The Santa Sherpa
Posted at 6:03 AM on December 4, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(24 Comments)
Some people are always looking for an angle.
Here's the latest from Wally, of Wally's Intimida, where, for years, they made a killing selling the Sherpa Sport Utility Vehicle, the largest SUV on the road. Things have been a little slow lately. But you've got to admire his pluck.
Hello Car Buying Public,This is Wally of Wally's Intimida!
Well, we're coming down to the end of the calendar year , and if you were thinking of buying an Intimida Sherpa for someone special this Christmas, you're running out of time. So come see me!
I know you're not going to do it, by the way. But I thought I'd make the offer just in case. Enough people seem to be going crazy in other ways, lately. I'd like to pick up my newspaper some morning to read that some madman was going around robbing banks and buying up gas-guzzlers with stolen cash!
We know that the Sherpa is a monument to a time that is quickly fading into the past. The Los Angeles Auto Show is opening today and they're emphasizing alternative fuel and high mileage cars. G.M. vice chairman Bob Lutz gave the opening speech and identified this as a time when we are moving into "the electrication of the automobile".
And that gave me an idea.
Come to Wally's Intimida today for a special rental rates on an electrically pimped-up Sherpa Intimida to park in front of your house as a beacon of holiday merriment - an over-the-top neighborhood Christmas bauble that will save you lots of time and trouble!
I know people aren't going to drive these dinosaurs anymore, but they make a great base platform for a mammoth light display. They're big enough, they're tough enough, and by golly, getting one of them into your neighborhood in return for a pittance a day in rental is better than having them sit on the back lot costing me money I don't have!
Cold weather is here and it's a pain to put lights on your house and your trees when your fingers are too numb to hold those tiny bulbs. Now you don't have to do a thing!
Your Santa Sherpa will be completely decorated in our temperature-controlled garage by our staff of elf - mechanics, who are as cute and as jolly as any group of people you'll ever meet, especially when I tell them they still have jobs AND they get to play with electricity.
We'll holly-jollify a Sherpa, drop it off in front of your place, plug it in, and leave it for the season. Will it make an impression? You bet! It's as big as your house!
Carolers, solicitors, reposessors and process servers will think it IS your house.
Let them!Start a new seasonal tradition with a fully lit Santa Sherpa at your curb! Only from Wally's Intimida! It's still a Mighty Big, and now a Mighty Bright Car!
Do you decorate outside? How far do you take it?
Comments (24)
Goof Morning All,
I think I will need to talk to Wally about his deal on a decorated Sherpa. I don't have my Christmas lights up and it was 6 degrees here when I got up this morning.
I should have put my lights up last week end like Dale.
Dale,
Does the appearance of Wally's seasonal bright idea mean that we can start having Christmas music on RH?
sorry, Wally - we've become miserly scrooges. in town i'd put up some lights even quite a few, some years. now we turn on the furnace and skip the lights. i've become pretty paranoid about fires in the barn, so no pretty lights for the goas either. poor buggars. we'll probably go for a drive some evening to look at other folks' lights and that'll be it. they have a huge display in Duluth "Bentleyville" that moved from outside of Cloquet this year. haven't see that either. :-)
happy day, All
I'm with Jim and I think Wally is on to something here. I never feel like putting out decorations when there is no snow, but when there is finally snow, I don't really feel like putting out decorations either.
Like how they look and we always take a walk after it snows to admire everyone else's efforts.
Especially like to see the places that glow a block away, but am glad I'm not next door.
I hear the new lights are pretty efficient, so try not to fret about the power being consumed.
I'm sure the Santa Sherpa has a solar collector that is charging the battery that powers those lights.
I turn Amish in Mid November.
Good Morning RH,
That holly-jollified Sherpa bit, lengthy as it is, is big-time funny!
I don't put lights on my house. I don't like heights.
Today I have to leave early for work because my 2 colleagues across the hall seem to think I should try to get there before the kids do once in awhile so that we might do some collaborating about curriculum or some such thing. SO...I barely have time to post this morning. In a way I'm looking forward to our meeting because it was my job to order things for our students from Oriental Trading Co. and I did do that last night, but what they both wanted was out of stock (ironically) so not only will I get to tell them the unpleasant news and have them ask, "Why didn't you call it in sooner?", but for fun I'm going to say that I picked out alternative items and ordered them instead, and then I'll show them what I chose, and trust me, nobody would want these things, and they're going to throw a hissy.
Man, I love my job!
Have a great weekend Heartlanders!
Greetings! It all depends on if my husband feels like putting up lights. A few years ago, he loved buying lights -- tons of lights. We have 20-30 boxes of icicle lights, half unopened.
For one or two seasons, we had a garish display of lights around all edges of house, which we faithfully turned off around 11pm each night so we could sleep. Now we're lucky to put up lights around one window inside house. Time to put all those lights in the Goodwill box ...
bless the lights people. we have two people in the neighborhood who are the thanksgiving day night hit the swithch people. you see them getting ready in october with the display panels starting to get positioned in the yard and trees for the neighbors.
we used to do a blip on the bushes and a wrap around the trees but we have been away either on christmas or on our way out the door the day after for the warmer reaches of florida. so rather than putting up the tree and taking it down on christmas night we have kind packed in all that christmas primping.
i think a rent a sherpa program might be just the ticket.
I have my "Christmas" lights on all year...they serve as my "yard" lights since I had the power company remove their too bright light from their pole. This year I added lights to the chicken coop so I can see around the out buildings.
As added interest this year, I put up led lights that change from red to green or red to blue...combined with the whites...very nice.
My Norwegian exchange student insisted on adding lights to the dead tree also.
Barb in blackhoof...I see Bentleyville each work night as I drive down 6th avenue to Superior street....amazing! But I hope I don't have to get any closer than the view from the hill.
Happy Friday/weekend y'all!
I might put out lights if I had a house with an exterior outlet - but the only one is in the garage and I'd have to drive over the power cord getting in and out...seems like a hazard. So no outside lights. I rely on others lights for my evening color and sparkle.
With all the problems with housing and such, do you think Wally might open some of those Intimidas for temporary housing for those that otherwise don't have a warm place to sleep? I bet he'd get a nice tax break for the in-kind donation if he worked with a homeless shelter as an auxiliary wing.
Donna, you are wicked; they should appreciate you . i bet you make it fun and interesting to be your colleague :-)
Cynthia - i love that concept of lights for the chickens, horses, et al. and yeah, i hear you on seeing Bentleyville but not actually going. there were 10,000 people there the first night. claustrophobia.
on my way to pick up eggs last night i went past a place that was way back in the woods and lit up like crazy. very pretty. i appreciate folks that decorate even if hardly anyone is going to see the lights. we're too lazy.
would love to decorate this year but we just adopted another dog from the Humane society (we now have 3) and he is only 10 mths old and he ate the twinkle lights so we'll have to wait til next yr
thank you for Claudia Schmidt's song, i love all her music, but esp the ones she sings with no instruments
boys had pancakes and are now playing Clue til the bus comes
That Wally is pretty persuasive. And since winter came so suddenly here, life puff, in an hour or two, I may swtich to Mennonite. With the sudden advent of winter, my biking is done; so maybe I will do a Wally to the bike. Now that I think about it, there is a house in Kato that has a bike hainging in the porch decorated for various seasons, including Chritmas lights.
Oh my gosh. Thanks for the Wailin' Jenny's this morning, Dale. I have not heard this one. Clearly there is an album I don't have. This is gorgeous.
We decorate inside, but not outside. We have neighbors who set out decorations shortly after Halloween. They are those plastic ones lit from the inside. The south side of their yard is the sacred side, with Mary and Joseph and a baby and some shepherds, an angel or two and a star. The North side is the secular side. It has a Pooh Bear with a Santa Hat and Santa himself and a couple of elves. That's quite enough for the whole neighborhood as far as I am concerned. Although a holiday pimped up Sherpa might be just the thing they need to class theirs up a bit.
It's a lovely Friday in the Heartland!
Our street is informally known as "Santa Claus Lane" because of the many mechanical, homemade Santa figures that neighbor put out every year. I never felt that we could compete, and prefer simple wreaths, but our house looks so bare compared with the other houses, and we invariably find ourselves scrambling at the last minute to string lights on every available space. We had to have a tree taken down due to blizzard damage, so our decorating space is more limited this year.
barb in Blackhoof: 1) I love the name Blackhoof, but there is a better township name in MN. Down by Lanesboro is a Bucksnort.
2) Your lifestyle always takes me back to my childhood. Our house had woods very close on two sides. So we kids used to decorate trees, some in view of the house, but one or two off out of sight at the secret places we played in the summer time, one on a rock outcropping that overlooked the valley. We had no lights of course, just the decorations we made of paper, mostly newspaper. Also with our mother's help we would make popcorn strings and hanging decorations (vegetarians stop reading here) of the suet from our butchering. Nothing eatable lasted very long.
I LOVE THE LIGHTS. (And try to reconcile this with my ecological self.) We do one string of icicle lights along the roofline, some "candles" in the windows and then a lot of indoor lights. I try using different routes when doing evening driving in December so I can see as many lights as possible.
I do very little inside decorating for Christmas, other than some LED light strings in a couple places and a beloved fireplace mantel cover from the 1950s made of felt by Grandma Mimi. But outside, I satisfy my gardening mania by making winter gardens in my flower boxes, as well as hanging greenery from a few places and setting small Christmas trees into pots. I put tasteful LED lights on everything (not flashing, bubbling, running or ...) and then add in all the dried bounty from my gardens (hydrangea, berries, rose hips, grasses, and other dried flowers). Most of this is visible from inside the house. A neighbor's yard which I can see from my living room unfortunately has the blow-up Santas and candy canes, an immense polar bear made of light strings, signage, and even a roof-top Santa. From one extreme to the next, I guess.
Say, everyone, I have heard (not personnaly confirmed) that if you want to recycle any old (non-LED) lights, as well as those that no longer work, Snyder's Drug Stores have drop off bins. I have a large supply of older lights that I don't want to use any longer that I plan to recycle there. I heard that the recycling of reusable materials in the lights employs people and so, it is all good!
Good call, Kathleen. I did an online check and here's an article referencing it. Thanks. Good weekend, one and all.
http://wcco.com/miscellaneous/recycle.your.holidays.2.1306430.html
If Clyde can switch religions to avoid Christmas lighting problems, perhaps I should join a faith that I can use to avoid Christmas completely. Some times the hoilday stress, including putting up lights, is just too much or at least not too much fun.
i like "Festivus" Jim - especially the "Airing of the Grievances" (Seinfeld - George's Dad invented this holdiay)
Kathleen -- I want to see your house once it's all decorated!
I am reading this blog long after the last post. I sit here with a stack of boxes of new led colored lights that will replace my old big hot/electricity guzzling colored lights. Haphazard strings of colored lights remind me of Christmas when I was a little kid. Those colored lights during the dark days of winter seemed like magic.
Donna thank you for remembering Waltzing Matilda, as we stood elbow to elbow cooking for TG, my daughters and I talked about that song, and about Tom Waits. Jesse had just posted some of his songs to her Facebook page. We listened to Matilda and to Postcard from a Hooker in Mpls. each a few times.
Why does his croaky voice seem so appropriate during the Holiday season?
I am still lurking in the blogs, about a day or two behind the rest, enjoying enjoying.
This "job" thing gets in the way of my blogging.
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock