Today, I discovered today that typing "Merry Christmas" into a text message yields the option of  "Messy Christmap" in the auto-fill bar (the function that guesses what word you are typing, and offers options based on the first few letters). As I typed, a newscast came on relating a breaking story in Federal Way. A man had apparently walked into four-lanes of northbound traffic on Interstate 5, taken off his belt, and begun to flail at cars as they swerved around him. At some point his pants fell around his ankles. He did not stop to pull them up, but continued waddling around, screaming and savagely soul-spanking passing vehicles.

A short clip from a Department of Transportation video feed showed the man hobble toward and then attack a lone State Trooper. The news report indicated that the officer tried to subdue him with a taser to no avail. In keeping with law-enforcement protocol, the officer then shot the man dead, pants still around his ankles.

Messy Christmap everyone. â€" Paul Schrag