It's five days until Christmas, and I've just received a text from Santa. He says he's got his eye on me.

Problem is I don't know how to text him back, and I have no idea if this will be my best Christmas ever. So I'm calling him right now.

"Have you been good?"

Well, I'm not sure. I made one guy angry with my thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street crowd. He's sending my paper directly to jail - every week!

"Um, that is bad. It's a sin to make others angry. Was there anything to offset that?"

Well, I agreed freely and eagerly when a reader from Royal City called me while I was in Texas vacationing and asked me to pick up a couple of pillows she'd left in a Tucumcari, N.M., hotel.

"And did you bring them?"

Well, no. The hotel mailed them to her that very day.

"That wasn't quite a good deed. But it was a good intention. I'll accept it. Now what would you like for Christmas?"

Well, I really hate to say it, but do you remember the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz?"

"You want a scarecrow?

No, I want that thing he didn't have in his head.

"Oh, a brain! But how can you do a paper if you don't have a brain?"

It's not the paper I struggle with, if you don't ask that one reader. It's other stuff. I think only the immediate memory portion of my brain is failing.

"How so?"

Well, just about this time a year ago, I put my camera bag down on the floor of the Connell gym during a wrestling tournament. I took Wahluke and Royal pictures for half a day and left without the bag.

I didn't realize I had left the bag until I looked for it a couple of days later. I searched my memory bank until I remembered Connell.

I called a receptionist at the high school. A couple of weeks later the bag appeared in my mail.

"That was only one incident. I wouldn't worry."

Well, that wasn't quite the only one. Just last week I did it again, but this time it was worse.

I took off my heavy coat in the Granger gym to take pictures of Royal wrestling and laid it on one of the bleacher benches. In one of the pockets was my wallet. It had no money - never does - but it, otherwise, contained my life.

By the time I remembered my coat, the match was ended and I was in the opposite corner of the building. I became frantic after I went back and couldn't find it.

After thinking a moment, I headed to the restrooms hoping some kid had found it and decided to prank me. Before I arrived, Granger Athletic Director Dave Pearson called to me cradling my coat.

Some kids from Connell, whose team was at the same meet, had found the coat - and the wallet - and handed it all to Granger officials. It was an early best Christmas ever.

So you see, Santa, I need to have the immediate memory portion of my brain updated.

"No, that's not what you need. You just need to learn how to use it, like the texting feature on your phone."

But.

"No buts. Now say good-bye. I have to think of something good for the folks in Connell."

No kidding. They deserve a lot of thanks.