Monday, November 30, 2009

Naughty or Nice? Let's go with naughty.

I must have been naughty this year because Santa isn't throwing any favors my way.

Yesterday, I bought my Christmas tree. It is Football Sunday at my house, and I know better than to ask John to do anything outside of a two foot viewing range from a TV on Football Sunday. If I wanted a tree right away, I was on my own.

Luckily, my brother was willing to go tree shopping with me since he mainly watches the Seahawk's games and doesn't mind just DVRing them.

So, off we go a tree shopping. My brother wanted to get his tree first but I insisted we get mine first since Bella was over at his house with Grandma and I would have to go get her in the end anyway. He agreed.

As my brother and the overly friendly tree guy are moving the tree to the car, I go inside to pay and tell the lady that I will be back in about a half an hour to buy another tree for my brother. "Oh, you are coming back?" she asks so sweetly. I nod. "Wonderful, let me have your name and we can give you a discount on your second tree."

Dammit! That discount should've been mine!

Oh well, get over it. I go back to the car and the overly friendly tree guy is "securing" the tree to the trunk of my brothers sedan. What the hell? This isn't how it was done last year. But what do I know? We roll with it.

Two minutes of driving and the tree is shifting way to much. I suddenly realize that there isn't anything keeping the tree from rolling off the back of his car because it is just tied to the spoiler. I start to voice this concern, but in the middle of my sentence the tree falls off the back of his car!

We are dragging my Christmas Tree!!!

We pull over and my brother hefts the darn thing back onto his trunk and has me sit in the back holding the twine. I am now the securer of tree-onto-trunk (this should be my Native American name). My brother and I are laughing because the whole scene is reminiscent of the infamous Home Funniest Video where the windshield wipers aren't working so these two ladies (or it could be men - all I know is that they are laughing like girlies) have tied string to each wiper and the passanger has been assigned the task of manually wiping the windshield.

Anyhoo, my tree makes it home without any other mishaps. Obviously I, Securer of Tree Onto Trunk, did a job well done.

We go back to get my brother's tree and he gets a $10.00 discount. Ten bucks?! That is Starbucks for a week! I am bitter. I don't hide my bitterness well. Especially when he got a tree that is twice the size of mine and for $30 less!

I refused to give him his $16 in change.

He tried to take his money back, but was unsuccessful. He realized that I wouldn't release his change so he suggested we buy lunch with the change. Ok, works for me. We go to a drive-thru and I order everything I can to stretch the $16 as much as possible. We finish our order and the drive-thru voice says, "Thank you, that will be $17."

Son-of-a-biznatch! Foiled again! I now owe a buck.

Have I learned my lesson yet? Nope.

My brother has an excess of Christmas lights. I ask him if I can have some so that I don't have to buy any new ones (I just moved into my own home earlier this year). He, obviously being the nice one, told me to go for it. I grab the lights that I know work and plug it in, just to be sure. All is clear.

Bella and I hang out for a while longer before we leave. I drive home and empty my car of all my Christmas stuff. I get in the house to prepare for decorating the tree. I start with the lights.

The lights?

Where the hell are my lights?!

Dammit! I left them at my brother's. He lives seven minutes away, so I trudge back to my car and go back to grab my lights.

I get back home and John peels himself away from the TV long enough to help me string the lights on the tree (which, by the way, he kept complaining about how when his mom did this, it was always a one person job). My intention was to make sure that the lights were on so that Bella could help put on the ornaments once she woke up from her nap.

Oh those good intentions.

Ok, lights are on. I go to plug in the lights to make sure I don't have any sparse areas. Ta-da! Lights!

Lights. On the bottom of the tree. Lights in the middle of the tree. NO lights on the top of the effing tree!

Dammit! Why, Santa? Why? All I want is a beautiful tree for my first Christmas in my beautiful new home. Have I really been that naughty this year?

*I just re-read this post and now realize that I deserve every bad thing that happened to me yesterday. I may (or may not) buy my brother lunch to make up for holding his change hostage.

2 comments:

Pam Harris said...

LOL--that sounds like a great scene in a novel. Of course, readers would roll their eyes and insist all of those things couldn't possibly happen in one night. :)

germaine said...

Thanks to people like you, Jaida keeps trying to get me to buy a real tree this year. All day it's, "So and so has a real tree". I will have her read your post when she gets home from school to show her how expensive and difficult it is to have a real tree. Is it so wrong to have a tree from a box? My $20 fake tree has held up for years, lights and all! Take that Auntie Mel! I even bought J her own a little pink tree. One vote for the fake trees! Either that or I'm cutting one down from my neighbor's yard to save me a few bucks.

Loved your post though, I laugh at your struggles. :)