Monday, February 6, 2012

The Christmas Tree That Fell From the Sky

In 1998, two years after Teddy was born, money became a little bit tight.
To invest in frugality, my sister Pam and I hatched a plan to pick up
artificial Christmas trees.
It was a cold sunny day and we were cruising out 522 towards
the Woodinville Ernst store, which was having a big sale on fake trees.
I was driving my little navy blue Ford tempo when Pam shouted,
"Gretch! A tree!"
I saw it and pulled over next to the highway and couldn't believe my eyes.
A seven foot tall gorgeous noble fir that would have been fifty bucks at
Yakima Fruit stand, was lying at the side of the highway.
I raised my arms high to the sky and shouted, "THANK YOU JESUS!"
Then sissy and I spent ten minutes wrestling the tree into
the tiny trunk of my car and tying it down.
Just as we had climbed in the car, a small tan pick-up truck
came roaring up the highway behind us and
a middle-aged woman with wild long blond hair jumped out and
started shouting,  "My tree! My tree!"
We got out and apologized and untied the tree and helped her load it
into the back of her little truck. She was so happy.
Pam and I bought our artificial trees but when Terry got home
from work he said, "Take it back! I hate fake trees!"
So I took it back with much chagrin that he
didn't appreciate my rare attempt at serious long-term frugality.
Five years later on December 15th,
Terry turned to me and said, "Where did you put that fake tree?"
I stared at him with open-mouth disbelief as he said,
"We could save a lot of money if we used that."






























No comments:

Post a Comment