Things I’ll never do

Did I ever tell you about how I used to sell Christmas trees? I don’t think I have. Anyway, I did. When I worked at a garden center in Knoxville we sold Christmas trees, at Christmas obviously. Mostly it was pretty good fun. The smell of the firs and spruces. Using a chainsaw to put a fresh cut on a Christmas tree. Chainsaws are fun.

Mostly it was fun. But sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes people weren’t as nice as they could have been. Like the guy who threatened his wife because she ordered a big ass live blue spruce for their entry foyer and he was gonna pop her if it scratched the marble tiles. (It was a questionable choice of tree, but hardly an excuse for domestic violence)

Another time, I saw this mom tell her kid who was – I don’t know – seven? – that he could pick out any tree in the lot. He was a thoughtful little guy and he wandered amongst the trees and picked one out. It was a good tree. Even, full, of a harmonious conical shape, nice good limb development for optimal ornament hang-age. Well, I can’t remember, but I do remember being pretty impressed with his choice. On the other hand, we didn’t have many duff trees.

All the trees were hung up with twine from the marquis frame, so the kid pointed out his tree and Bruce (a co-worker) and I cut down the tree and started to take it over for the fresh cut to the base. Now once we make that fresh cut, you have to buy that tree – that’s the rule. But mom comes out and directs dad and kid inside to look at the poinsettias – and tells us that she really wants this other tree instead.

The tree is really no better, really not that much different. But mom’s the one with the money, so we do what she wants and we don’t say anything.

Bruce and I feel bad about it, so we work quick. Normally the fresh cut and the baling will be more or less a one person job, but we worked together so that we could get that tree baled up and tied onto the roof of their car before the kid comes back out again.

We were just tying the last knots on the luggage rack when the kid comes up to us and says, in a quiet voice. “That’s not my tree, is it?” He seemed more resigned than upset. We could have lied – cheerfully. We could have. But something about the way he said it – we just looked at each other and said “No, it’s not.” And the kid was not surprised, it clearly wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

Anyway, I swore when I had a kid, this would be something I’d never do. If it mattered that much to me, I wouldn’t offer a choice. Cause a kid can tell his own tree even baled up and tied to the roof of a car.

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Chris is wrestling with the things he said he’d never do as a parent. Like use the tv as a mollifier. I think I said something like that, too. Plus we agreed we’d stop swearing. Well, that hasn’t happened. Never say never. But I’m still sticking with my promise not to pull a stunt like the Christmas tree swap.

When it comes to blogging, does Knoxville ever shut up?

Knoxville Talks — what she said

Dreaming of Knoxville

Last night I dreamed I was in my tiny little two-up-two-down terraced house front room watching tv with my brother. I have about a million channels – and it seems that new ones do get slotted in all the time. My brother found UT Sports TV. We couldn’t believe it. It was nothing but a continual loop of UT Sports and sports commentary- and it was airing a football game that we could only just make out through the screen snow. We reckoned it was the Arkansas State game and I was frantic figuring out how I could subscribe to this channel (and how much it might cost me) – when the snow began to clear and the image was nearly perfect.

Later on in my dream, my husband and I went for a little walk and took a back way from our house that we hadn’t taken before. We walked a little under ten minutes and came out into that West Knoxville shopping center that houses the Dollar Movie theater. Wow, we thought – we can finally go see some movies, but then we noticed the Dollar Movie place was boarded over – and we couldn’t tell if it was a temporary condition or if $1.50 movies were no more.

New Knoxville blogging central

Via Michael Silence – the new aggregating home for Knox bloggers: The Knoxville Blog Network

Wrong number

My first apartment was in Fort Sanders in the student slums of Knoxville. Along with my first digs, I got my first very own phone number. Only, of course, someone else had had that phone number before me. Her name was Michelle and a lot of people called for her. In fact, it’s only just occurred to me that maybe Michelle was in the habit of giving out my phone number. Who knows?

Anyway, she got around. And when I say she got around, I mean, I think she had a lot of boyfriends. Boyfriends she didn’t treat very well. Boyfriends who had greater depth of feeling for her than she did for them. They sounded pretty desperate and heartbroken anyway.

Oh, did I mention that apparently I sounded a lot like Michelle? I sounded so much like Michelle that some of those young men didn’t believe me when I informed them that I wasn’t Michelle. I had to hang up on several poor fellows.

Time moves on and there are new methods of communication, but there are still wrong numbers. Misdirected messages. Crossed wires.

The reason that I mention this is that Girl from the South gets other people’s emails. And it’s pretty funny or pretty tragic depending on whose misdirected messages come her way.