O' Tannenbaum

It's official, Rocco and I have found our calling. True, it's a bit unconventional and not really lucrative, but not all of us can run Enron. Last night we discovered that we should be official Christmas Tree Choosers. Chuckle if you must, but we are gooood at what we do....

Yesterday, I was feeling under the weather and had a bit of a crap afternoon, so after work, I decided it would be good to finally go get some fresh pine garland for my apartment (since it's too fucking small for an actual xmas tree). I called Rocco and guilted/dragged him to Home Depot to fill our christmas decoration needs. First, we wandered aimlessly amongst lumber, fertilizer, lighting fixtures and really really bad prelit santa's until finally succumbing to the christmas tree cluster in the parking lot.

For about five minutes, I was pissed b/c apparently home depot doesn't sell fresh garland....and when I asked the two culver zit-faced high school dropout employees about it, they both looked at each other with faces blanker than a sheet of filler paper. "uh, nah i uh don't...." FORGET IT, SORRY I ASKED. Then they went back to telling this fat kid how cooooool he was b/c he was just as tall as his charlie brown christmas tree. losers.

Mind you, Rocco hates christmas and I love christmas. So when you take the average of our conflicting attitudes, buying a christmas tree becomes an emotionless, yet slightly humorous errand; jaded by a sense of duty to the season. If Rocco could skip christmas, he would....however I think he gets more out of just being miserable. And if any of you know Rocco, you know that he'll get stuff just b/c he can, not because he necessarily wants too.

example... I delighted in searching for just the perfect mini-pointsettias for my desk and apartment. They're pretty much all the fucking same, but it's like I'm looking for a boyfriend, "there has to be one out there, just for me." it's a PLANT missy, get a grip. As I'm sifting through shelves of red, pink and white blossoms, rocco realizes he should get some pointsettias too, remarking "they just die anyway." regardless, he grabs one of each color and states..."DONE. I'm going to look for a tree now." and walks off.

I found him about five minutes later and he was already unraveling a tree with disdain. I set my two prize pointsettias on the ground and started tackling the tree with him. There was a young family of three behind us, clumsily checking out trees; they were going about it all wrong...mindlessly, rocco and I shook out our tree specimen and proceeded to scrutinize and critique it like sorority girls during RUSH week. after much deliberation, rotation, joking and swapping, we decided the tree just wasn't quite right.

At this point we look around and realize we have drawn a slight audience. The tree is infact a great tree and we've pretty much sold it to everyone around us, except to us. The tree had grown on me b/c the needles were so different and curvy....Rocco wasn't sold, so when the slight chance came that we were going to ditch it, the wife belts out, "WE'LL TAKE IT!" realizing that others coveted our tree, made it more special to us, and suddenly I didn't want to give it up. so I grabbed it a little tighter.

Then the spirit of the season came over me and I said, why the hell not, it's a little anorexic on one side, there has to be another tree around here that's better. So Rocco and I gave up the tree to family #1. It was like they'd won showcase number 2 on the Price is Right (showcase #2 is always better). So that was great, until we had to find another damn tree.

Others had gathered basically looking for our throw aways or eyeing us to see if we would possibly handout more trees. They would start "ooohing" at a tree until we deemed in unworthy and then they too would find it distateful. I scoffed when one family joked that they would sometimes just buy a tree still wrapped and check it out once they got home. SACRILEGE! that's like buying a car off eBay.

At one point Rocco thought it would be funny to throw a tree on me. I'm sure the parents of young children appreciated it as I almost yelled obscenities instead of Timberrrrrrrr! We sorted through about five other trees when finally Rocco unravelled one that wasn't too bad. We twirled, critiqued and finally decided that it would do.

A couple next to us (who couldn't even get the rope off a tree) stated that they would take ours if we changed our minds, but I had to inform them that the large family behind them had dibs on our next reject. As we trudged off with the tree, I kinda felt bad, like we should have stayed and helped the others with their holiday centerpieces. They were clearly handicapped when it came to forestry. Anyway, the tree is now up in rocco's house, settling to a nice triangular shape. It'll need to be trimmed up a bit on the bottom, but expect stellar photos in a few days.

As we positioned the tree, Rocco tried really hard to choke out (aka sing) "O' Christmas Tree", but I reassured him that he doesn't have to pretend around me, so he opted for a moving rendition of "Fuck You Christmas Tree."

I, however, listened to the "Charlie Brown Christmas" CD on the way home and had to settle for nailing a pre-made wreath to my kitchen door. HAPPY FUCKIN HOLIDAYS.

Posted by missy at December 7, 2004 10:49 AM