ harness. It caused Santa’s sleigh to be pulled down and crashed through the upstairs window of the Rabbi Goldstein’s house. Oh, that was a sticky diplomatic situation for Santa with a sleigh loaded with all those Christmas presents? He couldn’t ask the Rabbi for help with Christmas presents!

They considered putting helium balloons under Morris’ tummy, but Santa said that wouldn't be good for his image having one of his reindeer propped up with helium balloons. So he was put out to pasture.

But, there is one thing you can do to help Morris. He gets so lonely this time of the year, so write him a letter letting him know that you’re thinking about him this Christmas. Just address it to Morris the Forgotten, c/o Santa at the North Pole.