CURRENT ISSUE 12/28/04 Front Page Weekly Features Ain't That America? Ask Zarxnol McQuigly & Moss Musing With Mitch Info Previous Issues Crap Shop Who's at Fault? Contact Us! Aye, mateys! Get you some Daily Probe booty!	Ask Zarxnol The premier child psychologist on his home planet Xargolia before being called to the service of his Warrior-God Xargol as a conqueror of lesser worlds, Zarxnol happilly adresses the child-raising concerns of our readers. Dear Zarxnol, My 6-year-old Connor had been positively rotten all year until the family Thanksgiving dinner. There, my mother got fed up with him and told him that if he didn't straighten up and be a good boy, Santa wouldn't bring him any presents. Ever since his warning from Grandma, he's been courteous, charming and helpful. I hate threatening my son like that, but I can't say I don't like the results! How do you suggest I keep Connor on Santa's good list all year long? Pondering in Plattsburg Pondering: Thank you for addressing a dilemma that is undoubtedly playing out in a multitude of households during this Holiday Season, especially in the Western cultures with their fanciful Santa Claus myth. Indeed, I have been waiting for such a question lo these many months! How do you curb your scion's natural impulses to do as he wishes? Dullard! Have you yet to comprehend the lessons of my previous columns in which I tout the discipline of and constant display of superiority over your lessers as primary tools of behavioral modification? In Xargol's righteous name, Pond, were I to walk through the ocean of your intellect, I impugn the notion that my feet could be considered moist! Given your blinding idiocy, by default Connor is clearly the superior in this relationship. Therefore you must resort to the most effective weapon of the weak – deceit. To this end, the cultural construct of convenience Claus is ideal. Through Claus, the otherwise impotent adult can leverage his influence with a nigh-invisible yet well-defined creature of all-powerful benevolence in order to alter the comportment of his youthful superior. Should the desired behavior be resultant of the Claus bluff, your compensation to Connor is but the silly plastic flashing-light robot toys and Fondle Me Elmos that you have already been stockpiling for this holiday occasion. Should the Claus gambit fail to conform your spawn's conduct, however, Connor's rage of disappointment would manifest itself in guilt and self-loathing, thus protecting your feeble delusion of parental sufficiency. Of course, should Connor see through the paper-thin ruse that is the absurd fable of an obese Eskimo delivering gifts to children willy-nilly by gaining domestic entrance through a narrow rooftop ventilation duct which went out of manufacturing vogue with the steam engine and tin-type, Connor's wrath would most certainly be grievous. The consequential misery in the Ering household this Christmas shall only be outdone on the day that the Xargolian forces march from the sea to utterly decimate your comically defended Plattsburg. Ah, yes. Knowledge of the inevitable domination, subjugation, and destruction of all humans at my merciless heel in the name of Xargol, He Most High of the Seven Teats does indeed fill me with mirth. I am fraught with the Christmas spirit, indeed! Regards, Zarxnol Send your questions to Zarxnol at: Zarxnol@DailyProbe.com (Translated by Carl Knorr)
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