Disaster at the Tree Farm

Each year, it's a tradition to go out amongst the giant gymnosperms of my former elementary school principal's tree farm and select one to grace our living room for the holiday season. It's a big ordeal, really, for I am the pickiest pine picker there ever was. My in-laws are bah-humbugy about the whole Christmas tree event, usually putting up their own fake fir the night before Christmas. Me, no. I cannot wait that long, and having grown up with the tradition, it's something that absolutely had to be carried over into my adulthood.

So Friday, after myself being up for over 24 hours in anticipation of the Great Shopper's Holiday (now deemed by corporate America as "Black Friday"), we nabbed some nifty bargains and headed to the tree farm for what turned out to be, well, a semi-disastrous event.

But I should back up.

As I said, I'd been up for over 24 hours from Thanksgiving on. Sometime around 3am I got incredibly sleepy, but decided to occupy my time by reading a novel that my in-laws gave me out of nowhere. The author, Philip Yancey, is supposed to be a wonderful author, so I figured the novel would help keep me awake. (The said novel is entitled, Rumors of Another World.) It kept me awake until 4:30am when I couldn't take it anymore and pried my husband off the couch so we could be the first in line at a local department store (which, we were). The book, however, had me so pissed off I could barely see straight, as it seems my in-laws have such little faith in my own faith that they try to oh-so-subtly push religion on me through books. Now, I do love to read, but why oh why do they not push this stuff off on their own son? Because I was not raised in a church, they seem to take me for a heathen, which is obvious through the various reading materials they've given me over the last few years.

But I'm digressing. So we dropped Clayton off at my dad's and scurried off to the stores. Lucky me, I won a Frasier Fir--and didn't even try. I guess we were the 15th customers at Rural King, which happened to be giving out 15 free trees. So we go out to the lot and there's this family looking at Frasier Firs. Steve pipes up, "Why don't we give them our tree?" Fabulous idea since we were going to go cut down our own later, so we told the people to pick out a tree and have a Merry Christmas.

We went to check on Clayton and my dad suggested we take his truck to get our tree. Seeing how our trees usually hang over the sides of the Jeep (ala National Lampoon style), we took him up on the offer. Now, he just bought this Ford F150 this year, but it's no means "new" or even in great shape. Nonetheless, it's his baby. Being as slap happy as we were, we later referred to it as the F-Unit, a spoof on G-Unit, which I had to explain to my husband the other night.

We're truckin' along in the F-Unit and as we pull into my former principal's driveway, he's getting ready to leave with his grandkids. So he hands Steve his chainsaw and tells us to drive around the OUTSIDE of the trees because the best ones are on the outer edges of the property, anyway. A lady pulled in behind us, so we had the task of chopping down her tree, as well. No problem.

The funny part is, this lady was waiting on someone with a truck to come get her tree, and lo and behold...In pulls the same people we had given our FREE tree to just a couple hours earlier at Rural King. Even more ironic is that they are from a town 45 minutes away. Now what's the chances of these people being at the same place as us twice in one day--especially when there must be 50 places to purchase a Christmas tree between here and there? After the following chain of events, I believe the irony is meant to be a moral lesson signifying that we should have taken the damn free fir and been on our merry way for the day.

So the owner of the trees , the lady whose tree we cut/the free fir fam, have all left, and we are alone amongst the pines. We spot a couple we like but decide to drive back around to the front of the house to look at some others. Like I said, I am very picky and usually have to scan every tree two or three times before making the final cut. No pun intended.

We're bouncing along in the F-Unit and I'm chiding Steve for driving through the yard. He protests that it's okay, they do it all the time because their yard is, after all, a Christmas tree farm. In the back of the woods, I find one we must have. It's not like our usual White Pines, but rather a Blue Spruce (I believe). Different is good, I say. Steve decides to go get the F-Unit and bring it around closer to get the tree. I stand and wait, thinking that he will surely drive AROUND the place to the back end like the guy had originally told us.

Two point two minutes later, I hear a thud followed by my dad's truck revving up. Steve has chosen to drive THROUGH the property, thus landing in a three-four foot hole. I'm pissed.

A couple more minutes later, Steve is sulking through the trees toward me and I am, at this point, jumping up and down screaming various expletives. Why the hell couldn't he follow directions? I mean, not only is this my papa's F-Unit we're talking about, but my bull-headed husband chose to totally disregard the owner, my former principal, who obviously trusted us to do the right thing- cut a tree, and be on our way.

I ask Steve what he plans to do about this mess, thinking we're going to use the cell to call his dad, my dad, someone...No, Steve is going to go get this guy's Bob Cat and use the loader to pull the F-Unit out of the hole. I tell him he is crazy and scream a little more in disbelief.

I stand amidst the pines and watch as my husband walks all the way up to this guy's garage and gets on the Bob Cat. I wait to see if the key is even in it--sure enough, he's revving 'er up. It almost didn't turn over, but here he comes, bouncing along toward the truck. My heart is throbbing out of my chest as I am sure the owner or his wife or another customer or a neighbor or somebody is going to pull in and catch us at any given moment.

Fast forward, the plan works and I am in the truck getting ready to back out. Luckily, the truck is okay but minus about a quarter of a tank of diesel at this point. Steve comes up to the window and tells me he needs a cigarette, which I deny him, saying he has to earn it first and get me the hell out of the field. He guides me out, we drive F-Unit AROUND to the tree, (like we're supposed to in the first place) saw it down, return the saw to the guy's porch, and head home.

We have vowed to never tell my father what happened.