There is a picture of me at the tender age of two sitting on Santa's lap, mouth wide open as I am obviously in mid-scream, eyes filled with tears and betraying a sense of terror, hair completely disheveled and my torso leaning foward as I try to escape the Santa's kung-fu grip around my hips. The photo has been the source of amusement for ages and I must confess that whatever trauma I felt that day pales in comparison to anything that Nicole Lascecki did to me in fifth grade. Apparently the Santa trauma is too much for childern to bear so the city luminaries of Vienna have banned St. Nick from Kindergartens.
