Dyker Heights Man Perplexed People Want To See His 40 Foot Fire-Breathing Dragon Santa
*Satire Ahead!*
Local Dyker Heights resident Nick Pasquale stood on his lawn this afternoon shaking his head at the number of Brooklynites that had jammed onto the sidewalk to observe his humble holiday decorations. “I simply don’t get it,” Mr. Pasquale said. “I just want to celebrate Christmas with my family, my faith, and my million-dollar forty-foot tall fire-breathing metal dragon Santa Claus. Can’t these gawkers respect my privacy and leave me be?”
Mr. Pasquale is one of a number of Dyker Heights residents who humbly celebrate their love of Christmas by straining the local electrical grid and blinding passing birds. However, a wholly unforeseeable condition has emerged in recent years, in which the neighborhood (which is largely devoid of bike lanes or public transit stops and is situated in the middle of the most car-reliant part of the borough) has become unexpectedly clogged with rubbernecking cars.
Said Mr. Pasquale, “Why don’t these idiots go home and gather the family around their own specialty-engineered yuletide robot the way God intended? There’s nothing to see here. Just everyday Christian wholesomeness.” His words were punctuated by a deafening screech of metal and ignition fluid as his two-story-tall robotic dragon Santa belched out bursts of flame to the tune of “O Holy Night.”
“I guess I was bored of looking at all the huge, multi-million dollar media-hyped lawn decorations in my own neighborhood.” — Dylan Skinner, Park Slope Tourist
Mr. Pasquale, a father of three, has made attempts in recent years to discourage people from brazenly staring at his house at all hours of the evening. A decade ago, he put up a large box on the gate that asked for money and paid a local teenager to staff it. “I thought, if there’s one thing god-fearing Christians hate, it’s the idea of donating one’s own hard-earned money to a stranger… but by god, they just stuff money in there like fools. Ugh. I mean, on my lawn there is a highly expensive, entirely-personal and not at all attention-whoring mechanically reptilian Santa that goes through enough jet fuel every night to run a budget airline. Do you really think I need your twenty dollars?” In the intervening years, Mr. Pasquale has taken to donating the three hundred or so dollars he makes off of his multi-million-dollar display to charity, “The way Jesus would if he had flame-throwing robot.”
“I’ve been sitting in traffic for an hour to see how Dyker Heights quaintly expresses the true meaning of Christmas and the birth of our Lord, as is their right and mine.” — Rebecca Stubson, Gravesend
Most neighbors agreed that the impossible traffic conditions generated by Mr. Pasquale’s decorations, and others like him, were due to mismanagement and a decline in moral fortitude amongst those at City Hall.
As the Pasquale family began to wind down for bed, they retired into their seasonal converted panic room. The sounds of honking cars and sparking electrical transformers outside were barely audible through the traditional yuletide soundproofing.
Said Nick’s wife, Janet Pasquale, 45, “We are at our wit’s end. We just don’t know how to keep them from coming in such droves. One sad year, we nearly canceled Christmas by reducing the number of jets on the molten candy-cane-liquid fountain from ten to seven. And still, the crowds came. I don’t get why de Blah-zeeo can’t get his act together and insist these interlopers to just move along. Have the NYPD send some people down here, crack some skulls, and deal with this entirely unforeseeable and unavoidable traffic jam. Round up all the unscrupulous tour guides and bored grinches who can’t think of anything better to do than loiter around a few unimpressive Christmas baubles. I have a mind to email the Neighborhood Watch about this, and we’ll take matters into our own hands.”
As Janet began preparing to tuck their children into bed, Nick mentioned that relief may come from the Dyker Heights Civil Forum For Moral Rectitude, of which he was a member. “It’s issues like this that prove we still need local, old-school neighborhood associations to deal with real issues those bigwigs in Manhattan simply ignore. If it wasn’t for the Civil Forum lobbying the local precinct, I shudder to think how much worse this traffic situation might be.” Nick also requested that the Ambrose Light remind readers that the Civil Forum for Moral Rectitude will be holding an annual holiday fundraiser on December 30th to replenish the neighborhoods holiday advertising and publicity budget.
As of press time, the sixteen-ton aluminum and steel Santa-dragon hybrid had proceeded to pick up, engulf in flames, and promptly crush a Volvo that had driven too close, further exacerbating local traffic.
