NT 019 - Elven Hood

hello everybody it is 2026

happy new year sir happy new

year so are you excited for the

new

year no why not uh because you

get to be older okay i mean is

that necessarily a negative or

it means

that you get to die more you

get to die more yeah i mean

that's an interesting way of

looking at life

i guess i mean every second is

really a second closer to death

regardless of where you are in

your life so you're not wrong

do you have any plans for the

the new year sir get a job get

a job you bum

so you're gonna get a job

hopefully hopefully and thus

starts your giving the u.s

government your

one million dollars of lifetime

value yeah and productivity and

whatnot that's that's the goal

anyway uh yeah my my goal for

2026 right now is hopefully to

to move later this year we'll

see how

that goes but that's the goal

yeah that's the plan anyway so

we survived the holidays we

hope that you

enjoyed or at least were mildly

amused by our two bonus

episodes i am still partial to

the

jedi being cut in half by

lightsabers i still think that

that is the ultimate expression

of jedi and the

sith too i mean really they all

need to be cut in half with a

lightsaber especially under the

reign of

disney just saying you know i i

just thought of what the

purpose of double-bladed lightsabers

is you

could cut twice as many people

in half yeah exactly

well we have survived the

holidays we hope you all did as

well and really quick i

normally ask for

feedback at the end of the show

but i'm also going to ask for

it at the beginning of the show

today

what do you like about the show

what do you what do you like

about our podcast what do you

want to

hear more of what are some

things that you think could

improve the show we want to

hear about that so

if you're a listener please

send us an email feedback@nontopical.com

so that we know what we can do

to make the show better while

still enjoying ourselves well

so i was thinking all right we've

gotten through the holidays oh

no you were thinking yes i know

it's a dangerous pastime but we

got through the holidays and

you know generally in the

united states

the primary holiday is of

course christmas there there

are others out there don't get

me wrong there's

also hanukkah three kings day kwanzaa

yule uh there's a bunch of

different holidays that fall

within the

same time period mostly because

they're all based upon the

winter solstice but that said

so we went through our phase of

getting the the cacophony of

stuff we've we've all gotten

our stuff now

and it got me to thinking okay

so you have the myth of santa

claus

which by the way the current

version of santa claus as we

know him is largely driven by

coca-cola

that's not a joke uh based

loosely on the original

character or person of um sinterklaas

or paranoel

etc etc which probably also has

roots staying back to paganism

and all sorts of things all

right fine

regardless magical somewhat

deity-like creature has

delivered our gifts

and it got me to thinking we

get all this stuff and i know i'm

grateful for the stuff that i

get i

know kit is generally grateful

for the stuff that he gets

although i wouldn't put those

words in his mouth

you are grateful right sir

but but we have this santa claus

guy and i know that there's

rules the rule is he makes a

list and

he checks it twice to see who's

naughty and nice and and he

watches you as you see stalks

you using elf on

the shelf all right he sees you

when you're sleeping he knows

when you're awake all right the

santa guy is

kind of creepy luckily we we

will for the time being presume

he is altruistic he's just keep

he's not looking at

you when you're like in states

of undress he's not looking at

you in creepy ways he he's just

making

sure that you know he gets a

general sense of your behavior

i mean it technically only says

that he sees

you when you're sleeping he

just says that he knows when

you're awake yeah exactly he

knows when you're

awake that doesn't mean that he

is watching you when you're

awake anyway but you know i got

to thinking

the whole present versus cold

thing is a sham and here's why

i say that as a kid i was an

asshole

if you were to gauge my

behavior on a scale of like you

know naughty or nice i mean i

didn't do

my school work i was a pain in

the ass to my parents even more

so than normal and i was i was

a dick to my sister and that

was constant this wasn't like

an occasional thing that this

was my

normal way of being as a kid

and do you know what i never

got coal coal i still got

presents some years

i got more than others and you

know it just strikes me that santa's

gotten lazy with his compliance

you know everybody has to have

compliance yeah because if you

don't drive compliance of your

processes and policies then

people will just do whatever

the heck they want if you're a

kid

and you were not good and you

get presents anyway then what

does that teach you uh you can

do whatever

you want you can do whatever

you want all right so that's

one issue is that the whole

coal versus

present thing has gone by the

wayside and santa claus has

really gotten complacent that's

problem

one but we have a second

problem it's not just the coal

all right that's problem one is

compliance

or lack thereof to the original

paradigm but the second issue

is wealth inequality

all right as we all know the

middle class zone is slowly but

surely becoming

just paycheck to paycheck

versus what normally would have

paid the bills perfectly fine

just 10 years ago

yeah and so the middle class is

shrinking the rich are getting

richer the poor are getting

poorer

and those rich asshole kids

just get like endless gifts

like they get so much stuff

they get a new game

system every year they get

generalizing yeah they get all

their fancy little tiny cars

yeah they get the

you know the new the latest iphone

the latest android the latest

the latest drones the latest uh

you know

three thousand dollar robot

dogs really they get so much

stuff and then they don't end

up using any of it

it's like oh we got all this

stuff i'm gonna play with one

thing and then everything else

like kind of

gets ignored or whatever please

note that that is that this is

not a true representation of

all rich

kids yes exactly and also i

will say that rich entitled

kids tend to be assholes again

as the stereotype as

the stereotype this is not

necessarily saying that this is

what we truly believe of all

rich kids it's just

saying that the stereotype is

you have rich kids that get

given everything and they're snotty

little assholes

so where am i going with this

so we have two problems we have

a lack of compliance on the on

the part of

this so-called santa claus and

we also have asshole kids that

have too much stuff

and we have poor kids that don't

like they get like you know a

box with bubble wrap and that's

their gift

you know well no not really i

mean a lot of less fortunate

kids are able to get toys

through like toy

funds and things like that but

yeah it's unfortunate you know

it really is now we're going to

get into the

the story idea based upon this

concept hollywood the deal now

goes into effect now this is a

new and

original idea so we're going to

we're going to lowball this

initially but it's going to be

25 000 for the

idea plus five percent of the

gross profits and we we mean

the gross profits before you do

any of your

crazy accounting shenanigans in

perpetuity across all mediums

of sale so there's an elf oh

boy and i think i've come up

with a title for this uh this

this story already i'm just not

sure what the right tone is we're

gonna call it elven hood

instead of robin hood it's elven

hood so you have an elf and the

elf looks at exactly what i'm

talking about

which is he's seeing this

disparity between rich and poor

and asshole kids and good kids

and he's seeing

that things aren't quite quite

right you know that everybody's

really getting presents nobody

gets cold

and there's you know the kids

that are rich i mean santa's

favoring the kids that are rich

for some reason

and that's not right and so of

course he does what you're

supposed to do he tries to

follow the chain of command

so first he goes to like the

the head elf for his department

all right let's come up with an

elf name before we get started

let's give this guy a name

i feel like it should start

with grin grin yeah it should

start with that uh grin tea

too short grindendorf grinendorf

that sounds like it's from lord

of the rings grinendorf it's it's

like

the bad guy from from zelda but

with a big grin on his face

grinendorf i mean we can't use

grindelwald

because that's that oh no i

said it oh no copyright oh no

oh no uh grinsky i mean that's

it's a polish elf

we're good grinsky okay okay so

we have grinsky this is so dumb

all right grinsky goes to his

like line

foreman oh i thought i thought

you were saying the uh the head

elf name no no no the main

character oh

uh well now the main character

is grinsky well but that might

not fit it doesn't matter it is

now

grinsky so anyway grinsky goes

to his his supervisor manager

and says hey you know i'm

looking at the gift

piles and i'm seeing that the

gift piles for the rich kids

are bigger than the gift piles

for the small kids

and a lot of these rich kids

aren't that good we should do

something about it and and the

head elf is

like yeah but that's bad for

business what business we don't

make any money the business of

bringing cheer

and joy to the world of course

right so he's not too happy

with that answer and he kind of

ponders it

You know, we should give him an

animal sidekick.

Oh no. What type of animal

should he have?

I mean it's gotta be something

that can survive in warmer climates

anyway, because eventually

he's gonna be going other

places. Can a snow fox survive

in warmer climates? Yeah, I

think so. So snow fox, what are

we gonna call the snow fox?

Gotta give it a good name. You

know what, let's call it Fundy.

We can do that. We can and we

just did. Come at me Fundy.

Look, we're advertising for

Fundy. These are temporary

names. We're advertising for

Fundy here. Look, the studios

can change it later, but in the

meantime, Fundy, Minecraft

YouTuber extraordinaire, watch

him. Anyway, this is not

sponsored by Fundy, but if Fundy

ever listened to this, it'd be

awesome. You know what, that'd

be even better.

It's a talking arctic fox or

snow fox voiced by Fundy. That

would be amazing. Alright, so

we have this snow fox or arctic

fox. Grinsky goes back to his

room and he's like saying, you

know, Fundy, I still don't feel

like this is right. You know,

there are so many people that

have so little. And, you know,

Santa is really just...

continuing the capitalist

paradigm here.

By the way, I'm not an anti-capitalist,

just for the record.

But it's fun to make fun of

capitalism. I will say that.

So I'm not anti-capitalist. I

just like making fun of it.

So he starts talking to Fundy,

and Fundy is just like laying

there,

being all nice, as a good pet

does, feeling bad

for his master. It's fine.

What is Grinsky going to do

next?

I mean, obviously, we've got to

go to the CEO of this

corporation.

Okay. So...

Grinsky... Well, first of all,

though, I think we need a

montage

of Grinsky, like, trying...

Like, draws up some charts.

He's like, you know what? Maybe

his boss also says,

and you know what? You're

making these allegations, but

you really have no data

to back it up. Yeah. Where's

the evidence?

Hmm. So we should do this

montage of him, like, actually

counting the package count,

actually looking at the naughty

and nice lists and seeing how

the algorithm has changed over

the years.

You know, how it went from

being a manual process where

they were actually using some

kind of wizardry to look at

kids, to where now it's all

done by AI. Oh, no.

All right. And then he brings

all this data. Well, no. In

that montage, you have to have

him on the phone with customer

service.

That would be that pause moment

that goes into reality where he's

on the phone with customer

service for what? Like,

delivery for what? Like,

because customer service...

What is customer service for

the elves at the North Pole?

Hmm. Like, what do they need

customer service for? They're

manufacturing the toys. They're

wrapping the toys. They're

delivering the toys. I mean,

you've got to have, like,

customer service for getting

the materials for the toys.

I mean, I guess. You know,

maybe it's, like, to gauge...

Maybe they... He's contacting

customer service to get a hold

of their, like, numbers for,

like, complaints and stuff.

Yeah. Well, fine. But montage

later, he's gotten all this

data. He goes back to his boss.

It's like, look, I have the raw

data. And his boss basically

says, well, that's the way we've

been doing it and that's the

way we're going to keep doing

it.

So he starts going to his other

elves and none of them seem to

have an issue with it either.

What do we do now? The other

elves are kind of like, yeah,

maybe something should happen,

but, like, it's too much work

and it's just going to get shot

down by upper management anyway.

why do we even bother you know

last time we tried to get an

idea up to the upper ups they

they they threatened to

decrease our uh cocoa supply

yeah we need our cocoa rations

like i

guess for elves cocoa is like

cocaine you know like they need

their cocoa damn it it's how

they

live eventually he decides he's

gonna go to the big man himself

he's gonna go to upper man he

goes

thunder crackles he he goes he

goes to the ceo head head elf

himself santa claus you know

and santa

claus of course we're gonna

make him like a corporate mogul

you know that one day of the

year

he'll put on this the the the santa

claus suit but really the rest

of the year he he's he's

wearing a

business suit you know he's

standing behind you know

stereotypical like he has an

office with like a

very like large looking door

you're kind of sponsored by coca-cola

yeah yeah he's got the

coca-cola images and branding

you know like like with a big

like thumbs up with the ceo of

coca-cola

next to him you know from the

marketing deals to use his

likeness he's got everything

going on um he's

got the big mahogany desk mahogany

mahogany mahogany mahogany see

if anybody gets that reference

he's got the

big mahogany desk he's got his

like his like black leather

shoes like propped up on the

desk smoking a big

ass cigar from cuba he's

wearing sunglasses he's wearing

sunglasses indoors

yeah he he's the fat cat

literally and figuratively yeah

well maybe not quite literally

he's not a cat but he is very

large

so anyway grinsky goes in

knocks on the door gingerly santa

doesn't even know who the hell

he is because he's at the top

of the corporate chains

like he can't know every elf

that is you know in wrapping or

in production or delivery

packaging

whatever like he doesn't know

any of that he just sees like a

little elf and he's like

i mean i i have an open door

policy but who the hell are you

yeah i i welcome your feedback

but so it's like yeah i'm grinty

or grinsky uh

uh well that came back quickly

i'm grinsky and uh sir i've

noticed some problems with our

package distribution and and

you know inequality in the

package distribution

and you know he gives the whole

spiel to santa he provides the

powerpoint deck

he gives them the spreadsheets

he gives them the evidence

and we're gonna do the stereotypical

thing where santa's like you

know you bring up some good

points

i'm gonna look over all these

numbers in this data and take

it under advisement

grinsky is like oh thank you

sir thank you

and he leaves the minute he

leaves santa presses the button

on the intercom

hey get me a hold of the

manager for grinsky

and the next thing you know grinsky

and and his fox friend fundy

are getting thrown out

now grinsky could you know with

his elf feet cold in the snow

he could feel defeated and

initially he does after all he's

given his entire life to santa

corp

he's he's gif all incorporated

yeah he's trying to work his

way up from a lowly

santa letter deliverer in the

mail room to toy idea or like

working with the major

companies like microsoft

and sony for the xbox and playstation

you know business relationships

he's he's really done

everything

he can and now he's thrown out

but what happens well initially

he's sad but then he gets mad

if no one else is going to do

anything about this i will

and so he begins his journey

and you know he builds himself

a workshop

he builds his own kind of magic

sled and he decides

i would say fundy builds the

sled fundy helps build the sled

yeah and fundy helps test the

sled you know

like you have like a puff of

smoke that hits him in the face

and he instead of being an arctic

fox

he gets covered with yeah you

know like that type of stuff

but we have to pick a date here

so he doesn't want to interfere

with santa's delivery of the

packages because i mean

he's not going to go up against

the big man you know not yet

anyway and eventually he has to

like

make a new friend somewhere

that believes the same as him

and i don't know who that's

going to be so

i'm leaning on you to come up

with some ideas along the way

here but so what's a good date

after

christmas when grinsky could go

for his very special ride uh

the 30th you know yeah that's

the new year's

new year's eve eve because

everybody's going to be awake

on actual new year's eve yeah

we can't have that

but at least this way the the

impact is going to be felt yeah

and maybe for the first year he

only takes

one major city just to give his

concept a try so what he's

going to do is he is going to

go down the

chimney of the rich folks

living in like their upper high

rises in manhattan you know he's

going to go into all the

all the apartments of all the

kids that have way too much

stuff and are assholes. And he's

gonna, you know, shall we say,

we appropriate the funds. He's

going to, you know, he'll

be smart about it. You know, he's

not gonna take everything. He's

just gonna take the

stuff that, you know, that the

kids are gonna get sick of

anyway. Well, it's still high-quality

stuff. I mean, if you have

three video game systems, well,

what do you care if one or two

of them go missing? I mean,

especially if it's a Steam Deck.

Like, that Steam Deck can play

anything. So who really cares

if you get rid of, like, the

Xbox and the PlayStation when

you have the Steam Deck? I mean,

they're really

aren't that many PlayStation

and Xbox exclusives anymore

anyway. So who cares? Yeah. But

he starts taking the stuff. And

then after he's taken the stuff,

he re-gives it to the less

fortunate. That were good. And,

you know what? His test goes

over pretty well. You know,

some of the rich kids were a

little bit disgruntled.

But many of them didn't even

notice. And their parents didn't

notice. It's like huh, we gave

this kid 20 gifts and now there's

10 and we don't even notice. So

test run number one goes uneventfully.

Yes.

Do you think Santa's reindeer

can talk? What do you mean? Do

you think Santa's reindeer can

talk? Well who said he's using

Santa's reindeer? Yeah, no, I'm

just asking for side characters.

I don't know that Santa's

reindeer are really that smart.

I mean, Rudolph they are. I

mean, plus, no offense, they've

already delivered their gifts.

Why would they know anything

about it?

I know, but that is for the

side character ideas. So do you

think they could talk or no? So

tell me how you would work the

reindeer into it organically.

Well, I have two ideas for side

characters. Okay, go. So one is

a nutcracker that was part of

like, you know, like the

management people.

Or maybe it had like a broken

arm or something and it was

disgruntled because it never

got delivered. Yeah, something

but I feel like it should have

been close to Santa at one

point. Okay, like like the nutcrackers

are like the Royal Guard or

something. Okay, that's a

possibility.

And then for the reindeer, she

kicked out because her name

wasn't catchy at all. Okay, so

like... It's the dumbest reason.

Like, like completely. It would

be bad for marketing. So her

name is like Broomhilda. Yeah.

Although that's from Robin Hood

Men in Tights, but I don't care.

Her name is Broomhilda. Or just

Hilda. We call it Hilda for

short. That's easier.

Alright, so we have these other

outcasts that eventually

somehow hear about things, but...

Let's go back to Grinsky now.

So Grinsky's had his first

successful run. And nobody

found out about it because it

was only one city. But, I mean,

that's... That's all well and

good. But now we don't really

have any conflict. He

successfully did what he wanted

to do.

So, where do we run into

conflict? How do we introduce

conflict into Grinsky's plan?

Maybe, maybe he was too willing

about leaving. Like, he came up

with the idea before he, like

right before he got picked out.

Okay.

And, and like, his supervisor

gets suspicious of that. That

he went too lonely. Like...

Okay, so... Maybe... You're

kind of in line with what I'm

thinking here. So maybe what we

do is... Now, keep in mind...

They only did one city. The

world's got like 9 billion

people, 10 billion people,

whatever it is at this point.

You're talking New York City.

Yeah, that's millions. But...

It's not a huge block. Yeah.

You know, this isn't like he

did all of Europe or all of the

United States.

But...

Being North Pole Corp...

They've got some metrics. Yeah.

And they've got some super like,

tiny CIA level GPS trackers

that are embedded into the

boxes.

Not into the wrapping paper,

because the wrapping paper gets

wrecked and thrown away.

Yeah.

But into the actual product

boxes.

They've got like this little

like label or something on them

that just looks like a sticker.

But it's actually GPS.

And so...

It...

It just makes...

A weird blip in the system to

set up conflict later on.

Former supervisor...

Like another elf comes up to

him, because this guy's a

supervisor.

I mean like, he doesn't

actually do anything.

Yeah.

Uh... Sir?

Uh... Yes?

We were just looking at the

analytics dashboard and we

found something...

Unusual.

Well, what do you mean?

Well, it's just a small anomaly,

but...

It looks like some of the

packages shift locations.

Yeah.

Well, like, couldn't that be

just kids like bringing them to

their friends' house to play?

Really, sir?

Like...

Five days after Christmas?

You really think that a bunch

of kids just went over somebody's

houses the night before New

Year's Eve?

I don't know.

I'll...

I'll have to think about it.

I mean, it is an anomaly, but

we're really not talking much

here.

You know, it's...

You know, we're talking about a

percent of a percent.

I mean, that's not really going

to impact the Joy Quotient this

year.

So...

We'll keep an eye on it.

You know, we'll keep an eye on

it.

And then...

Lil' Up goes away.

And then the manager sits there,

like, just pondering.

What the hell would call that

caused that?

That's just weird.

Yeah.

You know, what would cause this?

And then, like...

He's just sitting there for a

while.

You have the camera on him for

a long, long time as he sits

back in his manager chair.

And then he snaps forward and

they do the close-up.

Grinske!

Meanwhile, Grinske is trying to

figure out how to build out his

operation.

And, you know, he has a super

secret location.

He's got the energy shielding

to mask the location.

There's no way Santa's going to

find him.

There's no way North Pole Corp

is going to, like, come back

and come after him for

violating his non-disclosure

agreement and non-compete

agreement.

You know, because when you work

for North Pole Corp, you're not

even allowed to work for Amazon

up to a year after working

there.

Because they're a toy delivery

service.

Yeah.

That's a competing, you know, a

competing company.

You're not allowed.

And surely...

No, it has to be something

ridiculous like 10 years after.

Fine.

And surely...

So, by the way, this clearly is...

Uh, not only a take on...

On capitalism...

And wealth inequality, it's

also a take on...

Corporate environment.

Oh no, Hollywood's never gonna

buy this.

We need to make it more

corporate friendly.

Well, yeah, but the corporate

friendly part for them is they're

gonna make money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know?

Making fun of corporations is

something that people can get

behind.

This is true.

Wealth inequality is something

that people can get behind.

Well...

You know, the story of a small,

mild mannered elf...

Becoming the modern day Robin

Hood.

Stealing from the rich.

Giving to the poor.

And doing it in such a, you

know, a way that, you know, isn't

violent.

And brings joy to children.

I mean, think of the children,

sir.

This movie can make bank.

But anyway...

How do we introduce Hilda and

Nutcracker Guy?

So, he's working in his secret

workshop to really improve his

theft/delivery system.

Maybe he starts coming up with

teleportation stuff so he doesn't

actually have to go into things.

I mean, couldn't it be the next

Christmas that he meets the Nutcracker?

Or are we only doing two Christmases

in this movie?

You know what I think?

I think we have one of the two

side characters actually be

someone to throw a monkey

wrench in the works.

Okay?

So, Hilda is perfectly fine.

She's just the reindeer that

got rejected.

I mean, even Rudolph makes fun

of her.

You know, because of her name.

Evidently, he didn't learn his

own lesson.

Yeah.

You know?

He became one of the...

He became like the highest

person on the reindeer.

I know, I know.

It's just...

It's ridiculous.

But anyway, so...

I think Hilda is not our spy.

I think it makes sense that the

disgruntled...

The quote unquote "disgruntled"

Nutcracker...

Is the spy.

...would make sense.

And I think the way that we do

things is...

So, the disgruntled Nutcracker,

obviously being part of

security and obviously being

part of the upper levels...

He gives Grinsky the API keys

to be able to access the

naughty nice list and all of

the kids' locations and their

demographics.

You know, he gets the wealth

index, which is actually being

tracked.

Which he didn't know.

Like he discovers that when he

first gets to see the data,

that there's actually like a

wealth index.

Of course there is.

So, as he's planning his

teleportation stuff, what he

doesn't realize...

Is that the use of these API

keys...

These API keys are not the

master API keys.

No.

These are special API keys that

send his IP address...

Back to North Pole Core.

So, they then begin to reverse

hack into his system to like

really discover the plans.

And that's not good.

So, the year goes on.

He continues to make his plans.

There's nothing sketchy coming

up.

And the night of the 29th...

Of what?

Of January.

So, Christmas goes by.

Santa does his big ride.

And it's the 28th or 29th of

January.

And that's when the SWAT team

shows up.

So, the SWAT team shows up.

They break in.

They get through the magnetic

shielding.

They capture everyone.

And of course, this is when the

bad guy, like the traitor nutcracker,

reveals himself.

Meanwhile, Hilda and the fox

ran away.

Because they're just animals.

Nobody's going to pay attention

to them.

Yeah.

And so, it's not looking good.

Grinsky's been captured by the

feds.

And he's being brought up on

charges of like espionage and

theft and all this other stuff.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

He's being captured by the feds.

These are the real feds.

These are the North Pole feds.

They're the elves with attitude.

Oh.

Of course.

And so, he's being held in like

deep cold storage at the North

Pole.

You know, like 50 miles below

the crust of the earth.

So, so.

He's being captured.

He's being captured.

You know, like Santa and the,

the lead, and his former boss

are like, you know, we're so

disappointed in you.

You know, all I wanted to do

was make Christmas happy for

everyone.

That's just not how we do

things here.

It's all about the numbers.

It's all about the joy index.

Meanwhile, Fox and Hilda, Fundy

and Hilda,

trek their way back to the

North Pole and they,

now like, I guess we have to

have them talk because it's

going to be kind of pointless

to have them randomly wandering

around.

They, they start doing this

planning.

They start doing all this

planning.

They start doing all this stuff.

I mean, you can always just

translate it using subtitles.

Yeah, whatever.

But, but they know the layout.

And they know that there's like

a secret, like hot chocolate

exhaust, like pipe, like, like

a waste pipe.

And so they break in.

And obviously there's like a

bunch of like stuff, like where

they're sneaking around and

whatnot.

And, see, instead of destroying

Grinsky's, you know, like, all

of his technology, they, they,

they impounded it.

Which was stupid on their part,

but hey, that's typical.

It's hysteria type.

Yeah.

You know, you have the guards

coming after them with giant

candy canes to like bash them

over the head.

You got these things that are

like machine guns, but they

shoot peppermints.

You know, those stripy peppermints.

Yeah.

Not, not the soft mints though.

The soft mints are frigging

banging.

The Keebler Joy cookie cannon.

The Keebler cookie cannon.

But, uh, so basically you have,

you have Santa, you know, and,

and everybody, the insecurity

starting to find out things are

going wrong.

Wires are being cut.

Somehow a fox and a reindeer

somehow spraying black spray

paint over the, over the camera

lenses.

And worst of all, the caffeinated

hot cocoa machine is broken.

Yes.

The elves are starting to get

upset.

In fact, that's, that's, that's

how they initially disrupt

things.

Strangely enough, all these hot

cocoa machines are fed from a

central source.

So they mess up that central

source and everything comes to

a grinding halt.

It's like there's, there's a

few mixers around.

Like the, the, the, the, the,

you know.

You know, and maybe some of,

you know, we set up that there

were a couple of elves that

maybe wanted things to be more

equal.

And so they end up helping Grinsky

and letting him get by some

checkpoints.

Yeah.

They slip him the key card.

Yeah.

They slip him the key card.

They get over to the, the

teleportation sleigh.

That's like fully automated.

He has Hilda run in front of it.

She pulls his sleigh.

Cause you know what, despite

the fact that she wasn't good

enough for the regular, you

know, reindeer team.

She's somehow is strong enough

in of herself to pull this

entire thing, even though it's

somewhat automated too.

So it doesn't really need her,

but it's symbolic.

Yeah.

Maybe, you know, the initial

thrusters can't get it off the

ground or something like they

disabled them.

And she's able to get it off

the ground and then he can put

it into hover mode.

Yeah.

So he escapes.

Now hear me out though.

What if the nutcracker guy like

jumps and grabs it right before

they teleport?

Well, so nutcracker guy grabs

on.

Grinsky hits the teleport

button and they teleport like

to like 15,000 feet.

You know, they see that he's on

there, but you know, his hand

slips and he's got one hand

left and he's like, please save

me.

I know I wasn't the best person,

but please try to save him.

And they can't.

And he slips and he starts

falling.

And as they're falling, like

Santa and the manager are

watching on the monitors and

they're going, no.

And it's like, as he gets away.

So Grinsky successfully does

everything he plans to do.

They're celebrating.

He goes across the world and

does this redistribution of toy

wealth.

In the end, we have to drive

change.

Yeah.

We have to drive change.

And so the news reports start

pouring in about weird thefts

that have taken place.

But they can't pinpoint who

stuff got stolen and when like,

he somehow has technology as

well where it like resets and

changes the Mac addresses on

any devices, you know, so that

they can't be traced.

They're doing Mac address spoofing

and stuff.

Yeah.

You know, all of that.

But as a result of this, what

the news reports report is that

people are happier this New

Year's Eve than they've been in

many, many years.

So Santa and the manager are

looking this over.

They're seeing the joy index go

off the charts.

You know, you've got kids that

never could have afforded to

get some of the gifts that they

always wanted.

Like, even if it's something

like just a pair of really nice

sneakers like Air Jordans or

something.

Yeah.

You have this like less

fortunate kid, plays basketball

and has always wanted a pair of

Air Jordans, but his parents

only make $10,000 a year.

So the joy index goes off the

charts and you see Santa and

the manager sitting there like

dumbfounded.

And eventually they call in Grinsky

and his two cohorts, Fundy and

Hilda.

And he's like, you know, maybe

we lost our way somewhere.

Maybe North Pole Corp shouldn't

be about this business of, you

know, 5% year over year joy

increases.

Maybe we should be doing it for

the betterment of mankind.

Maybe it should be, we should

be about every child getting

something worthwhile on

Christmas to bring joy and

happiness to their lives.

And then the ending you don't

see is every corporation

cutting them off and they go

belly up.

Yeah, it's not the greatest

story, but I think with some

tweaks, I mean, I wasn't sure

which way to go to keep it

lighthearted or to have it be

like...

Dork?

No, not even dork, like really

dark.

Yeah, that's what I was saying.

Oh, I thought you said dork.

Yeah, that's just dark and

funny.

Like, not even funny, just like

really dark, like, you know,

like machine guns and like this

elf is like really disgruntled

and...

Yeah, and I don't know that

that would play as well.

But yeah, so Elvenhood, I'll

still, you know, maybe we'll

increase the idea cost to, what

do you think, 40?

Yeah.

It's not the greatest idea.

This is definitely, you know, a

made for TV type movie, I think.

Yeah.

Or like a Netflix original that

they want to make at the end of

the year to save money.

You know, something they could

use as a tax write-off.

Yeah.

But, you know, $40,000 plus 5%

of the gross before...

Oh, and I have to specify for

streaming services, we are on a

strict payment plan, a certain

amount per view.

You know, I don't know what

that's going to be.

But we have a certain amount

per view if it's just streaming

because otherwise you really,

you don't make anything.

Yeah.

Like Netflix eats the

production costs, but then you

don't really get a sense of how

you make money.

So, that's part of the

agreement too.

But anyway, that's Elvenhood.

And if you like the idea,

please shoot us an email,

feedback@nontopical.com.

We always love hearing from you.

In fact, we haven't really

heard from people, so...

Yeah.

We would love to hear, get

emails from you.

Also, we are on multiple

podcasting platforms.

We're actually on Fountain now.

Right.

Fountain actually pays you to

listen.

Granted, it's in Bitcoin Satoshis,

and it's not much.

But you can in turn donate that

back to any of your favorite

shows automatically.

It's kind of cool.

It's kind of cool.

Anyway, so we're on Fountain,

we're on Apple, we're on Audible.

We're everywhere.

Everywhere.

We're in your world.

So, share it with your friends

and family.

We want to grow our audience a

little bit.

If you know anybody that might

like this, then share it with

them.

And last but not least, we

consider ourselves to be...

Value for value.

Value for value.

Which means that if you get

value out of the show...

Show some value in return.

Yep.

And that can be any amount.

It can be, you know, $3, $5, or...

Hypothetical $1,000.

So, we'd really appreciate your

support.

We were just talking recently

and we were thinking about

getting a better microphone

setup that records on the

actual wireless microphones

themselves.

Which will help with any random

Bluetooth disconnects.

But, that's $300 that we don't

have.

Yeah.

So, anyway, I have an important

question actually.

As we wrap up the holiday wrap

up and season, was there

anything that you perhaps

wanted to have in terms of food

for say Christmas and New Years

that you weren't able to have?

Perhaps a cheese quesadilla.

Cheese quesadilla.

Sorry, we had to work it in

somewhere.

Now you know the origin of

cheese quesadilla if you listen

back to one of our holiday pre-records.

So, alright everybody.

Thank you for listening.

We really appreciate it and we'll

catch you next time.

Bye.

Bye.