Song Title Challenge #4: Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer – Randy Brooks

It’s time for this week’s Song Title Challenge.

Write a short piece of fiction, around 300 words, using the song title as your story title but don’t listen to the song. Remember to link back to this post so I can find yours.

If you would like to suggest a song title for a future post, you can do so from the challenge page. You can also leave a suggestion on the Facebook page.

This week’s song is Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer by Randy Brooks and originally performed by the husband and wife duo of Elmo and Patsy Trigg Shropshire in 1979. I’ve embedded the music video below my attempt, but don’t watch it until you’ve written your own.

Have fun with this one!

Grandma got run over by a reindeer

Grandma got run over by a reindeer. This was strange for several reasons. First-off, you don’t really get reindeer in South Africa. Secondly it was nowhere near Christmas. To this day I have not been able to find out why they had built a giant reindeer in the food court in the middle of July. Why they built it on wheels is anybody’s guess.

So, there we were, enjoying a quiet family lunch at KFC, when everyone started yelling and screaming. We looked up to see Rudolph looming over us like an aircraft carrier would loom over a surf-ski. (At this point I should probably note that, through a combination of tender fraud, bribery of building inspectors and corner-cutting contractors, there wasn’t a perpendicular wall or a level floor in the mall. There’s a book running in town on when it’s going to collapse.) It was every man for himself. People were jumping over tables; cashiers and waitrons abandoned their posts. One rent-a-cop bravely stood his ground, pulled his stun-gun and sent ten thousand volts charging through that reindeer. They put up a statue of him afterwards.

In the confusion we all forgot that Grandma had recently had a hip replacement. When we noticed she was not with us it was already too late – the beast was upon her. The flimsy food court chairs and tables crumpled at its approach and we watched helplessly as Grandma disappeared between its massive legs. The behemoth’s momentum carried it past where we had sat and it finally came to rest against a wall. Grandma did not reappear. Ever.

Books have been written about that day. Conspiracy theorists have speculated, scientists have taken measurements, priests have done exorcisms, psychics have taken readings, but Grandma was gone. I like to think she’s in a better place, where she can run barefoot through the grass without fear of killer caribou. And besides, the mall has given us free-meals-for-life-coupons (or at least until the place collapses, which might be the same day, come to think of it), so we reckon that day was a win-win.