Nearly Naughty List

The NNL Special Branch was hard at work to fill all of the orders for toys for those boys and girls who were rarely nice, and often crossed over to nearly naughty. They didn’t collect enough “naughty points” to get on the “Naughty List” but were at the very bottom of the “Nice List.” They were the ones who walked past the man in the street with his hand out thinking that he would probably use the money for a drink. They might help a little old lady across the street if prodded by someone else, but wouldn‘t offer to carry her shopping bag, because it would take them out of their way. It was the boss man’s policy that any one on the Nice List, no matter how close to the bottom they had come, was to get a toy and so they did get a toy.

It was the job of the NNL elves to fix those toys so that they were nearly unable to bring joy to the recipients. They received the toys that each one on the list had asked for from the production department. Then the toys were carefully removed from the package they came in and adjusted to reflect the degree the recipient had swerved away from nice behavior.

It was a matter of branch pride that any modification would be seen as accidental. One of the favorites was called the “Ellen Modification.” A toy that required assembly would be given an extra nut and bolt. The list of components would be retyped to include the additional nut and bolt, but the instructions would make no mention of where the extra nut and bold should go. A note in the instructions stated that before assembly all parts should be checked against the list of components. Should there be any missing parts there was an 800 number where the missing part could be reported and the replacement part would be shipped to the caller the next business day, since all parts were important to the successful construction of the toy.

The 800 number went to an automated machine that was designed to only accept information relating to missing parts. The response program was designed to never accept the first pronunciation of the part, and would automatically ship multiple replacement parts to the caller. In the end most callers gave up after getting five to six extra nut and bolts, without any explanation of where they should be used. The toy could actually be used without the extra nuts and bolts.

One of the favorite ploys was to ship the toy to an English speaking country with the instructions in Chinese.  This was especially frustrating when the toy was a video game. Copies of the video reports that were made of the persons receiving the mix up instructions were all ways run in the break room to build up branch moral.

No unusable toy ever left the branch. Each was modified in such a way as to create an insignificant amount of frustration. It was not uncommon for the person receiving the toy to find out the correct information from another child who had gotten the same toy but had been on the “Nice List.” This would sometime instill in the NNL recipient the desire to emulate the “Nice List” child to avoid the embarrassment of having to ask for help to enjoy their Xmas present.

Other common Branch modifications included the game box tops being modified so that they never securely fit over the box bottom resulting in the parts spilling onto the floor every time the game was put away.  The video game that included an extra level of difficulty that could never be passed unless a child from the Nice List was playing with the NNL player.

Many of the deficiencies could be removed if the recipient accrued enough nice points to move them from the bottom of the list. The video games would suddenly start to operate correctly and game instructions would automatically translate into English, or whatever was the correct language for the recipient. The games were designed to repair or reprograms as closely to the occurrence of nice behavior a possible so as to create a connection between the nice behavior and the game correcting itself. A surprisingly large number of children got the message, although the older children often missed the point.

Santa had a stern rule that prohibited any modification that played to a child with a disability. Thus, no chide with dyslexia could receive toys where the instructions had been modified. Further no child under seven could receive a toy that had been placed in a hard plastic container that could not be open with less than fifty foot pounds of pressure. In fact the NNL branch carefully screened each child for color blindness and then made sure that each picture was adjusted to correct the child’s disability.

The branch worked closely with the R&D division. They had under development a video game controller that could detect the DNA of an NNL child. The controller would operate nearly a second slower when an NNL child was in control. It would also climb down an up ladder and jump into a pit rather than over it.  There was a bead kit that would constrict the hole drilled in the bead whenever a NNL child held the needle.  In fact it was the R&D division that first suggested the scrambled instruction book. The instruction book was printed in three languages and then the pages were shuffled so that the first page might be in English and the next in Chinese. It was a young elf from Shipping and Distribution who came up with the idea of printing the box for the toy with the words “Batteries not included” for a wind up toy.

Other branches were envious of the NNL branch for the freedom they were given to create the perfectly frustrating toy. Although no one wanted a child to suffer, some would admit to a weakness that allowed them to fantasize a balancing of the bad and the good in children. This was especially true of Santa’s helpers who worked collecting gift preferences from children in shopping malls. The child who deliberately spilled a hot chocolate in Santa’s lap or kicked him when they climbed off of his lap would be at the top of their list of children who should receive a frustrating toy. Still that was not to happen as Santa insisted that there be consideration given to the time period the child had been dragged around the mall by the parent looking for the perfect gift for Aunt Sally’s next door neighbor, before being given a chance to visit Santa.

The line between the Naughty List and the Nearly Naughty List was a thin one, but everyone respected it. Although a surprisingly large number of elves from other branches seemed to take their breaks in the NNL break room, just to watch the video reports of the attempts to put batteries into the wind up toys.