Papa stealthily raised his hands, clutched his head and ripped it off before his startled head knew how to react. The furniture just sat there looking bored. Papa was disappointed--the reindeer had laughed, why not the furniture? Perhaps, Papa considered, the reindeer were fake. But no, he knew in his heart that the reindeer were true and pure, the stuff any real man dreams of. Hell, they even had antlers.
Papa loved to make things laugh, a holdover from his 'trapped underground' period. You've witnessed some of the extent he would go to in order to coax out laughter, and this wasn't even a good day. On a good day, he'd solder himself to a wild boar, and then and only then would the fun begin. Afterwards, he would serve drinks--a nice juice if the audience had laughed, a hostile blend of sawdust and live crustaceans if they failed to appreciate his comedic genius. On bad days, the audience looked as though it had been attacked by an alien race of lobster carpenters--and often it had been.
Papa now finished serving the furniture the refreshments they had earned and ran out of the room in tears. He'd live... barely. "Bastards," he muttered bitterly. They didn't care about a man's worth, just his height. So he wasn't tall. Who was? Damn it, he was still funny. He grabbed an alkaline battery off the wall and tossed it down his throat. It didn't help. Nothing would. Papa had failed.