The saddest Christmas sight.

I don't know about your neighborhood, but every holiday season mine is littered with puddles of colored plastic. Lawn after lawn has a dead inflatable, a flat-as-a-pancake Santa, reindeer, snowman, or elf. It's hard to tell because you can't see much of the airless victim. And you always wonder: How did they end up like this?  Surely there was a time when they first arrived that they were full of enthusiasm. They stood proudly on the lawn in the glow of the Christmas lights, charming passersby. Then suddenly, there they are,  helpless, abandoned. No one rushing to their aid with an air pump. They have almost become pariahs for their inability to remain inflated, punished for the one tiny leak that wasn't their fault. And while the artificial tree is packed away for next year, and the ornaments are carefully wrapped and stored, the colorful inflatables, once so full of hope and air, will be put out with the trash.