I desperately need to learn how to keep my mouth sealed tight.
This past spring while I was away on a business trip, a freak microburst hit my woods and toppled an enormous oak. This kicked off a domino effect where the oak slammed into a dozen other trees, taking them all down at the same time. It was a huge mess. I had an enormous mountain of broken trees blocking the road to my neighbor’s house. As I looked in amazement at all the carnage, I felt rather puny and overwhelmed. My chainsaw never felt so little. I could envision myself spending every spare moment of the next several years trying to dent the pile, with my teary-eyed wife begging me to just please quit sawing and come home - my imaginary children were missing their Daddy. What I really needed was an army of lumberjacks to come to my rescue.
Even better, what I got instead was my neighbor Carl.
He drove up in his golf cart, and I inwardly rejoiced in the knowledge that a genuine man was now in command. Outwardly I tried (and spectacularly failed) to seem like something - anything - tougher than a life-long computer geek. He contemptuously sniffed at the cloud of fear and weakness that clothed me. I quietly repeated to myself to not make direct eye contact so as to not provoke him into a white-hot, Ned-gutting rage. Carl is old-school manly. Gruff, grizzled, and muscled like an old Kodiak, he is no doubt a seasoned expert at hacking up anything that has ever inconvenienced him. The pile of dead trees was already cut up, it just didn’t know it yet. Carl dictated the terms of the deal: he would help me cut up and drag off the trees, but all the wood was his for his furnace. He figured it would be a good backup fuel in case he ever ran out of dead Commies.
So for a couple of weeks we (he) sawed the trees, and then we (I) did the heavy lifting and moved the huge logs down the hill to his truck. I think he figured that a fine tool like a chainsaw belongs only in the hands of those who are worthy, and I obviously wasn’t. It was actually a great deal and I was grateful for all the help. We finished cleaning up the whole thing, except for the massive trunk of the oak that started it all. For the moment, he had other battles to be fought, and said that we would revisit the trunk this Fall when he had more time.
Fall finally rolled around a few weeks ago.
Ever since the heat of Summer broke, I have been slowly working on cutting the trunk off its stump. Once that was finished, I found that on a typical Saturday I had enough daylight to cut two or three logs out of the end. It was hard work, and slow-going. As lengthy as the trunk was, it was going to take several weeks to get it all cut up. One day I noticed Carl watching my feeble chain-sawing skills from across the valley that separates our houses. Pointing in my direction, he was openly laughing so loudly that he shamed me back to the safety of my house while I fought back tears. I had the strongest urge to wear one of my wife’s dresses. The ghost of my dead dog took a leak on my leg, then ran away to live with the much manlier lesbians down the road.
A while later that same day, he saw me in my driveway and drove up to chat. Out of pity and disgust, he cranked down the growl and spoke gently, as one would with their fragile old mother. He said that if I would help, he would use his tractor to drag the remainder of the trunk down to the road, where he would cut it up for me. I was in no position to decline. I summoned as much testosterone as I could and made my way to the tree where I waited for him to arrive.
He pulled up on his shiny new farm tractor and began barking orders to me. Although I’m pretty decent at figuring things out, apparently a lifetime of geekery has left me ill-prepared for tasks like chaining trees to tractors. It seemed like everything I did was awkward and wrong, and before long Carl had a look in his eye that made me think he would like to personally taste my liver. In the end, he pushed me out of the way and chained up the log himself. He hopped back on the tractor, stepped on the gas, and the tractor quickly pulled the huge log several feet. Still far from its intended destination, it came to a dead stop.
The log was wedged up against what looked like a loose rock, but in actuality was the spine of the mountain ridge on which I live. The tractor rodeo began in earnest. Carl stepped on the gas, determined to force the log free, and the tractor began bucking on two wheels like a bronco. The stubborn log didn’t budge. He gave the tractor more gas. The mountain trembled under immense jolting forces, but the log refused to move. With a holy vow to move Heaven and Earth if that is what it took, Carl floored it. The tractor bucked, first up on both rear wheels, then a moment later on only one wheel… then on none. The tractor flipped over on its side while Carl nimbly jumped out of the way.
When Carl was just a wee young leatherneck, he journeyed to a mystical monastery hidden deep in the Himalayas to learn to power curse from the ancient masters themselves. He quickly left disappointed; he had found that they had nothing to offer him that his mother hadn’t already taught him in the crib. When it comes to cursing, Carl knows none of the limits that restrain the rest of us. The full fury of Carl’s wrath was turned on the tractor. Words horrible and vile, sometimes in a wide variety of languages, some even unknown to mankind, scoured the paint from the engine block. His assault registered on the Richter scale. At a secret installation in China, someone mistakenly thought they detected an ICBM launch.
Meanwhile, trying to stay conspicuously unnoticed, I was desperately wishing I had remembered to bring my camera. After all the verbal and emotional abuse I had endured that day, I was relishing the moment. Frankly, I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. I was fully expecting him to Hulk out and rip the tractor to shreds, or spontaneously combust, or something equally amazing. It was exactly in the middle of all these happy thoughts that the unthinkable happened: I let slip the smallest of innocent chuckles.
Instantly all was silent. Carl’s steely gaze landed on me. He muttered “Oh now he’s laughing, is he?” My heart stopped and a look of horror crept onto my face.
The full fury of his wrath was quickly resumed and suddenly redirected in exactly my direction. There was no bracing for impact; I faced the full onslaught of Carl. There was no pity or remorse as he verbally flayed me with expert skill. In between the curses, he shouted out orders for what he wanted me to do to upright the tractor and move the log. I was in complete submission; I did everything without question or hesitation. Both the tractor and the log moved, but I’m not so sure if it was due to my work or simply the irresistible force Carl was projecting. All in all, I estimate that he had spewed a sustained tirade of cursing that lasted at least an hour, maybe two, with no breaks, no rests, and maybe not even him stopping for air.
What is weird is this: after the day was done, Carl was back to his gruff if not somewhat amicable self. It was almost like the day had not happened. We chit-chatted about pleasant things, and he gave me a ride back to my house.
I spent the rest of the night washing and dressing the nail wounds in my hands and feet, a harsh lesson having been learned.
This past spring while I was away on a business trip, a freak microburst hit my woods and toppled an enormous oak. This kicked off a domino effect where the oak slammed into a dozen other trees, taking them all down at the same time. It was a huge mess. I had an enormous mountain of broken trees blocking the road to my neighbor’s house. As I looked in amazement at all the carnage, I felt rather puny and overwhelmed. My chainsaw never felt so little. I could envision myself spending every spare moment of the next several years trying to dent the pile, with my teary-eyed wife begging me to just please quit sawing and come home - my imaginary children were missing their Daddy. What I really needed was an army of lumberjacks to come to my rescue.
Even better, what I got instead was my neighbor Carl.
He drove up in his golf cart, and I inwardly rejoiced in the knowledge that a genuine man was now in command. Outwardly I tried (and spectacularly failed) to seem like something - anything - tougher than a life-long computer geek. He contemptuously sniffed at the cloud of fear and weakness that clothed me. I quietly repeated to myself to not make direct eye contact so as to not provoke him into a white-hot, Ned-gutting rage. Carl is old-school manly. Gruff, grizzled, and muscled like an old Kodiak, he is no doubt a seasoned expert at hacking up anything that has ever inconvenienced him. The pile of dead trees was already cut up, it just didn’t know it yet. Carl dictated the terms of the deal: he would help me cut up and drag off the trees, but all the wood was his for his furnace. He figured it would be a good backup fuel in case he ever ran out of dead Commies.
So for a couple of weeks we (he) sawed the trees, and then we (I) did the heavy lifting and moved the huge logs down the hill to his truck. I think he figured that a fine tool like a chainsaw belongs only in the hands of those who are worthy, and I obviously wasn’t. It was actually a great deal and I was grateful for all the help. We finished cleaning up the whole thing, except for the massive trunk of the oak that started it all. For the moment, he had other battles to be fought, and said that we would revisit the trunk this Fall when he had more time.
Fall finally rolled around a few weeks ago.
Ever since the heat of Summer broke, I have been slowly working on cutting the trunk off its stump. Once that was finished, I found that on a typical Saturday I had enough daylight to cut two or three logs out of the end. It was hard work, and slow-going. As lengthy as the trunk was, it was going to take several weeks to get it all cut up. One day I noticed Carl watching my feeble chain-sawing skills from across the valley that separates our houses. Pointing in my direction, he was openly laughing so loudly that he shamed me back to the safety of my house while I fought back tears. I had the strongest urge to wear one of my wife’s dresses. The ghost of my dead dog took a leak on my leg, then ran away to live with the much manlier lesbians down the road.
A while later that same day, he saw me in my driveway and drove up to chat. Out of pity and disgust, he cranked down the growl and spoke gently, as one would with their fragile old mother. He said that if I would help, he would use his tractor to drag the remainder of the trunk down to the road, where he would cut it up for me. I was in no position to decline. I summoned as much testosterone as I could and made my way to the tree where I waited for him to arrive.
He pulled up on his shiny new farm tractor and began barking orders to me. Although I’m pretty decent at figuring things out, apparently a lifetime of geekery has left me ill-prepared for tasks like chaining trees to tractors. It seemed like everything I did was awkward and wrong, and before long Carl had a look in his eye that made me think he would like to personally taste my liver. In the end, he pushed me out of the way and chained up the log himself. He hopped back on the tractor, stepped on the gas, and the tractor quickly pulled the huge log several feet. Still far from its intended destination, it came to a dead stop.
The log was wedged up against what looked like a loose rock, but in actuality was the spine of the mountain ridge on which I live. The tractor rodeo began in earnest. Carl stepped on the gas, determined to force the log free, and the tractor began bucking on two wheels like a bronco. The stubborn log didn’t budge. He gave the tractor more gas. The mountain trembled under immense jolting forces, but the log refused to move. With a holy vow to move Heaven and Earth if that is what it took, Carl floored it. The tractor bucked, first up on both rear wheels, then a moment later on only one wheel… then on none. The tractor flipped over on its side while Carl nimbly jumped out of the way.
When Carl was just a wee young leatherneck, he journeyed to a mystical monastery hidden deep in the Himalayas to learn to power curse from the ancient masters themselves. He quickly left disappointed; he had found that they had nothing to offer him that his mother hadn’t already taught him in the crib. When it comes to cursing, Carl knows none of the limits that restrain the rest of us. The full fury of Carl’s wrath was turned on the tractor. Words horrible and vile, sometimes in a wide variety of languages, some even unknown to mankind, scoured the paint from the engine block. His assault registered on the Richter scale. At a secret installation in China, someone mistakenly thought they detected an ICBM launch.
Meanwhile, trying to stay conspicuously unnoticed, I was desperately wishing I had remembered to bring my camera. After all the verbal and emotional abuse I had endured that day, I was relishing the moment. Frankly, I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. I was fully expecting him to Hulk out and rip the tractor to shreds, or spontaneously combust, or something equally amazing. It was exactly in the middle of all these happy thoughts that the unthinkable happened: I let slip the smallest of innocent chuckles.
Instantly all was silent. Carl’s steely gaze landed on me. He muttered “Oh now he’s laughing, is he?” My heart stopped and a look of horror crept onto my face.
The full fury of his wrath was quickly resumed and suddenly redirected in exactly my direction. There was no bracing for impact; I faced the full onslaught of Carl. There was no pity or remorse as he verbally flayed me with expert skill. In between the curses, he shouted out orders for what he wanted me to do to upright the tractor and move the log. I was in complete submission; I did everything without question or hesitation. Both the tractor and the log moved, but I’m not so sure if it was due to my work or simply the irresistible force Carl was projecting. All in all, I estimate that he had spewed a sustained tirade of cursing that lasted at least an hour, maybe two, with no breaks, no rests, and maybe not even him stopping for air.
What is weird is this: after the day was done, Carl was back to his gruff if not somewhat amicable self. It was almost like the day had not happened. We chit-chatted about pleasant things, and he gave me a ride back to my house.
I spent the rest of the night washing and dressing the nail wounds in my hands and feet, a harsh lesson having been learned.
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