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Show f7 iie Devil Made He Do It V hf fig By CARL 1IAUPT 1 V CUP: Bah Humbug! j It's a long, cold winter up at the north pole and sometimes the winter seemed to last 12 months a year, thought Mrs. Santa Claus as she swept away the pine needles scattered around the floor. She had just finished pulling up the gigantic Christmas tree with the help of several do.en off-duty elves and the chore had gone smooth enough - except for that inattentive elf, Elmer, who had been hit on Ihe head by a falling ornament. Elmer survived the accident but judging from the elf's swollen head maybe he would make a better light for the sleigh this year than Rudolph. Mrs. Claus sighed to herself, thinking about all the construction which had been going near her home for the last six months. She had once asked the project superintendent why he had to lay all that pipe over the ice pack. "It's part of the Polar unit of the Central Utah Project," said Mr. Williams, while puffing on a huge cigar. "We don't have enough water down south so we need to transport part of the Arctic ocean down to where the people can use it." "But this is salt water. It won't help people. They can't drink it," said Mrs. Claus. "Oh, we already look that fact into consideration," chuckled Mr. Williams. "Before we ever started start-ed laying this pipeline the CUP constructed a water treatment plant in Alberta. It contains four high capacity water distillation unils and the neat thing about it is that the plant is already paid for." By now Mrs. Claus was starling to gel confused. She couldn't understand un-derstand why water had to be piped to Utah from the North Pole and even more confusing was the thought of why the Americans would even allow their money to be spent on a giant distilling plant in Alberta. "How did you ever get the public to foot the bill for both the pipeline and the treatment plant?" inquired the saintly woman. Taking another puff on his cigar. Mr. Williams decided that it couldn't hurt to tell Mrs. Claus how the project had been funded. "You see," (even though she didn't) said Mr. Williams, "The Americans are hardly paying anything at all for it. We've been taxing the Canadians for 25 years in order to raise enough money to build the CUP. It's worked out rather nicely." Mrs. Claus was now more confused than ever. Nothing seemed to make sense. But in her innocence she blindly plunged on into the conversation. "But aren't the Canadians mad about paying for water that the Americans are going to use?" "That's the best part," said Mr.' Williams. "They don't know they're paying for it." "What do you mean? " "It's all kind of complicated but here are the essentials," said Mr. Williams. "The congress secretly petitioned the English Parliament to appoint Federal judges in Canada who had America's interest in-terest al heart. Then the judges appointed Americans to the Board of the Canadian Water Conservancy Con-servancy District which then taxed the Canadians. The taxes are included in Canadians' local property taxes so our neighbors to the north don't know where the money is going. Slick, isn't it!" Mrs. Claus didn't think that was an honest thing to do so she hurried back to the house and went down the stairs into Santa's workshop. Santa was sitting at a table wrapping a jar of jelly beans for Ronnie Reagan. "I know Ronnie likes the green ones but he was a bad boy last year when he yelled at Andy Haig so I'm giving him mostly yellow ones," said Santa. "Do you know what those guys out there on the pipeline are doing to Canada?" Mrs. Claus asked. "Of course I do," said Santa. "It's my job to know when they've been good or bad." "But they've been bad," said Mrs. Claus. "Good," said Santa. "I've already taken care of the problem. "Thanks Dear. But what did you do? Are you going to give them lumps of coal for Christmas?" "Of course not my sweet. That tactic went out with the middle ages. All I did was place a call i nice boy in Pleasant Grove, 1 by the name of Cornell Haynie" "Oh yes," said Mrs. Claus ... f remember Cornell. Didn't we eiv ' h.m the Timpanogos Planning a Water Management Agency f Christmas several years ago'" f "Yup, That's him" said &,. 'And I asked him if he would do I something to pUnish those ba boys over at the C.U.P. He a! ' happy to be able to give 1 something in return so he had hi 1 city pass an ordinance that wool 1 bother the C.U.P. like the DickenT 1 'I remember Dickens," saiH i "Didn't he invent 1 Santa131'5 a"0ther Stry'" Said "Sorry Dear." "That's quite all right," Said Santa. Anyway, Pleasant Grove 1 passed an ordinance saying thai 1 utilities had to get permission from the city council before thev ' could build anything through a citv street. ' : "It just so happens that those bad boys outside want to build f their pipeline right through the ' middle of Pleasant Grove. But this ought to do the trick." Santa winked at his wife and tied a ribbon around the jar of jelly beans. "And if that doesn't work I'll take away Ronnie's candy" I said Santa. "He'll do almost I anything to get me to give them : back." : - |