Sometimes, there are no gifts under the tree.

Sometimes, the real gift is the tree itself…

“My dudes, it’s already February. Are y’all going to help me haul our Christmas tree out to the curb or not?”

“No man, we can’t do that! Look at it–it’s still green as the day we brought it home. We can’t give up on our Miracle Tree now!”

It was indeed February already, and my roommates (and, coincidentally, my fellow physics grad students) and I were trying to come to a consensus about what to do with the Christmas tree we had all pitched in to buy almost 2 months earlier.

“You want my humble opinion?” P.F. Chaz, the least humble¹The guy was–and is–a bit of a pompous jackass of the four of us, chimed in. “I think it’s like the Big Lebowski’s rug that got pissed on…”

“You’re right…it really does tie the room together,” one of us concurred. “Nice Cohen Brothers pop-culture reference, there.”

We sat there silently for a few moments, basking in the glory of the Ol’ Tannenbaum that sat in the corner of our living room.

In our heads, we knew that it wouldn’t be kosher to keep it around any longer. Not to mention that we would look like a bunch of asses that didn’t know how to move on with their lives if we attempted to keep the Christmas Spirit on life support any longer.

But if we went through with it, we could sense that it wouldn’t just be our bachelor pad in which its absence would leave a gaping hole. There would be 7-ft Douglas Fir-sized chasm of emptiness in our hearts as well…

“Ladies, ladies! Welcome to our humble abode…”

“Oh. My. Gawd. Becky, look at that tree. It is so big. I can’t believe it’s so round, it’s just like…out there (in the middle of their living room)…it’s just so GREEN.“²If you’re wondering to which stalwart of our pop culture that referred, just click here.

P.F. Chaz & I, on top of everything else, were also in a Bible study together, and the gentlemen of our study were hosting our sister Bible study for a belated non-Valentine’s Day dinner at our place. Now, this would end up being the first fancy meal shared by not one, but two, future husband and wife duos–yours truly included–and this particular scholar maintains that we all owe it to The Tree.

You gotta admit there was a streak of genius to it: the second thing the young ladies saw when they walked in the door that evening was, as “Becky” pointed out, a very much alive and well holiday tree in the living room. And–BOOM!–just like that, they’re spending the rest of the night preoccupied with where the hell we got a live tree in the dead of February, and but…why? Why? WHY?!?

And, just like that, with their guards completely down, they had no defense against any crafty subliminal messaging us potential young suitors might or might not have sent their way…

…

Nah, I’m just messing with ya. It wasn’t some grand Get-A-Wife conspiracy.

It was just a humble Valentine’s Tree, born part out of ingenuity, part out of laziness, and 100% out of candy canes and red streamer…

“Green, purple…and gold, right?”

“Yeah, I think those are the right colors.”

“And beads…we need to put plenty of beads on this thing.”

“Oh, right. I forgot where your grandparents were from. I guess that makes you our expert on the matter.”

‘Twas but mid-March already, and our Miracle Tree just kept on being miraculously green, so what else were we supposed to do? As we snacked on the candy canes that had previously adorned our arborous roommate–because at that point “roommate” was the more appropriate term–we quickly yet carefully decked it out with decorations that were never really meant to go on a tree.

Afterwards, we sat our dining room table, enjoying some Sweet Baby Jesus cake,³Okay, so that’s not the right name for it, but the proper name escapes me at the moment. immensely proud of ourselves for having what was indubitably the one and only Mardi Gras tree in all of Chapel Hill…

“Dang, man, this tree is like some kind of Energizer Easter Bunny: it keeps going and going, right on up until the time on the Hebrew lunar calendar when we glorify ancient forms of capital punishment.”

“Welp, you know what that means!”

“You bet your egg-decorating, grown-ass-man ass, I do!”

*All roommates in unison: “IT’S EASTER TREE TIME!!!”

“Hmpph, that’s a bit ironic though,” one of us mused aloud. “Instead of being raised from the dead, Miracle Tree just seems to never die in the first place…”

“Dudes, oh, my dudes!”

“What? What is it? Oh, no, don’t tell me our basement flooded⁴For historical accuracy, the event which is alluded to, the flooding of our basement/lower level/my room, didn’t actually happen until about 3 weeks later. again?!?”

“No, no, nothing like that. You’ll never guess what I found at Party City.”

“Oh no you didn’t!”

“Oh, yes. I did.”

“I always thought that their existence was a mere Mexican urban legend. Like the chupacabra…”

“Gentlemen, behold: our very own red chili pepper party lights. Cut your limes and raise your cervecas, pinche cabrons, ’cause we’re gonna drink to what is indubitably the one and only Árbol de Cinco de Mayo in all of Carolina del Norte!”

Editor’s note: The Four Ghost-Faces of Willow Drive wisely chose to forego an attempt to make a “Juneteenth Tree.” Good call, my dudes, good call…

“Welp, it’s just you and me, Miracle Tree. Let freedom ring and what-not.”

I sat in solitude in our–no, my–living room, celebrating my first Independence Day all alone…by talking to a ----- tree.

Remember the basement flooding back in May? Well, that had set off a chain of events led us to collectively realize that it would probably be hazardous to our health to continue living in that place–something about “gray water” or “black mold,” I can’t exactly remember–and I was the last one to find alternate housing.

“I know, I know, Miracle Tree. I miss my dudes, too. But the holidays just aren’t the same without them.”

*rustle rustle rustle*

“What’s that? Yes, you are still somehow green as ever, despite not being watered for the entire month of June. But I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

*gentle weeping like a willow*

“You have been ever faithful my friend. But, alas, you have fulfilled your purpose here on Earth, one of providing a life lesson which I will be able to share with the readers of my popular blog many years from now…”

“…a lesson about not being too quick to throw out your Christmas tree, just because the calendar says January. Or February. Or March, April, May, or June.. Screw what society says–I say follow your heart.”

“Or maybe the lesson is deeper, like something about being adaptable to the ever-changing seasons of life?”

“Hmmm..or perhaps the lesson is actually super-shallow, like how to pick up women with unconventional Feng Shui tactics?”

“No, no, I got it. This is the lesson: no matter the colors, no matter the foods, no matter the arbitrary traditions, what makes celebrating special is celebrating with the proverbial ‘My Dudes’–whoever that special group of people may be–that is what the holidays are all about…”

“Yeah…that sounds profound enough to me. Now, My Dude–because after living with you for 7 months, you, Oh Christmas/Valentine’s/Mardi Gras/Easter/Cinco de Mayo/definitely-not-Juneteenth Tree, you will forever be My Dude in this dude’s heart–let’s go make one last everlasting memory…”

EXT. WILLOW DRIVE – DAY

A lone evergreen tree sits along the curb, waiting to be recycled, its branches quickly browning in the summer heat.

The local garbage man approaches as he makes his usual rounds. The garbage truck’s tires screech as he slams on the brakes when he passes by the tree. He gets out and quizzically scratches his head, unable to fully make sense of what he sees before him.

A be-ponytailed physics grad student pokes his head out the front door of a nearby home. He has clearly been waiting several hours waiting for the perfect moment to deliver his punchline.

END SCENE

Content created on: 23/24 December 2021 (Thurs/Fri)

Sure, your mom’s insomnia may be cured.

But now you’re the one who can’t sleep at night…

“Side effects may include overly honest opinions, acute TMI,¹Too Much Information temporary amnesia, and traumatization of your progeny. Do not take this drug if you have, or are expecting to have, adult children visit you…”

Unfortunately, you’ll never find such warnings on the side of a bottle of prescription Ambien. But I’ll give you three guesses as to why this scholar maintains that it should be included on the label post-haste…

Reason #1

“I feel so sorry for Mason.”²Not quite his real name.

When the Boss Lady and I were on the verge of moving from NC to Hawai’i almost a decade ago, we temporarily found ourselves homeless so were staying with her parents for a few nights during this transition phase. I had spent plenty of time with my in-laws before this, but the woman who sat on the couch across from me on the other side of the room? I had never had the pleasure of meeting her before.

No, this wasn’t the Ma³Almost, but not quite, what I call my mother-in-law. I knew and loved. This was Sleepytime Ma, and let me tell you this: when you spend time with someone who just took their Ambien, you truly get to know a, err, “different” side of them.

While Sleepytime Ma had started out just being only slightly loopy (and therefore mildly humorous), as the evening progressed, she turned the conversation towards a much more interesting topic: my wife’s dating history, pre-me…in its entirety.

If this were a CD you could buy off a late-night infomercial, it would be called “Now That’s What I Call Entertainment (Volume 23)”.

But back to our conversation:

“Hold that thought for one second, Ma…”

*Pulls out super-sized tub of theatre popcorn*

“Oh yeah, Ma? Why is that? Please do tell me more…”

“I feel so for Mason. He was just so ----- lazy, poor guy…”

Actually, she wasn’t so much going thru the Boss Lady’s dating history, as much as she was telling us what she really thought of each and every one of her ex-boyfriends.

While I found this little trip down memory lane to be extremely fascinating and quite hilarious, the Boss Lady meanwhile was vacillating between doubled over in laughter and mortified at the words coming out of her mother’s mouth.

And I hate to be such a tease, but I’m not at liberty to share more details for reasons which should be patently obvious. You’ll just have to let your imagination run amok and fill in all the juicy details that one could only hope a drugged-up mother-in-law might share when her filter is turned completely off.

But, in her defense, I will say just this one thing: most of her comments weren’t quite as racist as they may have sounded at first…

Reason #2

“You know, your niece is pregnant again…”

I had just rolled into SW Kansas all by myself late one night, and, as per usual, I was crashing at the apartment, of “Daisy,” my widowed stepmother. I did not, in fact, know my niece was pregnant⁴I’m not exactly sure this was the family news she led with, but given the timing of this trip and the birth of one of my niece’s second kid, it could have been. again, and so I can say that I truly appreciated the fact that Daisy–though definitely exhausted from her day job–was willing to stay up late with me to fill me in on all the family news I might have missed.

She proceeded to fill me in on every bit of small town news/gossip from the previous 5 months:

“So-and-so died (but it’s okay, because they were a bit of an asshole).”

“Such-and-such restaurant went out of business (but we’re all better off cuz the food was pure crap and was giving us Mexicans a bad name).”

“This friend of mine’s granddaughter is pregnant (but no one knows who the daddy is–not surprising because my friend’s daughter was a terrible parent and it shows).”

And so on and so forth.

Now, Daisy has more of an opinionated personality, but…but she was a little more eager to articulate those opinions than usual, it seemed. Though if I’m honest, I kind of liked her judgy commentary. Normally I could only handle 45 minutes tops of being regaled with all the down-home goings-ons, but her smack-talking just seemed, well, fun…

“You know, your niece is pregnant again…”

“Yeah…I know. I’m pretty excited for her.”

It was a rare treat to get to spend not one, but two, evenings full of quality time with her, so it was no surprise she kept the conversation moving right along–we had to pack as much into our time together as we possibly could.

“So-and-so died. It’s kind of shame, their grand-kids really loved him…”

“Hmmph. Yeah…this is the same guy you told about last night, right? Or did his brother die too, or something like that?”

“Huh?”

Daisy gave me a barely perceptible look of mild confusion, but didn’t so much as pause before moving onto the next, completely unrelated, topic.

“Such-and-such restaurant went out of business. It was your Grandma Smalls’ favorite place to eat. I guess that makes sense, because white people really loved that place, though I never ate there.”

“Wait, another Mexican restaurant shut down? So what? Hugoton must be down to only one Mexican joint in town if the other two closed up shop?”

“What?”

This conversation was starting to give me an eerie feeling. But apparently Daisy wasn’t getting that vibe, and instead just barrelled right along to her next thought:

“This friend of mine’s granddaughter–“

“Wait, wait! Don’t tell me–she’s pregnant. And no one knows who the little bastard’s dad is, right?”

“Well, she is pregnant, yeah. But I would never tell you such private details about whether or not the father is in the picture.”

“…or would you?”

In my mind, of course, I was saying something completely different: “Holy sh*t. She doesn’t remember our conversation last night at all. That explains this feeling of–what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Oh yeah: ‘Passive-Aggressive Déjà Vu.’ Oh, that rascally Ambien…”

Reason #3

“You know, your dad was very demanding in the bedroom…”

“Wait…WHAT?!?”

It was about a year later, and once again, I found myself visiting Daisy past her bedtime. Except this time, the Boss Lady was with me, and I didn’t want her to have to hear any explicit details about what I was pretty sure Daisy was casually referring to.

“Uh, you mean he liked you to keep your bedroom nice and tidy, right?”

“Well if by ‘bedroom’ you mean–“

“WAIT. Please, please, please don’t finish that sentence.”

Nevertheless, she persisted, and three word later, she confirmed every child’s nightmare: we were smack-dab in the middle of a conversation about her and Dad’s love life.

“What the heck is happening here?!? Uh, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be hearing any of this…”

I glanced over at the Boss Lady to see if my dear wife was just as wide-eyed and shell-shocked as I was, and sure enough, she was just frozen in place like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

It seemed there was nothing we could politely do to stop this Awkard-Ass Amtrak of a dialogue from chugging down the tracks.

And to this day, I rue not having enough gumption to be rude and do what was necessary. “Why’s that?” you ask?

Well, after she got done ranting about his raging libido (ugh–just typing that phrase in this context makes me throw up in my mouth just a wee bit), she moved on to cataloguing all the serious arguments they had over the 20 years they had been married. And when I say serious, I mean serious.

You know, things that no child is ever meant to hear about their parent, even as adults. It’s not like Santa Claus, or being adopted,⁵Fun bonus story: when my wife’s parents had to break the news to her older brother that her mom was not his mom, they decided to spread the childhood trauma around and broke it to her that Santa was a big fat jolly lie. How messed up is that, right? where at some point you are “old enough” to know the truth. Just don’t. Not now. Not never. Never tell your kid these things.

Especially in the presence of their spouse, for funk’s sake. All I could think the whole time was “Oh sh*t, she might preemptively divorce me out of fear that I’m going to eventually turn into my dad as I get older–i.e. become as horny and/or angry as Daisy is portraying him here! I’m nothing like him, Baby, I swear!”

My god, I wish all had been Roofied that night…

…

The following evening, we sat down for another round of chatting with Daisy before we headed back to the East Coast the next morning. But instead of continuing where we had left off the night before–dear God, please don’t tell me there’s more where that came from, I thought–we started from the beginning.

Though it was a completely PG and kid-friendly version this time, it had the same basic bone structure as last nights’ conversation.

It was…it was déjà vu, all over again. But why was I feeling this overwhelming sense of relief?

Oh yeah, that’s why: thanks to Ambien, only two of us have to bear the burden of remembering that very awkward conversation ever took place. To this very day, Daisy has no clue that she dropped a shit-ton of emotional baggage on me in sleeping-pill-induced fit of completely unnecessary honesty.

And unless she every catches me all doped up on Ambien, that’s a secret I’m taking to my grave…

The point of the story is it’s the holiday season, and before you start spending late-night quality time with loved ones, you just might want to check their medicine cabinet for a certain prescription medication.

And if you do find it there, you may very well be in for the most entertaining–or utterly horrifying–night of your life. Either way, you’ve been warned, my friend. You’ve been warned…

Content created on: 17 December 2021 (Friday)