"Tree" is a four letter word.

I love Christmas and most everything that goes with it. However, the process of obtaining and properly mounting a Christmas tree in its stand can create enough consternation to put the most pious of monks in confession for days. This year, the morning after Thanksgiving (after braving the mall for 4 hours), we headed off to the mist-shrouded Bald Peak area in search of our tree. We went to the farm we got our tree from last year and grabbed a saw and headed into the trees. We quickly discovered that in spite of our best efforts to "come back to that one later" we never could. I can't imagine what short folks do; I wouldn't have been surprised if we had happened accross the skeleton of some poor midgit who happened to get turned around and never could get out. Most of the trees were way too big; we have vaulted ceilings in our apartment but it is still just an apartment. After a lengthy search of what were probably the same 50 trees we saw one at a diffirent angle than the first several passes and pronounced it perfect. We sawed it down (or rather I sawed it down) and we hauled it to our car. The sales folks smirked when we hauled our 8 foot + tree to our 2-door Celica. But hey, it works. We got the tree home without incident and Angel had to run to the store, so I decided I'd stay home and get the tree put in the stand. Enter the process by which I nearly lost my salvation. First of all, the tree was way too tall due to an enormous spire of growth that was little more than a stick and did nothing but increase the cost of the tree by $20. This kept getting caught on the eaves of our apartment as I tried to wrestle the beast onto the balcony. Once I had it out there something I became quickly aware of is that our tree had been growing on a slope. It looked straight enough but the trunk had a slight "J" bend to it at the very bottom, making it rather uneven and prone to tipping over when balanced upright. This resulted in the demise of a prominent branch on my cherished Wisteria Vine which I had babied all summer into growing accross the the gutter. Not only that, but two geranium plants were crushed in the fall. Things went south from here. I spent the next 30 minutes adjusting and twisting screws and gauging angles and trying to get that danged crooked trunk to fit securely in the stand. When I finally had it right I shoved the monster into the house and stood it up in the corner of the living room. Almost happy with the results I stepped back only to notice that my 30 minutes of adjusting had been for naught as the tree was at a rakish new angle off to the side, nowhere near straight. I spent another half hour pushing and pulling and twisting screws and scraping knuckles and landing the dumb chunk of wood on my head only to discover three things. 1) It wasn't getting better and 2) I'm not sure if it's just the cut-down ones, but Christmas trees do not respond to verbal abuse, no matter how harsh and 3) if I got any hotter under the collar I was in probable danger of actually starting the first and last fire in the Thompson National Forest. When my wife finally came home I suspect she hid more than one smile at my rantings. Wouldn't you know it but with her help I managed to finally get the blasted evergreen to straighten up and sit right. I'm not sure if the moral of the story is I can't do things without my wife's help or if Christmas trees (and stands) were just designed to test men's patience. At any rate, the end result is that the tree looks fabulous and we love it. I think that means I'll be repeating this exercise next year. Or I'll just wait for Angel to help me.