The Coonridge Digest: Jesus was lost and the Oreck XL2000 was to blame

Greetings from the Ridge.

My friend Connie said that last year she had just cleared the living room table of kids’ pictures, TV remotes, and People magazine, then began her annually blessed event of setting up the nativity scene. The figures in her Bethlehem creche were a mismatched assortment of mementos from both sides of the family. "Mary, Joseph and the shepherds from her husband’s side of the family, the wise men personally picked out by her own sons when they were toddlers, the stable and manger hand-made by her grandfather and the baby Jesus, at least according to family tradition, had traveled from Germany in a great-great aunt’s luggage just before the war.

Each piece had its own story and nothing in Connie’s house was more carefully tended and packed away during the year than her family’s nativity scene. As she placed each piece on the table she thought of the times when her sons would take turns rearranging the holy family, each according to his tastes. She thought of the arguments little Kirk and Greg used to have about getting the sheep too near the camels or whether Joseph should be chatting with the wise men. It was all fun.

She’d just put down a new bed of straw in the stable area and then got out the vacuum cleaner to suck up the errant scraps on the carpet.

Connie told us that she’d heard a clunk in the vacuum but had assumed the clinker to be another of her husband’s pecan hulls, so she put the machine away and went on to baking Christmas cookies for her church’s annual program. It wasn’t until her husband came home and shouted from the living room, "So what happened to Jesus?"

Connie knew that he wasn’t asking for a biblical lecture on the resurrection so she wiped her floured hands and walked into the doorway to ask, "Whatta you mean?"

"He’s gone. Jesus is gone. Did he run off?"

"Don’t be silly. He’s right there in the…" and then she looked into the empty manger. It was the work of a split second to figure out what had happened. Connie had vacuumed Jesus up into the bowels of her Oreck XL2000 vacuum. Two steps toward the closet and she stopped dead.

"I emptied the bag. It’s trash collection day. Oh my gosh!"

Trash Management Systems hits Coonridge early on Friday mornings. The bag was gone. The savior was on his way to the landfill.

Looking back Connie admits that she perhaps made too much of the tragedy, but on that cold December morning the national debt, the wars around the world, the approaching recession, and Aunt Harriet’s gallbladder surgery all took a far-off second place to the calamity that she was facing. The baby Jesus had been unceremoniously sucked into the whirling blades of the Oreck and the family’s Christmas would never be the same.

The word spread through the family then the town like a holly rash and the whole community sympathized with Connie’s Christmas calamity.

A few folks even stopped by to console her with banana bread and one-half-off coupons from Staples. Connie kept a brave face through it all, but anyone who knew her well realized that this Christmas would be a downer for our friend. Jesus had been sucked up off the face of the earth and it was her fault.

When the family gathered on Christmas Eve she tried to make light of the whole thing, but her crew knew she was bothered. Connie was busy in the kitchen most of the evening and when her loved ones gathered around the tree to open gifts there seemed to be a sneaky feeling in the room. All eyes went to the nativity scene, then to each other as they realized what had happened. Not only had the baby Jesus been replaced, but he’d been replaced many times. Each of her sons had heard of mom’s cleaning mishap and had purchased new infants to place at Mary’s feet. Connie’s parents heard the tale and sent over a spare Jesus from their collection. Her tiny niece had donated her Baby Barbie (notably the only blonde Jesus with painted toenails), and two neighbors had each donated a creche figure. Five little saviors. It’s no wonder Mary looked especially tired that night.

Just as the realization that Connie’s family had been blessed with not only goodwill, but also poor communication and multiple births, they heard the screeching of brakes in front of the house. A large truck pulling up on Christmas Eve? All eyes went to the door when the knocking began and Connie opened her decorated portal to find an employee of Trash Management Systems with a tiny package in his hand.

"Your husband called us the night we picked up your trash. Told us to look for a green vacuum bag. You got any idea how many green bags we can pick up in a day? Well, here… I think this belongs to you," and he handed Connie the ceramic figure of the Christ child, scuffed but holy. That made six. She’s keeping them all.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.