The Christmas Tree

We used to own a house when we lived in Phoenix that had a room with high ceilings. The ceiling had to be 18 feet in this one room. The room stood out from the rest of the house, with some high windows and no insulation. I called it The Chapel. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. 

Bernadette wanted to do something special for our first Christmas in this house. Specifically, she wanted to buy a very tall Christmas tree for this room. Like 12 feet. All of our other trees had always been 6-8 feet tall. I knew enough to know that a tall tree would need an extra large tree stand. But that's all I knew about the special requirements of having such a tall tree. We selected a tall, thin tree. I didn't even know how we would get such a large tree home! But we strapped it to the roof of our van and got it home without incident. Bernadette was convinced we didn't really need the extra large tree stand, and yeah, the tree did sort of fit in the normal tree stand. We set the tree up in the corner of the room  - I gotta be honest here, it looked WONDERFUL! But I wasn't convinced and I went off to find that extra large tree stand I had previously purchased. I left Bernadette alone with the tree; she was trimming some of the lower branches and making adjustments to the base of the tree. 

I knew the stand was in our closet, but I had to dig to find it... 

Hey look, my old shoes! Should I keep these or toss them out? Hrmm, let's keep looking for that stand...

Oh WOW! I've been looking for this cable! Cool, let's keep looking...

What's this? A stash of old pictures? Oh this must have been from when I was in the navy. I looked so young back then. And wow wow! Pictures of when I was dating Bernadette! Yowzers she was such a little cutie!

CRASH!

VICTOOOORRRR!!!!!

I snap back into the here and now, put down the pictures, and run to The Chapel to see what happened. The tree had fallen over. Turns out we really did need an extra large tree stand. I'm standing there, looking at this fallen tree, trying to figure out how I'm going to fix this when I see movement from under the tree and I hear a muffled VICTOOOR! 

OH NO! Bernadette is stuck under the tree! 

I lift the tree up and shout 'ARE YOU OKAY??' 

All I see now are Bernadette's legs sticking out from under the tree and she's kicking. Reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West and the house falling on her. I'm holding up this tree to help her get out from under the tree and now I'm laughing at the imagery. Maybe it was nervous laughter, as I knew she was okay, I don't know. All I know for sure is that she did not like being laughed at! Out from under the tree, this curled-up little fist emerged and she started punching at my legs. And she's screaming bloody murder! The sight of her feet kicking from under the tree, the little fist punching at my feet, and the muffled sounds of the banshee under the tree were just too much for me. I lost my grip on the tree and my sweet darling wife was once again completely lost under the tree. She. WAS. LIVID!! I finally did get her out from under the tree, but there was no convincing her this was not intentional. And she would not entertain any ideas about switching out the tree stands. We carefully set the tree back up, tightened down the screws, and started decorating the tree. It took ALL of the decorations we had gathered over the years to decorate this enormous tree. But in the end, it looked GLORIOUS. 

At this point, I should mention our cats. We've rarely had two cats at once. This story may be the reason why. Turns out our two cats had been eyeballing this large tree from the moment it came into the house. And now that it was set up, they decided it was time to come in and investigate. Maybe it was the smell of fresh pine. Or maybe it was the site of this large tree now available to them. Perhaps the glowing lights, the shiny tinsel, and the pretty ornaments all combined were too much temptation for the cats. To this day I don't know the whys, but the cats decided this tree was the perfect arena for their kitty-wrestle mania. We heard the awful crashing sound in the middle of the night. Bernadette and I ran to The Chapel and were met with the fallen tree. The cats had toppled it. Tinsel was flung across the room with no care. Broken ornaments filled The Chapel. There were shiny bits and pieces everywhere. The Christmas lights danced, highlighting the carnage of the aftermath.

Without a word, we swept up the broken pieces. Bernadette herself swapped out the tree stand for the extra large tree stand. Together, we re-set the tree and up it went, Christmas tree topping askew. 

Since then, we have stuck with 6-8 foot Christmas trees. And only one cat at a time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Hound in Hawaii (Circa 1993)

This happened about 30 years ago when I was stationed at NAS Barber's Point, Hawaii. This navy base has since been decommissioned, but was full of old buildings and structures, as the old Ewa Marine Air Station was there. You could still see the old Marine airstrip in the back woods. There were still bullet holes in the old airstrip from WWII. Lots of old abandoned covered revetments and a few old pillboxes lined the beach. The base was kind of creepy even back then. I lived on base and one night me and my neighbor 'Tim' went for a drive around the base. I was driving my Chevy S-10 pickup; the top of the hood was about gut level. I'd say it was 4 feet. Don't know where we were headed and I don't know the exact time. There were orange-colored street lights, so it wasn't entirely dark. I was driving past an empty field and there was a chain link fence along the road. We were driving no faster than 30 mph. As was always the case back then, my head was on a swiv...
Read more

Never Yank a Monkey's Chain

Settle down children and gather round. I'm gonna tell you an old story. A cautionary story about why you should never yank a monkey's chain. See, monkeys are a lot stronger than they appear. Their mouths are full of sharp teeth. And usually a monkey will leave you alone. Unless you yank their chain. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's set the scene: Picture this: I was a young sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), a freshly built aircraft carrier. I had recently reported to the Lincoln, as it had been freshly commissioned and was going to go around South America to its new port in Alameda California. Yes, I transitioned the Straits of Magellan during this time (not the first time). Yes, I saw Antarctica during this time (again, not the first time). And yes, we stopped in Rio De Jainero for a port visit on the way (not the first time).  I didn't get to do a lot of things I wanted to do the first time I was in Rio, so I signed up for something I had alwa...
Read more

I got an incoming call from (possibly) a family of alligators

This is from a few years ago when I worked for an ISP that mostly handled the rural US south. I got an incoming call from what I envisioned as a family of alligators. This is how the conversation went to the best of my recollection: Me: Thank you for calling Rural ISP, this is ME, how can I help you? Gator:Rarr rar ra Rara raaa Me: I'm sorry, I didn't get that, can you please repeat that? Gator:Rarr rar ra Rara raaa! Me:....... Me: Sir, I'm sorry but I'm - Gator: RIRRR?! RI'm arr rarry! Me: Mam? Sorry, my mistake! I'm having difficulties understand - Gator: Ru rang righ! Ruu rant runderrann Rengrish! Me: ... I see... Mam, is there anybody else there that I can speak with? Gator: Yeahrrr run rec... Gator: Rrree! Rrreeeeee! Red rover rere. Rang ridiot ere rant runderrann reee Gator:... run rec.... Me: Great! Thank you and sorry about that! Gator: Ruhhh huhhh... get er done! I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing this will soon be over... Gator2: ello? Me: Hi! This is...
Read more