Elves, at this time of year they seem to come out of the woodwork. If you walk along St-Catherine Street in downtown Montreal you can easily see tall and beautiful elves like Tolkien’s Legolas and Arwen coming out of Armani Exchange or Club Monaco; though they often wear a disguise to fit in.
Then, of course, you have your Santa’s workshop elves. These engineer elves are generally short, fashion-challenged, and only happy when designing and building things. They come to town once a year for the Santa Claus parade; but you have to be careful, like all engineers, if they start drinking, they do it with abandon.
But not all elves are so well behaved; some branch out and do crazy things. There was an elf back in the fifties, his name, oddly enough was Elvis. He had glandular as well as hormonal problems and couldn’t sit still, so he sang and played guitar while undulating his legs in lascivious abandon… he created quite a stir among the women in Tennessee.
But all these elves are saints compared to the two you see in this picture. These are street elves: “pushers”. They have no regard for decency, they are in it only for themselves. They’ve taken something very seductive and addictive, something designed for and consumed by kids, and weaponized it. There is little profit to be made from selling to kids; yes, they are easily hooked, but as they mature, they are also easily enticed to quit.
That’s not where the big money is. These elves found they could maximize their profits if they hooked business leaders and politicians; that’s why you often see them during election campaigns; when politicians are stressed or scared. It’s especially attractive to politicians who feel they are losing and need a boost. These elves know how to hook them; they give a small taste and then the politician gets inspired to make an audacious election promise. The politician feels good and soon does more. It’s only a matter of time before the politician gets in over his head and begins to promise something ludicrous like a “Mexican Border wall that won’t cost us a cent”, or “an exit from the EU that will unleash our full potential and make us rich”.
But these elves don’t care. They’re raking it in because they’ve got another one deeply hooked on their addictive product… “Magical Thinking”.
A copy of the 3 elves for a school would help explain the story