A Christmas Story Page #3

Yeah. More. That's it. No, stop!

Right there. That's wonderful.

Parker, what is that?

Don't bother me now. Can't you see I'm busy?

Yeah, but what is that?

It's a major award.

A major award?

Shucks, I wouldn't have known that. It looks like a lamp.

It is a lamp, you nincompoop. But it's a major award.

I won it.

Damn, hell, you say you won it?

Yeah.

Mind power, Sweed, mind power.

The entire neighborhood was turned on.

You should see what it looks like from out here!

It could be seen up and down Cleveland Street.

The symbol of the old man's victory.

Yeah, he won that. It's a major award.

Isn't it about time for somebody's favorite radio program?

Holy smokes, it was 6:45.

Only one thing that could've dragged me away...

from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.

Kids, it's Little Orphan Annie time.

Brought to you by rich, chocolaty Ovaltine.

I could still taste it.

Hey, you turned the light off!

I knew I was handing Miss Shields a masterpiece.

Maybe Miss Shields, in her ecstasy, would excuse me from theme writing...

for the rest of my natural life.

You call this a paragraph?

Margins! Margins! "F"!

My life's work down the drain.

A semicolon, you dolt!

A period.

"F"!

Oh, I should weep if I have to read one more "F"!

Ralphie Parker.

The theme I've been waiting for all my life.

Listen to this sentence.

"A Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock...

"and this thing which tells time."

Poetry.

Sheer poetry.

Ralph, an "A+."

My Ralph!

Oh, Ralphie, you've made me proud.

"A+"!

Is there something you want, Ralph?

I'm just turning in my theme.

Well, you can take your seat now.

Take your seat.

Come on, you guys.

Get in the car. Get in the car.

If we don't hurry we're going to miss all the good trees!

My mother was about to make another brilliant maneuver...

in the legendary battle of the lamp.

The epic struggle which followed lives in the folklore of Cleveland Street...

to this very day.

Don't want to waste electricity.

"Don't want to waste electricity."

Come on, Ralphie. Get in the car.

You folks looking for a tree? We got 300 trees.

This is the Christmas tree emporium of the entire Midwest.

Now, you ain't gonna find no better tree than this here tree.

This here tree is built to last.

Ain't no needles coming off this here tree.

Okay. Now here's a tree.

This here is a tree.

That's a little skimpy in the front.

Well, you just put it in the corner.

Haven't you got a big tree?

Hell, this ain't no tree.

Now here's a tree. This here is a tree.

Wait'll the dogs see that one.

Don't you think it's a little large?

Listen, Christmas only comes once a year. Why not?

How much?

I'll knock off $2...

because I can see you're a man who knows his trees.

This isn't one of those trees that all the needles falls off, is it?

No, that's them balsams.

The old man loved bargaining as much as an Arab trader...

and he was twice as shrewd.

You know, Dew Lock just bought one of those brand new...

green plastic trees.

Darn thing looks like it was made out of...

green pipe cleaners.

This is a very nice tree.

I'll throw in some rope and tie it to your car for you.

You got a deal.

Deal.

Damn it. Blow out!

Not again.

Four minutes!

Time me.

Actually, my old man loved it.

He always saw himself in the pits at the Indianapolis Speedway...

in the 500.

My old man's spare tires were actually only tires...

in the academic sense.

They were round. They had once been made of rubber.

Ralphie, why don't you go help your father?

Really? Can I?

Yes.

Watch the traffic, there.

Okay.

It was the first time that it had been suggested that...

I go help my father with anything.

What are you doing here?

Mom says I should help.

Okay, sit down here. Squat down.

Yeah, that's it.

Here. Hold this.

No, not that way. Come on, rat trap, hold it like this.

How?

Like this.

I want to put the nuts in it. There we are.

There's four of them. And we got it!

There it is.

That son of a gun. I'm gonna get that dirty...

There we go.

For one brief moment I saw all the bolts silhouetted...

against the lights of the traffic. And then they were gone.

Oh, fudge!

Only I didn't say "fudge."

I said the word.

The big one. The queen mother of dirty words.

The "f, dash, dash, dash" word.

What did you say?

That's what I thought you said.

Get in the car.

Go on.

It was all over. I was dead.

What would it be? The guillotine? Hanging?

The chair? The rack? The Chinese water torture?

Mere child's play compared to what surely awaited me.

Everything go all right?

Eight minutes.

Do you know what your son just said?

No. What?

I'll tell you what he said. Randy!

Ralphie!

Over the years, I got to be quite a connoisseur of soap.

My personal preference is for Lux, but I found Palmolive had a nice...

piquant, after-dinner flavor.

Heady, but with just a touch of mellow smoothness.

Lifebuoy, on the other hand...

You ready to tell me?

All right. Where did you hear that word?

Now I had heard that word at least 10 times a day from my old man.

My father worked in profanity the way...

other artists might work in oils or clay.

It was his true medium. A master.

But I chickened out. And I blurted out...

the first name that came to mind.

Schwartz!

I see.

Hello, Mrs. Schwartz? Yes, I'm fine.

Mrs. Schwartz, do you know what Ralph just said?

No.

He said...

Not that!

Yes, that.

Do you know where he heard it?

Probably from his father.

No! He heard it from your son!

What?

What'd I do, Mom?

Why? I didn't do nothing!

Another shot of mysterious, inexorable, official justice.

Rinse out and go to bed. Am I glad you finished your homework!

Get right into bed, and I don't want to see any lights on.

You are being punished, so no comic book reading!

I'll come in, and if any lights are on...

Don't you give me that look! You're gonna get it!

Three blocks away, Schwartz was getting his.

There has never been a kid who didn't believe...

vaguely but insistently, that he would be stricken blind...

before he reached 21. And then they'd be sorry.

Why, it's Ralph!

Well, come on in, Ralph. Where've you been?

Why, he's carrying a cane!

What is it, Ralph? What happened?

Why, he's blind!

Blind? Oh, my God!

Ralph, is it something we did?

What brought you to this lonely state?

Ralph, please tell us no matter how it hurts. What did we do?

Look, I can't.

Please, Ralph. I must know what we did.

What brought you to this?

Soap poisoning.

Oh, how could we do it?

I'll manage to get along, somehow.

I'll never forgive myself.

Thanks, Mom.

I told you not to use Lifebuoy.

I feel awful!

Thank you, Heather.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

Thank you, Flick.

Merry Christmas, Miss Shields.

I just thought that you'd be getting tired of the same old stuff.

Yes, truly, a little bribe never hurts.

Well, thank you very much, Ralph.

Merry Christmas.

Happy New Year.

You can take your seat now, Ralph.

The weeks of drinking gallons of Ovaltine, in order to get...

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