Narrator: "I could feel the Christmas noose beginning to tighten. Maybe what happened next was inevitable."
Mrs. Parker (Melinda Dillon): "Ralphie, what would you like for Christmas?"
Narrator: "Horrified, I heard myself blurt it out."
Ralphie: "I want an official Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle."
Narrator: "Ooh."
Mrs. Parker: "No. You'll shoot your eye out."
Narrator: "Oh, no. It was the classic mother-BB gun block. 'You'll shoot your eye out.' That deadly phrase uttered many times before by hundreds of mothers was not surmountable by any means known to kid-dom."