Have yourself a techie little christmas
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the town
TikTok was quiet even Bluesky was down.
Stockings were hung by the plasma display
in hopes Elon Musk wouldn’t take them away.
The children were nestled, all snug and secure,
while Big Data strip-mined their free FICO score.
***
All remote controls were set to proceed
with crypto they had stolen from Sam Bankman-Fried.
We gathered our iPhones all in the same room
as we livestreamed our 29th consecutive Zoom.
Our Instagram pix were almost all ready
while our 5G LTE was amazingly steady.
***
We took many selfies and saved them to Pinterest.
We uploaded to Dropbox the ones that were best.
We checked our Facebook page and scanned the Huff Post,
we raised our Tumblrs and made a hearty toast.
Our nonfungible tokens didn’t see eye to eye,
but our podcasts had dropped all over Spotify.
We Whatsapped and Snapchatted all through the night,
to made sure our terminology was finally just right.
***
While our Fitbit was running and Netflix was streaming,
young children everywhere were pleasantly dreaming
of toys and gifts that would become a new meme,
of toys and gifts that’d be the crème de la cream.
***
Then on the back deck, beside the satellite dish,
there came a loud sound and we knew something was amiss.
On this of all nights what could possibly be worse
than getting completely lost in the dark Metaverse?
So, I went to my tablet to check out the clatter,
to see if something was wrong with my data.
When what to my pixel-ated eyes should appear,
but a mixed-media sleigh and eight remote-controlled reindeer.
I knew in an instant after checking my OS,
that Santa was here, and in some distress.
And then in a twinkling I saw from my futon,
that poor old St. Nick didn’t have his red suit on.
His eyes were all watery, his emoji a frown.
He said, with a grimace, his WiFi was down.
There will be no gifts tonight, he added apace —
“I have no spreadsheets, nor my database!”
***
Santa couldn’t do it? Was he totally at sea?
Or had he relied too much on ChatGPT?
Did he need more AI? Was that his main lack?
Or was he the victim of the latest Russian hack?
Could we find a way through this terrible mess?
Could we find a way without our GPS?
We thought of creating a new avatar
or getting FedEx from a self-driving car.
We asked for help from our trusted friend Siri,
but it turned out, however, she was quite leery.
***
Then we heard from someone who used to read Wired,
from someone who was no longer high-tech inspired.
Santa, we were told, could do it by hand.
He wasn’t a slave of a high-frequency band.
He didn’t need the Cloud or to send a new text.
He didn’t need high-def or whatever comes next.
All he’d need was a big sack and a big hearty laugh.
He wouldn’t need 10 megagigs — not even half!
***
His eyes, how they twinkled, his smile gleamed so brightly!
His bandwidth was solid, his GIFs were quite sprightly.
He sprang to his sleigh, the reindeer came near.
He blasted Sirius XM while still in first gear.
I heard him exclaim as he cruised out of sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good byte.”