I like to go home for the holidays. It’s usually around then that my whole family is on some vacation I wasn’t invited to so I have the whole place to myself.
This year when I went home, I realized something was wrong. The place seemed different. For example, my hometown didn’t used to have a lot of concrete stores. But now, everywhere I looked there was a sign for one–it was all “Vinny’s Concrete” and “Gino’s Concrete” and “Other Vinny’s Concrete.” And if it wasn’t concrete, it was signs for concrete insurance.
Everybody seemed a lot more aggressive than I remembered. As I walked down the street, I kept getting mugged by men holding tommy guns. And whenever I gave them my wallet they’d say that “da boss” was going to be very happy. Who was “da boss?” And why would he be so happy that I was mugged? I sure wasn’t.
The fashion had definitely changed. Back where I live, I always look incredibly out of place. “You have bad fashion,” they say to me. But in my hometown, I fit right in. Everyone was wearing pinstripe suits and fedoras. The only thing I didn’t have was one of those tommy guns they were all carrying.
I thought about this all and realized that, yep, my hometown had been taken over by the 1940s mafia.
The first thing I tried to do, obviously, was report this to the police. Unfortunately, my town’s police had also been taken over by the 1940s mafia, and they beat me with billy clubs when I tried to complain. It looked like I was going to have to take matters into my own hands.
I thought maybe the barber could give me some information. I don’t know why, I just thought that he might. But when I walked in, I could tell he was a mobster, because he had a little statue of the pope holding a tommy gun.
I asked him a few questions, like who was “da boss” running this whole thing and if my hair would look better with a little off the sides. He answered by hitting me over the head with a pipe. He said I was asking too many questions.
I still wanted answers. I figured my next best bet was to head to the gigantic evil-looking building right in the middle of town. Man, it looked evil. It was pitch black with tinted windows, and there were goons patrolling it out front with some of those tommy guns I keep mentioning. Also, there was a big sign that said “Mafia Headquarters.”
To get in, I knew I’d need a cover, so I went to the nearest spaghetti joint and ordered takeout. Then I went up to the mafia HQ and told the two guards out front I was there for a spaghetti delivery.
They said nobody ordered spaghetti, and I said how do you know. They said they just did. I ducked around the corner to think up a new cover. I decided to pour the spaghetti on the head and come back, telling them that I was Spaghetti Guy, and I was here to give a motivational corporate seminar. They didn’t buy that one either.
After that, I decided to muscle my way past them. The only problem was that the guys were very strong, and I was very covered in spaghetti and I kept getting sauce in my eyes.
The first guard gave me the old one-two. Then his buddy gave me the old three-four. Then it was back to the first guy to give me the old five-six. They ended up giving me all the way up to the old fifty-eight-fifty-nine before they got bored and shot at my feet with a tommy gun to make me dance. I did a little jig and then got out of there.
I was at a loss on what to do. But I figured I had to stop the mafia somehow, because, well actually I’m not sure why I figured that. In retrospect I should have just hightailed it out of there. I didn’t live here. Not my problem.
But for some reason I felt the urge to take the whole thing down. At night, I broke into a window around the back of the HQ and made my way to the top floor. That’s where a mafia boss would be, right at the top.
I burst into the office and saw my entire family sitting there. Apparently, they weren’t on vacation at all. Apparently, they never went on vacation during the holidays. They ran the mafia. They were too busy orchestrating mafia things to go on vacation.
I was stunned. But then I thought about it, and I was a little less stunned. Because my entire life my dad had always told me his job was “organized crime.” And remember when I said the whole town looked different? It actually didn’t at all. It had always been like that once I really thought about it.
And I guess the whole part about it being the 1940s mafia was wrong also. It was just the modern mafia and they hadn’t updated their wardrobe.
I asked my family why the mafia members kept mugging me even though I was the boss's son, and they said that it was because I had disrespected the family by moving away to be an accountant. Go figure! If I’d known I came from a powerful mafia family I never would have gone to college, let alone to be something boring like an accountant.
But even though my family was running the show, the mafia still felt wrong. I tried to convince my family to quit being mafia people, but they weren’t having it. They weren’t having it at all. When I suggested it, they snapped their fingers and some big mafia goons came out and punched me in the gut. Then they threw me out the window.
After that, I got on a plane and left. I know this isn’t a great resolution to the story, but what’d you expect? Did you think I’d be able to take down the mafia? I’m only one person. And an accountant kind of one person at that. If there’s any moral to the story, I guess it’s that I won’t be going home for the holidays next year or ever again. And if you’re from my hometown too, I wouldn’t either.
