I have mentioned my friend from sixth grade before. We met at age eleven, and our friendship was cemented soon after. Our math teacher commented on our report cards that we giggled too much in class. We have a deep mutual commitment which has lasted these many years, and although we are very different personalities, we seem to share a general tendency toward lunacy.
We don’t live in the same town, but close enough, and I was on my way to her house yesterday to see her Christmas decorations, have some lunch, and, because she really is a good friend, drop off some papers pertaining to a small dilemma (See: accounting; loathe.) I was a tiny bit late, so I was tooling along the country roads at a nice clip. 1
However, as I turned down her familiar rural road, I noticed that the rickety farm market and petting zoo that has been there for decades was selling Christmas trees. I slowed, and saw there were some good-sized trees. For the next mile I debated whether I should buy the tree myself rather than going on a family outing. It was too far to come on a school night, and the place wouldn’t be open after dark anyway. And honestly, after a basketball game all an eighth-grader can think about is eating.
So after a pleasant few hours of lunch, conversation, and admiration of decorations (my friend has, among other things, a magnificent hand-carved Italian creche with bespoke lighting), we turned to the subject of trees. “Want to come?”
She did.
It was a balmy December day, almost 50 degrees, which in Wisconsin means mud. We pulled into the dirt drive of the place. There were no other customers, but an eclectic collection of barnyard animals in pens all around: turkeys, various sorts of chickens, a donkey, a sheep, several types of goats, emus, and at least one vociferous pig.
A guy with a shovel looked up from where he was standing.
“Are you open? We’ve come to look at Christmas trees.”
“Nah,” the guy answered cheerfully. “I’d rather shovel pig s*&t.”
He set down his shovel and came to speak with us. “I have to tell ya: Did you see that trailer driving off?”
We confessed that we had not.
“That was the boss. He’s gone down to the other field with a load of manure. His wife has cancer, and it’s her treatment day, no one else is here, and I’m not allowed to touch the electronic stuff. So, you’d have to pay cash. That’s all I’m allowed to do.”
I did not have cash.
“But,” he continued, “you can go up to the quickie mart on the corner where they have an ATM.”
I agreed that we could do this, but suggested we look first so we knew how much we would need. So we tromped down the drive through the mud, I in my new black suede boots, to look at the trees.
Balsams have been hard to come by, lately. I like frasiers; they’re very pretty trees, but there’s nothing like the scent of a balsam. There was a blight a few years back, and it takes years to replenish. But here was a lot full of them.
We picked our way through various forms of manure. “Watch out for the poop!” became the mantra.
We found a tree. Just eight feet. It had a sparse side that could be turned toward the window, but it was the right combination of fullness and height. Just as we were calculating the purchase price with tax in preparation for our trip to the cash machine, the farmer returned with an empty trailer, and we were spared a trip to the quickie mart. Total cost: $66.
The checkout was a strange little place, with a greenhouse/gift shop that had a slightly creepy Miss Havisham vibe, but we soon escaped outside, where the tree was netted, and ready to go.
“I can’t put the tree on the car,” the farmhand informed us. “Liability.”
An emu lurked preternaturally in the distant trees.
My friend and I looked at each other. “We only have to go a mile,” she said. “Tom is home, and he’ll have something.”
“I got twine,” said our man, helpfully.
This is probably the moment to point out that we’d had champagne with lunch.
The tree was very light and I settled it on the roof of the car and opened the windows. Our friend handed us twine and without touching anything, explained how to weave the twine among the branches for extra security. Having never done this before, I was happy to have expert advice. We bumbled along for fifteen minutes or so, because I really didn’t want to have to ask Tom for another in a lifetime of favors.
It wasn’t until we were finished and ready to go that the farmer reappeared, and started to laugh. “I think you’ve forgotten something.”
We looked at each other, then at the car, and light dawned. We’d tied the car doors shut.
The farmer chortled. “I’ll get the scissors.”
“No,” Julie said. “We can just crawl in from the back.”
Now, I have a small car, as anyone who has seen photos of my German Shepherds’ sweetly bent ears can attest. But I am reasonably agile, and the whole thing seemed simple enough. I climbed in the back, and as I contemplated my move, I realized that the space was more limited than I had anticipated. Fully aware of my audience, and possibly somewhat compromised in my judgment, I crawled into the front, only to find myself stuck with my feet in the air, my head on the front seat.
I started to laugh, and could not stop. I lay helplessly, unable to move and barely able to breathe. Tears ran backwards down my face.
My friend was in the back seat doing the same. I could hear male snorts outside.
“Move the seat back,” called the farmer. But that meant getting myself in a position where I could reach the button on the outside of the seat. Finally able to move, I wriggled my way to find the button, and then found it impossible to get my legs under the steering wheel. My knee landed on the horn. There was another lengthy bout of deranged laughter.
When we drove away, securely entwined, we all wished one another a Merry Christmas.
Julie, unwilling to copy my methods, sat in the back. “Well,” she said, “we just killed thousands of cancer cells.”
A mile down the road, Tom waited on the driveway with scissors to cut us out, and a ball of twine to re-tie the tree.
Our plans for a post-basketball family event would have to be something else.
We went out for sushi instead.
J.F. Riordan 