Rant on Christmas Trees

by James MacLaren

Inside the asylum:

Loony 1: “Whatta ya say we go kill a tree?”

Loony 2: “Wow! That sounds really cool. Let’s go do it right now! But

instead of killing just one tree, let’s kill MILLIONS of them!”

Loony 1: “Bitchin! And I know what, let’s make a big ceremony while

we’re doing it, ok?”

Loony 2: “Too much, dude! We’ll get EVERYBODY involved with it! Maybe

the whole country! Maybe the WHOLE WORLD!”

Loony 1: “Yeah!”

Cut to the real world:

And oh yeah guys, don’t forget to do it again each and every year, ok?

Would somebody please help me out here with christmas trees? Preferably

somebody from OUTSIDE the asylum?

What in the fuck do these fucking idiots THINK they’re doing here? Is

there any thinking taking place at all? Or is this yet another

priceless example of Lemmings at Play? Well, maybe not. At least not

the “at play” part. christmas trees are capable of generating a wide

vista of curse words coming from the poor schlub who has to RIG the

fucker. And, now that I think of it (even as I bash these keys), it’s

almost ALWAYS a GUY who has to rig the damned thing. Yet another

example of how guys idiotically permit themselves to be manipulated by

wimmin. Do I want to go off on a guy/wimmin tangent right now? Nah.

Maybe later. Let’s get back to our original rant, ok?

In case you didn’t know (Just drop in from Neptune, hmm?), christmas

trees take a LOT of rigging. And that’s not even counting the

ridiculous Dance of Bullshit that’s involved with merely SELECTING the

damned thing, down at the christmas tree lot. Christmas Tree Lot. What

a concept! I don’t even want to discuss all the horseshit required to

verify that your newfound Sacrificial Shrubbery is worthy of being

placed upon its altar. Let’s just skip that shit, ok? Hell, I’m halfway

through my rant and I haven’t even started my rant yet. Christmas trees

can do that to a guy.

We’re gonna bring home a sawed-off tree and let it die a slow agonizing

death. But we don’t want it to die too fast now, do we? That would

spoil all the fun. The needles would fall off too soon. Can’t be having

any of that, can we? Does the tree get a vote in all this? Hell no. My

guess is that it’s some kind of vegan conspiracy.

Vegans. Murderous motherfuckers. Once they’ve decided that they won’t

“eat anything that can see them,” or whatever (Eggs can’t see, can

they? Come to think of it, dead chickens don’t see worth a shit either,

do they? But somehow the vegan knows What’s Right.), it’s open season

on everything else. Do I want to go off on a vegan tangent right now?

Nah, Maybe later.

Meanwhile, even as the tree emits a piercing death wail perceptible

only to other trees, Mummy and Dummy are busily moving furniture around

in order to make a place in the living room for the damned (in more

ways than one) thing, so as to cheer the hearts of their little tots.

And also jump them into the gang by teaching them the Ways of The Tree.

Ok, it’s not weird enough that we’ve put a doomed evergreen in the

house with us. We need more.

I know, let’s HANG shit on it.

Is this why god gave trees branches? One could make a fair decent case

in favor of that proposition.

And let’s not just hang ANYTHING on it, ok? Let’s hang a bunch of

DANGEROUS stuff up there. Let’s put a little excitement into it. Let’s

make this thing so attractive that no waking four-year old can resist

grabbing it to check it out. GLASS ornaments, what a great idea!

ELECTRIC lights, what a great idea! Zillions of little strips of

plastic, coated in conductive aluminum, what a great idea! Hell, forget

the four-year old, this thing has the power to kill ANY of us.

And it DOES kill people! Lots of them. Every year. But does the local

eyewitless news presenter give us a breathless account of the

incredible risk-taking behavior of everybody who pulls out into traffic

(consider THAT for your list of risk-taking behavior) with a christmas

tree sticking out of the trunk of the family sedan?

Of course not. What are you, some kind of communist?

And then we’ll put the presents (What, exactly, is the deal with

putting presents under a fucking half-dead tree in the living room?)

way back up underneath the fucker where there’s a much better chance of

knocking the whole psychotic array down while we’re crawling around

back there.

And then we’ll just sort of let it sit there, doing more or less

nothing (we hope) until the Big Day. After which, it continues to do

more or less nothing until somewhere around the turn of the year. At

which point, we go through an incredible hassle to UNrig it and get it

the hell out of the house and out by the curb, so the poor overworked

trash guys can come and remove its ugly carcass from our presence.

Is this not one of the STUPIDEST things you can POSSIBLY imagine?

Nevermind that things should go horribly wrong at three a.m., and the

cat decide to pounce upon a glittering bauble dangling from it, causing

it to tip over and spill the water in the stand thing it’s imprisoned

within, which then floods over to the part of the tree where there’s a

bare spot on the wiring for the lights, sparking a massive short

circuit, which then ignites the tinder-dry twigs and branches of the

thing, starting a fire that melts all the plastic in the toys

underneath it, which produces a highly toxic cloud of gas, which

proceeds to asphyxiate everyone in the house before any of them have a

chance to wake up and call the fire department to come and put out the

blaze which winds up burning down the ENTIRE apartment complex, killing

an additional thirty-seven people, three of whom never wanted any damn

thing at all to do with christmas, trees, presents, cats, fires, or any

of the rest of it, but who died anyway for no reason at all.

Fuck that shit. I’m not having anything to do with ANY of it, and I

don’t care what any of you lemming bastards have to say about it.