It was a few days before Christmas. The trip went reasonably well, and he was ready to go
back home. The airport on the other end had turned a tacky red and green, and loudspeakers
blared annoying elevator renditions of cherished Christmas carols.
Being someone who took Christmas very seriously, and being slightly tired, he was not in a
particularly good mood. (Almost a scrooge) Going to check in his luggage (which, for some
reason, had become one suitcase with entirely new clothes), he saw hanging mistletoe. Not
real mistletoe, but very cheap plastic with red paint on some of the rounder parts and
green paint on some of the flatter and pointer parts, that could be taken for mistletoe
only in a very Picasso sort of way.
With a considerable degree of irritation and nowhere else to vent it, he said to the
attendant, "Even if we were married, I would not want to kiss you under such a ghastly
mockery of mistletoe."
"Sir, look more closely at where the mistletoe is."
"Ok, I see that it's above the luggage scale which is the place you'd have to step forward
for a kiss."
"That's not why it's there."
"Ok, I give up. Why is it there?"
"It's there so you can kiss your luggage good-bye."
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