NK - A little less gruesome Christmas story

[Brannon L. Bain]

Okay, so this one isn't quite as sweet as my last posting but at least it 
isn't the Christmas Murder and Mayhem offered up by some of our 
participants.

With Honor,
Takeda Iyesu Hanshi
Shogun of the Clan of the Ivory Dragon

 "Christmas Gift Exchange"
Roy Collette and his brother-in-law have been exchanging the same pair of 
pants as a Christmas present for 11 years - and each time the package gets 
harder to open. This year the pants came wrapped in a car mashed into a 
3-foot cube. The trousers are in the glove compartment of a 1974 Gremlin. 
Now Collette's plotting his revenge-if he can get them out.
It all started when Collette received a pair of moleskin trousers from his 
brother-in-law, Larry Kunkel of Bensenville, Ill. Kunkel's mother had given 
her son the britches when he was a college student. He wore them a few 
times, but they froze stiff in cold weather and he didn't like them. So he 
gave them to Collette.  Collette, who called the moleskins "miserable", 
wore them three times, then wrapped them up and gave them back to Kunkel 
for Christmas the next year.
The friendly exchange continued routinely until Collette twisted the pants 
tightly, stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide tube and gave them 
back to Kunkel. The next Christmas, Kunkel compressed the pants into a 
7-inch square, wrapped them with wire and gave the "bale" to Collette. Not 
to be outdone, the next year Collette put the pants into a 2-foot-square 
crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded it with steel and gave the 
trusty trousers back to Kunkel.
The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged. But they 
were as careful as they were clever.
Kunkel had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had a 20-year 
guarantee and shipped them off to Collette.  Collette broke the glass, 
recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can and soldered 
it shut. The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled with concrete and 
reinforcing rods and given to Kunkel the following Christmas. Two years 
ago, Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel ashtray made 
from 8-inch steel casings and etched Collette's name on the side. Collette 
had trouble retrieving the treasured trousers, but succeeded without 
burning them with a cutting torch.
Last Christmas, Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to Viracon 
Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it with red and 
green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe shut. The safe was 
then shipped to Kunkel, who is the plant manager for Viracon's outlet in 
Bensenville.
Last week, the pants were trucked to Owatonna, 55 miles south of 
Minneapolis, in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a car with 95,000 
miles on it. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched car advised 
Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment.
"This will take some planning," Collette said. "I will definitely get them 
out. I'm confident." But he's waiting until January to think about how to 
recover the bothersome britches.
"Wait until next year," he warned. "I'm on the offensive
again