This is a double cheap shot–a no longer seasonally-appropriate story copied from an email. But I’ve brought this tale up in conversation even as Christmas fades in the rear view mirror. It’s too fun–and too illustrative of what happens when you put me and Jamie together–to keep from you.
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My friend Jamie was going to get her Christmas tree several days ago, but another friend pointed out that she probably couldn’t carry it up three very steep flights of stairs by herself. So while we were at (yet another) Christmas party yesterday, Jamie asked if I would help her. Being the loyal, kind-hearted, good person I am, I said yes.
(She also agreed to buy me coffee in exchange for my services.)
So we run back to her apartment and she gives me a coat to wear over my outfit, because I was dressed up. I also borrowed a pair of flops because I was wearing four inch heels, which are not good for carrying trees up stairs. At this point I look like a hobo. And we’re off to buy a tree!
At some point in this process, I realize that we are buying a tree and transporting it in a convertible. Awesome.
We went to Lowe’s and quickly began lifting trees and evaluating their attributes. An employee said, “You know I can pick those up for you,” apparently amused by the site of two very enthusiastic, tiny women lifting six to seven foot trees. (They’re not heavy!) So he picked up trees and tried not to roll his eyes at our proclamations. “He’s so cute!” “Oh, he’s so short and fat!” “Look at him! He’s so tall and thin and elegant!”
(“Is this how you pick out men?” the guy asked us.)
After settling on a tree, Jamie convinced the guy to go ahead and put the tree on a stand for her, so she wouldn’t have to struggle with it when she returned home. This took probably another 20 minutes, and while we waited we continued a commentary on every other tree that was walked past us. (“Oh, he’s cute too! But yours is so much cuter.”) (The latter was, of course, uttered in a hushed voice so as not to upset the other tree’s purchaser.)
At last, we pay and are told to bring the car around so they can load the tree for us. We plotted taking back roads back to her house–we certainly weren’t going to drive on I-65 with a tree in the back seat! Surprisingly, the Lowe’s employees were undaunted when we pulled up in a convertible. “We loaded a red one earlier!”
So they pulled out a sheet of plastic, laid it in the backseat, and then gently (lovingly) eased the tree in. (We did not buckle it up.) They then tied the plastic around it so that her car wouldn’t be covered with pine needles and so the plastic wouldn’t flap in the wind too much as we drove back to the Southside.
Do you know how hard it is to check blind spots with a tree in your back seat?
We stopped at my coffee shop to pick up my reward coffee and ran into a friend of Jamie’s from undergrad. (I knew we would see someone we knew with my get-up being what it was.) Hooray! We told him what we were up to, and bingo! We have man-help to escort the tree up the stairs.
He effortlessly carried the tree, all by himself, up to Jamie’s attic-level apartment. And our adventure was a success.
Plus, I got coffee.