It's about time you get into the Christmas spirit, if you haven't already, don't you think? After all, they've been playing Christmas songs since the day after Thanksgiving.

It's about time you get into the Christmas spirit, if you haven't already, don't you think? After all, they've been playing Christmas songs since the day after Thanksgiving. I must say, listening to the muzak version of the Beach Boys "Little St. Nick" really pumps my nads, how about you?

And who's the goosecap that thought it was a good idea to have a male record "Santa Baby?" A guitar laden, masculine version of "Santa Baby" wait, NO. I think I'd rather experience impaired renal function or have an enema crammed into my rectum.

Out of curiosity I picked up a Fleet enema box at the grocery store once. The most interesting part of the package was not that it had diagrams of a man lying in two distinct fun-to-use positions for application, that it said to remain in these positions until the "urge to evacuate is strong (usually 2 to 5 minutes)," that it seemingly implied you have a serious condition if and only if you experience rectal bleeding or have no bowel movement after the enema is given and had instruction to contact a doctor, or that children 2 to 11 years can use their very own "Fleet ® Enema for Children." The most interesting part was just this:

"Fleet ® Enemas are LATEX FREE. Allergic reaction to materials containing Latex is a growing and serious medical problem."

I can't think of a whole lot of things people do involving Latex or at least not anything a sheath made from sheep intestines wouldn't resolve, right? Or maybe the Roman girls had it right when they jumped, coughed and sneezed immediately afterward.

The other kind of fleet I came across recently isn't half as interesting, but is as old as the days when the knights were bold. Roman emperors were so fond of asparagus, that they had an Asparagus fleet for the purpose of fetching it; they believed it had medicinal qualities for helping prevent bee stings and relieve toothaches. The characteristics of asparagus were so well known to the Romans that Emperor Caesar Augustus described "haste" to his underlings as being "quicker than you can cook asparagus". Insert a decline in heathen worship and the adaptation of harmless activities including Sigillaria, the Feast of Dolls, in which dolls and other toys, mostly earthenware, were given to children; imperial strife; invasions by the Saxons, Cimbri, Goths, Persians, and Visigoths; and a box office flop starring Sophia Loren and the Roman Empire is out of service and you're out of cash quicker than you can cook asparagus.

Let me make this more evident. Rearrange the letters in Christmas and you might come up with "trims cash."

Strike that. Reverse it. Let's back up to 1891. You can show the kids something neat that shouldn't cost you more than a few dollars. A scientist named Nencki figured out that as your body metabolizes asparagus, it produces this smelly chemical, methanethiol, which your discriminating kidneys see fit to dump into the bladder. He did this by studying the pertinent pee of four guys who had nothing better to do than sit around and eat three and half pounds of asparagus each. So let the kids each have a few spears of asparagus, and a cup to pee in.

However, about 80% of people are genetically deprived of the capability which allow them to smell the chemical. So not everyone is going to get a real treat for their snoot. If they lose out on that prize, tell them to eat more asparagus. They'll either experience a narcotic effect from high concentrations of methanethiol, or they'll still just have a cup of pee.

And remember to keep them away from the carpet, or you're going to have to learn to use Resolve - with haste.