I suppose I should have taken it as an omen of bad tidings when I caught the first whiff of synthesizing booze leaking through the man�s skin as he leaned toward me in order to get a better grip on that damned tree. I should have taken it as a sign that things were not about to go the easy way when he called my hood release a �new-fangled contraption�.
Sidebar: what constitutes �new-fangled�? Can something be old-fangled? Or perhaps just plain fangled? Ooh! According to the dictionary, fangled means �New made; hence, gaudy; showy; vainly decorated.� Which makes the prefix new- pretty redundant, eh what? Anyway, the fact remains that the hood release on my mother�s car is neither new, nor even remotely fangled, and it alarms me that someone in the 21st century would fail to recognize it as such.
In any case, I was attempting to purchase a Christmas tree for my family, and things just weren�t going according to plan. Boozy McTree was still trying to fasten the thing to the roof of the car as he said to me, �I�ll give you an extra piece of twine�just in case.� And I�m all, �Just in case of what?� And he�s like, �Oh, nothing. You don�t live far do you? Better take the back way home. And drive slowly.� So of course I drove home at about 3mph, terrified that I�d hit a pothole or something and end up chasing the tree down the street and screaming out the window for everyone to get out of the way.
This did not happen in the end, which made me happy. Of course my joy was quite short-lived since, once I got the tree home, it took me half an hour to saw about two inches of trunk off the damn thing. Finally, after switching saws twice, contemplating the advantages of maybe using a belt sander or purchasing an axe, I finally made it through the last layer of corrugated steel and that hunk of shit finally came off in my hand.
I was sweaty, scratched up, and covered in sap, but I was triumphant! I let that tree know who was boss, too. �What�s my name, bitch?� I screamed at it, as passersby covered their children�s virgin ears and hastened down the sidewalk. �Who�s your daddy?� Okay, I didn�t say that last part, because that would�ve been creepy. Especially at Christamastime. But I did say the first thing, and then I did the In Your Face, Whore Christmas Tree From Hell dance.
And then the tree proceeded to teach me who the boss was over the course of the next hour, which found me trying in vain to attach the fucking tree stand and make that future piece of kindling stand up straight. It was approximately at this point that I realized this asshole tree had been stolen from Rockefeller Center, as it was about thirty stories tall and six hundred feet around. Well, maybe not quite that big, but you get the idea. Anyway, after an hour of coaxing, cajoling, swearing, and screaming, I finally threatened to shoot it if it didn�t cooperate, and it finally got its act together.
Then I had to throw it back down on the ground and drag it out of the garage, around the front of the house, through the garden, and up the front steps, since it was too damn fat to fit through the connecting door to the garage. So there was more cursing. Still more cursing ensued when I discovered that the trip through the garden has christened the entire side of the tree with a dense, black mud that was now smeared all over the foyer and ground into my mother�s rug.
At long last, I managed to prop the thing up in the corner and forced it to stand up (relatively) straight. Then I got right in its jolly, pine-scented face and told it in no uncertain terms that one of us would not be around next Christmas, and if it new what was good for it, it would wipe that damn smile off its trunk and get to work spreading a little Christmas cheer.
Next year, we�re getting a philodendron.
Someone Got Here By Searching For: �happy holidays�, funny, �non-denominational� And: �rachael ray� ass I�m Watching: A bunch of crappy movies that are absurdly being shown around the holidays. Hello, how is Mortal Kombat 2 a Christmas movie? I�m Eating: My favorite Chinese food ever. Mmm.