I was almost in bed at the end of a long Black Friday when I heard a ruckus in the living room and the cry of a pissed off spouse.
“Kieran — get in here.”
I should have closed and locked the door.
Instead I walked out to a Yuletide nightmare. The wife was wrestling the Christmas tree across the rug. The fake Christmas tree she has spent most of the day assembling, wiring and covering in Christmas shit.
Shards of ornaments littered the floor. The stand had folded in on itself and all 4 legs were bent like a twister had come through the living room. When you lean a Christmas tree against just one or two foldable legs, those legs fold and bend.
She was still holding the tree at 30-degrees.
“Grab the ends, but you gotta get all three sections.”
I was trying to figure out how to hold three things with two hands when the wife grabbed the stand and PULLED.
Out came the stand, the bottom section of the fake tree and 4 more ornaments hit the floor.
I was left in the living room with the top two-thirds of the tree in my hands. The wife left to get a hammer. Now I know what you are thinking, when was the last time a hammer “fixed” anything?
The wife flipped the stand in its head and started pounding away at the legs.
I’ve been married long enough to say nothing. Any syllables could lead to a change in target, and that hammer could be coming for my head.
Despite her most excellent plan to fix the stand by hitting it when it is upside down, the stand wouldn’t stand (straight). We took the tree apart, section by section. She started to remove all the ornaments, she and her sister, had so carefully placed only hours before.
Her anger seemed to slow.
This seemed like a good time for a nursery rhyme, and I started my own version of Ms. Rachael’s “Uh Oh” song.
“Uh Oh. We fucked up Christmas. This is my Uh Oh song.”
She was somewhat amused.
Here’s 10 seconds of reference for those who don’t have toddlers or grand toddlers
who have become addicted to this shit. Turn it off after 25 seconds — the song is over.
We carried the remains of the tree to the back bedroom and hid the pieces from the public.
“I don’t want to hear it from my mom and aunt.”
I don’t know what those women did to her when she was a child, they have been perfectly nice to me for 40 years. But she still lives in fear of their criticisms and comments — even though they are both passed 93 and usually by the end of the sentence can’t remember what they started to criticize at the beginning of the sentence.
When all was hidden, and I had stopped the bleeding from all the little cuts on my forearms for those little fucking plastic “needles,” I worked up the courage to ask “the question.”
“What were you trying to accomplish?”
“I wanted to move the tree from this side of the TV — to that side of the TV,” the wife said. “I thought it would be easy.”
We are dog-sitting over the holiday for Susan, the half-psycho, mini-doberman, and Milton, the fully peeing schnauzer. With three dogs in the house (Carol Baskins is not going anywhere) the wife thought the right side of the TV would be easy to protect from lifting legs and squatting markers of canine territory. She’s not wrong.
It is going to be much easier to block app this tree between the TV cabinet and the couch.
As the wife prepared for bed — it was well past 10:30 p.m., I strolled over to the stand to take a look — whatever she could bend, I figured I could bend “back.”
Sure enough, press one leg in, and bend its opposite over the center tube. Repeat in the perpendicular angle, and Volia. A stand that was almost straight.
She plopped the half cocked stand into the correct corner. We hauled the remains of the tree back to the living room, stuck the sections together and plugged in the lights.
“Uh Oh. We fixed Christmas. This is our Uh Oh song.”
Didn’t quite have the same right to it, and the lyrics didn’t make sense, but it felt good to “be done.”
At least I was done. I went to bed. She spent the next two hours fixing the ornaments and getting the tree just right. I heard her cough and moan her way into the room about 2 a.m.
Saturday, she hosted the female Savages and they made dozens and dozens of raviolis, while the dog and I peddled far, far away and hid in the office until they were gone.
Now we had a tree and Christmas dinner ready before the start of December. Maybe we didn’t fuck up Christmas after all.
Your patience defies modern masculine imagination. We’re putting up a tree in the next week or so. I’m not sure if I should hang from it or not.
I did no work, so it’s easy to sit back and wait until it practically fixes itself.
You might not have fucked up Christmas, but somehow you fucked up your Subscribe button. Either that or my fucked up head can’t figure it out. I like the new look of your blog, though.
Thanks. Maybe because you are already subscribed? Could explain why I’m not
Getting any new subscribers.
I unsubscribed from a number of blogs, months ago, to reduce my blog reading time. When I tried to resubscribe to yours, I first found no Subscribe button. Today I found one, but it apparently doesn’t work.
Thanks. I’ll try to fix it