Somewhat on a whim, Mark and I decided to try out a Christmas tree lot over by Target Friday night. We’d been planning on driving to a tree farm the next afternoon, but figured this might save us some cash (and 2 hours of driving).

It was a little bit pathetic…the trees weren’t clearly marked, the selection was poor, Menininho was crying in his Ergo, and I was dumb and wore flip flops. The first tree we liked appeared to be in the $30 section but was misplaced and there was no way I was going to pay double. Eventually we found a 5 ½ ft Douglas Fur for the right price and settled in line to wait for it to be cut.

The workers there were friendly enough. One woman proudly told us how the entire lot was run by her brother’s search light company (which explained the ginormous search lights beckoning to everyone within 30 miles). Another offered us free persimmons.

[Mark is currently trying to Google “how to eat a persimmon,” but got the response “how to eat a person.” Gross.]

The real highlight though was in getting the tree attached to the car. The man assigned to help us chatted amicably to Mark about the pain medication he’s taking and made faces at Menininho. Mark hoisted the tree onto the roof and the man insisted on doing the tying. After a bit though, we noticed that the man didn’t appear to be doing much. In fact, his hand was uncomfortably close to my ribs. In fact, he wasn’t moving. His arms dangled into the car through the partially opened window, his face was pressed up against the glass except for his nose, which hung over the window like an ornament hook.

He was either sleeping or had just suffered a major heart attack and died. Either way, both were kind of awkward.

I motioned over to Mark to say something because if I opened my mouth I was going to burst out laughing. He walked behind the man. “Um, can I help you?” And then again, louder. The man jumped up! “Do you need help?” he asked confusedly. And then, he just walked away.

Mark finished tying the tree to the car and we left in a hurry.

Never a dull moment!