Alone with the frost

The beggarly December sun shines through the window. The shortest day of the year. There is just over a week left before the New Year. It is not clear with whom to meet him.

If you go to the Ivanovs, you will get delicious food and good drinks, but it's boring, there is no one to dance with. In addition, the Ivanovs have an evil, clawed cat, Zhuchka. Scratched! Last time I tore expensive, sparkling tights of my half. Well, to hell with them!

If you go to the Goncharovs, then, of course, it’s fun there, but there they can stick to my wife Vera, and then in the morning you will either have to be cowardly or fight.

You can, of course, go to the Vodotokovs, but there may accidentally come up about the money that I owe them, but there is no money. And in general, it is rudeness on their part to start a conversation in the New Year about who owes whom!

I would gladly meet the New Year with Petrukhin, but it is impossible not to get drunk and not open the soul, and this is a dangerous thing in modern times.

Of course, my dream is to go to Academician Gulya on New Year's Eve. It's a prestigious company. Professors, surgeons, dentists. Drink exclusively whiskey and pink champagne. But they usually celebrate the New Year in Barcelona. And where am I - and where is Barcelona?

The Noskovs have a Ukrainian wife. I, of course, do not care, but you never know how the conversation will turn! You will talk now with a Ukrainian woman, and then for a whole year they will be dragged around the special departments, interrogating why you drank their vodka. And in general, trouble! Here I have Vera - half Belarusian. As if this, too, did not end with a war!

I have a friend, an assistant to a State Duma deputy. That would be to go to him! Petrov is a man of the future. He says: our tanks will reach Paris! Next year, he says, we will drink vodka on the banks of the conquered Thames. But for this, he says, it is necessary to kill at least a hundred thousand people. I'm not sorry, of course, but still this is a big war, and somehow I'm still not ready for such bloodshed.

And my wife Vera says: let's go celebrate the New Year to my girlfriends. They are not Ukrainians. They are just our domestic fools. There will be noise, screaming, striptease on the tables, honestly! Striptease, of course, is a hot business, but I'm afraid there may be lesbians among them: they wouldn't spoil my Faith!

Vera and I have a move towards the liberals. Vasily Arkadyevich works in a large private bank and is very unhappy that the country has experienced an economic collapse. This, he says, is a crime! This, screams, is nowhere worse! This is how you come to him on New Year's Eve, and he will stamp his feet, scare him with the final dismemberment of his homeland, and there will be no joy from delicious food.

There are still relatives in stock. They can be found. There will be Uncle Volodya, who is always silent, his son Kostya, who is churched and now fasts on the New Year, his friend Father Pavel, who for some reason considers me a Jew. And now we will bicker with him all night: I am a Jew or not a Jew!

It is interesting, of course, how my former classmate, the famous TV presenter Maxim Kompotov, will celebrate the New Year. He is now mainly known to millions of television viewers for his passionate love for our President. A hundred flowers bloom on his face when Kompotov talks about him. But he speaks about America with such hatred, as if America had fucked him in the ass. Of course, now, like everyone else, I don’t like America very much, but still I haven’t taken off my American jeans yet!

And last night, something crazy happened. I dream: the bell rings. They speak on the phone in a gentle female voice:

- Santa Claus himself invites you to the Kremlin to celebrate the New Year. In close company. Only ten of the best people in Russia - including you.

Are you playing me?

- No!

But I'm not the best at all. I may not be the worst, without extremism, but not the best.

- No, according to Santa Claus, you are the best arithmetic mean citizen. The Kremlin is waiting for you!

I wanted to ask: how to come, alone or with Vera? But the woman's voice was already disconnected. I thought and thought, I decided to go with Vera. She, of course, is not God knows what, but why leave her alone for the New Year?

We dressed up as best we could and rode a trolleybus to the Kremlin. We go. The Snow Maiden meets us, pretty, in a short skirt.

“Let’s go,” he says, “to Santa Claus!”

I was silent, silent, and then I ask:

- Who is he to you?

- How by whom?

- Grandfather, right?

Why grandfather? Husband!

- As a husband? Vera is surprised. - How old are you?

"Eighteen years and one day!"

“Well, then, of course…” I say. - Congratulations on passing!

We enter the room. She is all gold. There are mostly familiar faces in the room. And the first person, and the second, smaller, and the world-famous conductor, and the same director, and responsible for oil, and - for Chechnya, and this one, who entertains us all with his jokes, and some other personally unknown to me, but , apparently very close, judging by the kisses, friends to the state helm. Everyone laughs and says that the past year was the most victorious year and there has not been a better year in the history of the country for a hundred years, and everyone congratulates each other on the victory, everyone is very happy, everyone really likes everything, that's just, they say, we need to put an end to the traitors and the dollar also needs to end. They drink with restraint, but rejoice with might and main.

Here Santa Claus himself enters, announces the New Year, gives everyone a suitcase of new money and wishes them new happiness. And the Snow Maiden in a short dress says that she and Grandfather love Russia most of all, which is why they are real here in the Kremlin, and all the other Snow Maidens and Santa Clauses are fake figures.

“Yes,” says Santa Claus. “You are the only country that still believes in me. Thank you!

Santa Claus calls me with his finger:

-Let's go secret!

We go into the next room, lock ourselves. I think he will give me money, and he says:

- Answer for all the people! Are you satisfied with life?

I looked around:

Why are you asking?

“If the people are not happy, I will freeze them all right there!”

Oh, I think what a New Year's provocation!

- How can you freeze them if my wife Vera is there?

“If you want, I won’t freeze Vera. As for the rest, decide for yourself.

- I'm afraid if you freeze these, even worse will come ...

- You are a coward!

- What a coward! I know the history of my country!

“Well, whatever you want,” Santa Claus says displeasedly, turns and goes to the door.

And then I can not stand it and how I scream:

- Stop!

Santa Claus stops.

“Don’t you want to give Vera and me a suitcase of money too?”

- And why do you need it?

Well, I couldn't resist:

- How is it, frosty scarecrow, why ?!

And then I see Vera's sleepy face in front of me:

— What are you yelling at?

- Like what? Santa Claus does not want to give us a suitcase of money! The government gives, but you and I do not!

- Sleep, fool! my wife Vera says. - Sleep until better times! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!

“Eeeee,” I think, falling asleep in an embrace with Vera. “It’s in vain that I, it seems, didn’t give the order to freeze them all ... Maybe then we would have received a suitcase of brand new money for the New Year!”