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2002-12-10 - 5:36 a.m.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might've titled it the Missing Reindeer Caper. SueSue and BillyCarl had other names for it!

For three consecutive years, SueSue's reindeer mysteriously disappeared from her front yard. She and Billy are happy little Christmas elves, and spend long weekend hours decorating both the inside and outside of their home. About five years ago, while attending an Iowa craft show, SueSue spotted two rough, hand-crafted wooden reindeer. A Must Have find. We loaded them up in the back of my Jeep (they were so big their heads hung over into the back seat and nuzzled SueSue all the way home) and brought them to their new Missouri digs. For several days Rudolph and Blitzen grazed happily in her front yard.

Then one morning the yard was barren of deer. Two corncobs lay in the snow where Rudy and Blitzen had been. Two sets of partially obliterated shoe prints led from the crime scene to curbside. No other clues could be found. SueSue canvassed the neighborhood, thinking the errant deer might have found greener pastures. BillyCarl huffed and cussed the damned idiot juvenile delinquents.

Some days later, in the inky winter darkness, DixieMae and I took Rudy and Blitzen back to their yard. Of course, the next night I received a call from SueSue asking if I knew anything about two once-lost-now-found deer. No, I didn't know a thing about it.

The next year Rudy and Blitzen again grazed peacefully in the snowy yard. Then one morning--eerily reminiscent of the previous year--the yard was woefully devoid of deer. The two antlered rascals had vanished into thin air.

SueSue's call came late in the afternoon: "Okay, dammit, where're Rudy and Blitzen?” "Huh? What're you talking about?"

A pause: "You really don't have em?"

"Nope," I said. "I don't have em."

She called again later the same evening: "Billy found my damned deer in my backyard!"

"They wander off back there, did they?"

"Gawdammit, you and Dixie keep your hands off my damned deer!"

The next Christmas the millennium had changed, but the deers’ curious roving hadn't. They once again went missing from their idyllic city pasture. And Dixie and I were innocent. We.Had.Not.Touched.The.Damned.Deer.

Nevertheless, the call came from SueSue: "WHERE are they?"

"Where are who?”

"The GAWDAM deer!"

"Honest, SueSue, Dixie and I didn't touch em this year."

"Like hell. WHERE ARE THEY?"

After a long time commiserating with the distressed SueSue, she was almost convinced we didn't have Rudy and Blitzen. When Christmas came and went and the deer were still missing she realized Dixie and I really hadn't taken them. Billy filed a 'Missing Deer' report with the KPD, and some days later SueSue got a call from the police. They had some deer in lock up she might want to look at. If they were hers, she would need to ID them before they could be released into her custody to go home. Sure enough, Rudy and Blitzen stared mournfully at her from behind bars at the big house, and SueSue had to spend a long afternoon with a detective in robbery detail IDing her two nomadic reindeer before the three could load up in her truck (borrowed from her brother) and go home.

That was the last Christmas Rudy and Blitzen foraged in SueSue's front yard. She retired the two simple wooden animals and replaced them with two hoity-toity lighted rattan sculptures. During the first week of December both Dixie and I received calls from SueSue.

"All right, gawdammit, I got me some really nice deer this year. You are NOT to touch em! Don't you go packin em off anyplace!"

"Okay, SueSue. We won't bother em."

And we haven't. We have, however, had some pornographic fun with her little glowing Elfie! But that’s another story.

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