“Once Upon A Time At Christmas”

By Rockdale Clerk of Courts Ruth A. Wilson

Once Upon A Time At Christmas, there was an Elf on the Shelf at the Courthouse. He called himself Aluicious Lilliputian Fontroy or ALF for short. His only job was to solve problems and prevent problems at the Historic County Courthouse and to do it quietly in the background. He would mostly hide in the ceiling, the walls and subfloor of the old building and no one was the wiser. This Holiday Season he became particularly agitated. All the decorations and festivities had him feeling left out, forgotten and even unappreciated.

He decided to get in on the fun and create some opportunities to get noticed.  Maybe earn some pats on the back from the Big Man, his boss. He started with little things like turning on all the lights at the courthouse at 2:00 a.m. When the cleaning crew arrived at 5:00 a.m., they thought it was mighty strange, but said nothing of it. Then one of the managers complained about the cleaning people leaving the lights on, which they quickly denied. That manager being a dutiful public servant ordered all staff to turn off all lights each night. Things were quiet the rest of the week.

ALF got bored again and decided to do something a little more noticeable. He went through the building and busied all the phone lines so nobody could call in or out. Everybody got upset, complained and pointed fingers.  Then overnight, ALF fixed the phones and promptly appeared on the shelf. Everybody exclaimed what good luck ALF had brought and he was the hero for about two days. Then they forgot about ALF again.

His next bright idea was to gum up and shut down all the computers which caused chaos, complaints and confusion. ALF said to himself, “I got ‘em now!” He let the courthouse struggle for five or six days, then turned the computers back on and promptly appeared on the shelf again.

Finally, the folk at the courthouse got wise and decided to keep ALF around all the time since he was such a good luck charm. They put ALF in a locked box on the shelf where they could enjoy his good tidings year round. And GUESS WHAT? It worked! Once ALF was locked up, all the problems went away. The Moral of the Story is this: If your ALF on the Shelfonly appears after a problem, take a very good look at your ALF.