You might think getting paid to play Christmas carols for 12 consecutive hours would be a pleasant way to earn some money.
But by the time Nat King Cole sings about chestnuts roasting on an open fire for the fifth time in one night, you want Jack Frost to do more than nip at Cole's nose. You want Frost to put a serious hurt on him.
Trust me on that.
During my college days back in the Paleozoic Era, I worked as a radio producer at 3WS-FM. As part of my grunt-level duties, I once was assigned the shift none of the full-time disc jockeys would touch: the dreaded Christmas Eve overnight.
From 6 p.m. Christmas Eve to 6 a.m. Christmas morning, my task was to provide the holiday soundtrack for people on their way to church, to festive family gatherings or to the only local bar usually open that night -- Jack's in the South Side.
Almost immediately into the shift, I grasped the lengthy, lonely endeavor ahead. I was the only person in the station, and there wasn't a soul walking around the station's Allegheny Center offices.
Not a creature was stirring, not even ... you get the idea.
After a few hours, my isolation inspired me to do something most DJs frown upon: answer the request line.
One of the radio industry's dirty secrets is that employees often ignore the request line because there's no point in answering it. Most of music is pre-programmed.
But that night, I had wide latitude to play whatever songs were in the station's Christmas inventory. Because he wanted to scoot home and be with his family, the program director hadn't devised a playlist.
Taking requests from the poor souls stuck working like me proved to be the evening's salvation.
For an office building security guard, I played "White Christmas." For the emergency room intake clerk, I played, "Jingle Bell Rock." Or maybe it was the other way around; that was a long time ago.
I played most any request, but I refused to indulge the relentless little delinquent who called every 10 minutes for two hours asking to hear, "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."
I always hated that novelty song. To me, there is nothing remotely amusing about a drunken grandmother becoming a victim of sleighicular homicide on Christmas Eve.
The kid finally went away, and the hours after midnight passed slowly and uneventfully. Around 5:00 a.m., I was methodically jabbing a pen into my palm to stay awake when the request line light flashed once more.
The kid was calling again.
"Can you play 'Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer?'"
"Don't you have presents to open?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. "But my mom and dad told me to go back to bed."
Figuring activity would keep me awake, I began flipping through the music until I located the putrid tune.
"Your song will be on in about 10 minutes," I told him, yawning.
When the awful anthem concluded, the request line flashed again. On the line was the prepubescent, grandma-hating obsessive.
"Thanks," he said.
I learned two things that memorable night.
The first was that sometimes it doesn't take much to lift someone's holiday spirits.
The second was that I had no desire ever to work that shift again. Merry Christmas, everyone.
