There are definitely more dangerous household appliances than an artificial Christmas tree. Sure, mine has more moving parts than most–it does spin–but still not exactly a dangerous item.
I mean, you never hear someone say, “Don’t stick a fork in the Christmas tree. You’ll be electrocuted.” You generally don’t have to put on gloves to deal with the artificial tree. You sure don’t have to tie off to something before working on the tree–though that might be a good idea in future.
I thought this year I would save time for next year. I put on a ton of lights this year. A ton. Literally. I had to brace up the floor in the basement to take the load. I put something like 15 strings on that bad boy strung end to end. I like to call that a fire hazard for the holidays.
Anyway, I have one of those hinged trees, so I think, “Why don’t I leave the lights on and save some time next year?”
What an excellent thought.
Or so I thought.
Nobody told me that you had to put the lights on a special way. Well, that’s not true. No more than five people have told me that you have to put the lights on a special way so you can do this trick. Six, tops. See, you are supposed to wrap each branch separately, methodically so the branches will fold up just like always.
When I strung the lights, I had a different approach. I saw my work as strengthening the structural integrity of the holiday decoration. I didn’t want this thing to fold up on itself, so I tied off the branches together. I was promoting unity. I won’t apologize for it.
And the branches didn’t apologize as I pushed. And I shoved. And I winced, trying, feebly, to get the tree to conform to my wishes.
After ten minutes of this, my rationalization gear went into action. “That tree never folded up all that good. I bet I can just haul that baby right down the stairs as is.”
Do I really need to write up the rest of this?
Let’s get right to the injury report:
1 scraped thumb
5 knick-knacks knocked off various cabinets
3 pictures jostled on the wall
2 scuff marks on wall that I don’t remember
1 near miss extension cord on the stairs incident
1 achy back
I even amaze myself sometimes.
Hope you are having a good, healthy…and safe New Year.
Tim Kretschmann
Captain Catastrophe
Remember that I have a site logging these wonderful exploits at http://timkretschmann.blogspot.com
I’m playing with a subtitle that reads “A log of not-very-humorous exploits of a complete klutz.”