“Twas the night before recess in the Senate and House, as our leaders worked hard to correct a great louse …”
The parodies emerge every holiday season. This one was from the MusicFIRST Coalition, which advocates “fair pay for air play” in opposition to broadcaster resistance of performance “taxes.”
Separately, again making rounds was the following engineer’s holiday poem, which we noted last year at this time. If a reader knows the provenance, please let us know so we may credit the author:
Twas the night before Christmas and I had finally gotten home
When my wife met me at the door and handed me the phone.
“It’s that darn remote control thing,” she said in great dismay
And the Burk doesn’t call simply to say Happy Holiday.
So while my children were hanging the stockings by the chimney with care
I’m preoccupied trying to get the transmitter back on the air.
“ON filaments, ON plate, NO output? You stupid ____”
“Recycle, RESET, Overload? I’m fixin’ —-!!”
Regaining my composure to notice my daughter’s staring face
Asking “Daddy, do you HAVE to go to that transmitter place??”
“Yes Honey,” I said “But it won’t be for long,”
Hoping deep down inside that I wasn’t wrong.
So out I trudged into the cold winter’s night
To the world’s most remote tower site.
Driving past all the houses, lit up with holiday glee
Feeling sorry for myself — and asking, why me?
But as I got closer my heart was feeling some lighter
when all of a sudden I started hearing the exciter!
“Power supply!,” I thought, “surely it’s not the final,”
My heart’s racing now, anticipating my arrival.
With schematic after schematic dancing in my head,
“What if the plate transformer’s shorted dead?”
Throwing open the gate and running into the shack
I start to tackle the problem and race around the back
Where much to my amazement what did I see?
A half-open back door — apparently not shut good — BY ME!
So as I return to my cottage after a night so tiring,
I’m wondering if perhaps McDonald’s is hiring.
Then I think “What a profession — I could never leave,”
After all, I’ve got maintenance scheduled for NEW YEARS’S EVE!
