Craig has his son for the weekend and decided to take him on a little father/son bonding drive to check out the neighbourhood’s x-mas lights and the boy is loving it. Naturally, Craig finds a way to ruin the magic.
Alas, the good times are soon replaced by visceral rage as Craig struggles to deal with his son enjoying the handiwork of other men. This is his ex-wife’s new “cool” partner building the boy a cubby house all over again. “These lights ain’t shit, boy, you just wait to see what your old man puts together”.
After dropping his son home, Craig slowly marinates himself in a thick broth of jealousy and bourbon cans leftover from his brother’s 40th. Somewhere between the 5th and 6th can, Craig hatches a plan to become the king of X-Mas light displays.
He’s fully prepared to bankrupt himself as he charges into Bunnings the next day. He loads up his trolley with lights and decorations while hungover chuckling to himself about how he’s going to ram his display so far up his neighbourhood’s arse it’ll feel like a festive colonoscopy, courtesy of Craigo.
After failing to negotiate a discount from the stressed girl at the checkout, Craigo makes somewhat of an arsehole of himself. Ranting, raving, and demanding the 19-year-old seasonal employee tell him how she’d like it if her ex-wife’s new boyfriend has a full illuminated Santa/sled display on the roof of his house?
She doesn’t have the answers Craig seeks. She manages to move the foaming idiot on and Craig loads up his Triton with an unsatisfactory amount of x-mas cheer and heads home to get to work on his display.
After a whole day of work, Craig’s house looks less like a X-Mas wonderland and more like the aftermath in Santa’s workshop after the elves got stuck into a little festive meth. To make matters worse, Craig fell from a ladder spraining his ankle. An unmitigated disaster.
It’s painfully obvious to Craig that he must implement “Plan B”. You see, if your display can’t be better, make your competition’s displays worse. He waits until nightfall and puts his plan into action.
First on his list, is to deal with the lawn display directly across the road from him. It’s been haunting him for days. He draws on inspiration from when he lost his licence drink driving in 2018 and drives his Triton straight over the display at a reasonable speed. Making sure to double back for any surviving cheer.
Next, he drives down the block and decides to rip some low-hanging LED fruit down. He hobbles over and expertly removes some fuses (making sure to chuck them into some bushland for extra dickish points) and then starts ripping down lights in the dead of night.
By the morning, Craig’s ankle is the size of the ever-expanding void in his soul but on the bright side, he’s down thousands of dollars worth of damage and although his house still looks like shit, everyone elses does too.
He spends the rest of the day arguing with people in his local community FB page who posted clear security camera footage of Craig, his Triton, and his grinchy rampage.
Craig, naturally, takes a contrary view saying how do they know it’s him as the guy had a hat on and he doesn’t wear hats. A defence that surely would hold up in court.
Sure, Craig will have a court date coming up but on the bright side, his son showed pity towards him. Which is in the slightly positive spectrum of emotions. It sure beats raw indifference. Merry X-Mas to all.
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