Sybil Bruncheon’s “CHRISTMASES PAST!”… Hilda and Matilda….
/...with the building of the great film studios in the Los Angeles area around 1920, and the new national stardom of the silent film actors, the newly arrived Hollywood community began expressing their imaginations in fascinating ways.
Mrs. Hilda Greshenstein of the Monumental Pictures Studio decided that she would become a new kind of "Mrs. Santa Claus"... who rode her "Ostrich-Chariot" around the Earth three times every Christmas Eve delivering "film treatments and prospective script ideas" to good little child actors and actresses.... She publicized in the newspapers that movie stars should hang silk stockings and pieces of Carter's toddler underwear underneath palm trees in their backyards for her to put candy, fruit, nuts, and fine jewelry in... or the keys to Duesenberg convertibles. It actually caught on for a few Christmases in a row, and the Coca-Cola company dumped its Santa Claus campaign in favor of her Mrs. Santa Claus routine...until December of 1923 when Matilda, Mrs. Greshenstein's pet ostrich suddenly turned on her and pecked out her left eye and bit off several of her fingers...
The A.S.P.C.A. was called immediately, and the poor bird was carted off to be made into "Aussie Steaks" and some feather dusters! It was discovered however at the last minute that Hilda had been "inappropriately intimate in inter-species activities"... The judge threw the book at her, literally. And Matilda, who was discovered to be quite sweet-natured, was housed quite luxuriously in the Beverly Hills Heavy-Petting Sanctuary. She was given 17 Cartier diamond collars (stackable - $1089.00 each ...retail!), and fed on gourmet heirloom corn and wheat cakes for the rest of her life. Much loved by the local children, she went on to have a nice little film career too, appearing in Our Gang, Laurel & Hardy, and Three Stooges film shorts....and in 1936, she won the famous animal-actor-equivalent to the Oscar, the "Mooey Award", for lifetime achievement. She retired eventually to her huge estate in the Hamptons and created a bird sanctuary for persecuted avians particularly those who had escaped from the Communist witch trials or various suburban Thanksgivings.
Later, Mrs. Greshenstein was released from Bestiality Prison, and opened a poodle-grooming salon as part of her early-release program.... she was forced to wear an electronic-collar though for two years so her parole and obedience officers could keep track of her activities.... However, she DID get permission to "Be-Dazzle" it and replace the dog-tag with her Grandmother's cameo! Ironically, and in a cruel but well-deserved twist of fate, she ended up being the first victim of a motel-owner in Fairvale, California named Norman Bates whose hobby was taxidermy… and whose specialty was birds....
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