Joel

So this morning Alison and I went to get Christmas trees. I provide a big car, she provides an extra pair of hands- it's not a bad system. Unfortunately we were under some time pressure (I had a meeting) and were shopping late, so there weren't a lot of trees available in range.

We found a small tree lot out past Waterworks, and quickly picked out two trees from the very small supply. She got a short, wide one in the hopes that her kitten would have more trouble tipping it over. I grabbed the other nice-looking tree, which seemed a little large but not ridiculous. We crammed one in the back of my minivan and tied the other to the top and zipped home. When we carried my tree up onto my porch it seemed a bit heavy, and it began to dawn on me that, well, there really was a lot of tree there.

I ran off to my meeting, and came home to the task of wrestling the tree into the house. The process got totally out of hand.

So I'm dragging the tree in through my front door, and I can't really lift it so it's not going through in the most efficient base-first fashion. I shove enough of it in that I can close the outer doors behind me, but it's wedged against the couch. I needn't have worried about the cats escaping; they're terrified of the whole process. I fight my way out of the little wedged-in space between the outer door and the base of the tree and take this picture.



At this point it's clear to me that, well, this is going to be a downstairs tree. The usual thing to do is for me to put the tree up in the second floor living room, but, hey, there's just no way I can get it up the stairs. Here is the tree leaning against the base of the stairs- I thought bringing it upstairs was out of the question.

I can't quite think where to put it downstairs either, so I go and sit down for a few minutes to calm myself and think. The situation is hopeless. In fact it's beyond hopeless and well into ludicrous. Oddly, for some reason these situations tend to fill me with an equally ludicrous enthusiasm. I fetch an old tarp to wedge under the tree and commence trying to drag it up the stairs.



I haul for a while, and eventually the base of the tree has made it to the landing halfway up the stairs- where the staircase makes a 90 degree turn. That's my wildly expensive and fragile stained glass window in the background. The tree is not going to turn the corner. Neither is it going back downstairs, because its branches are all wedged in the bannister spindles.

My enthusiasm has passed the point of rationality, so I climb over the railing, do a short traverse down to stand on the top of my refrigerator. (Yes, there are now boot prints on top of the fridge). I try hauling things up from there. No good. I traverse farther down the stairwell, get underneath the top of the tree, and roll it upright and onto the upper half of the flight of stairs. Neither I nor the tree falls through the stained glass window.



This leaves me attempting to haul the tree up the last set of stairs point first. Force is used, some more traversing on the outside of the railing happens to free up stray branches, and some not-insignificant chunks of tree get lost in the struggle. Eventually the tree reaches this point, with its nose poking into the room where it's supposed to end up.

I can't get it through the door, of course. More struggle follows, and eventually the tree executes a Y-turn on the second floor landing and gets drug butt-first into the room.


Voila! The tree eventually made it to its final position, complete with base, water, and all that tree stuff. I'm very pleased. I'm also absolutely certain it's going to go out in small pieces.

I had an important revelation in the course of all this: It's a good thing I'm a single male, because no woman I know would be fool enough to have let me do this. I also learned that if you need to trim the low branches off a tree and you can't find your saw, a broadsword will work pretty well.


Anyway, I just had to share that.