• A plasma screen TV. I know I just bought a new TV a few years ago and it's still okay and everything, but I find it distracting when I can't watch my Hillary Duff DVDs in their optimum viewing condition.
• A Spider-man outfit with working web-shooters. I don't actually have any intention of fighting crime, but I thought it might help my classroom management skills if I could web a kid's mouth shut when he got lippy.
• A bidet. To be honest, I don't really know how they work. And probably I'd never bother to find out. I just know they lend a bathroom that much needed bit of extra class.
• My own personal Jesus. This isn't so much for spiritual guidance as it is the fact that I'm often at a loss for a fourth in Euchre and I'm betting he'd be a pretty fucking dynamite player.
• A hat that doesn't look stupid on me. As of right now, this hat does not exist. (Although I've been told that a fez brings out my eyes.)
• Resurgent popularity for the exclamation "Zounds!" I really feel it deserves another go 'round.
• A scandal in which George W. Bush is caught blowing Donald Trump in Mel Gibson's limo, resulting in wide-spread public shunning for all three.
• Tater tots.
• Massive hemorrhoids for George Steinbrenner.
• The Star Wars trilogy on DVD with all of the "improvements" taken back out.
• An enchanted vacuum cleaner that removes every trace of dog hair from a carpet, runs itself automatically and does my laundry.
• Four years of good health for every Supreme Court justice out there, and yes that includes Clarence Thomas, because I'd really hate to see what ol' Smirky would try to replace him with if, say, he accidentally suffocated in a botched attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation.
• A jet and crew on standby to fly my wife and I to Paris, London or Amsterdam when the whim strikes us. And I'd have to say, they could expect a pretty goddamn whimmy year.
• A subscription to Salon.com so I don't have to wade through any more of their fershluggener "ultra-mercials" day in and day out.
• A Daytime Emmy for Tony Danza's talk show. Boy, don't you just love him? I know I do.
• World Peace. Or at the very least, enough peace so that men and women in our armed services don't have to keep fucking going back to Iraq when they thought they'd seen the last of the place.

If not all of this is do-able, Santa, please just do your best to get me the tater tots. I look forward to your visit. I'll leave the milk and the hash brownie on the mantle like always. Merry Christmas!

Joe