Inside the asylum:

Loony 1 “Whatta ya say we go kill a tree?”

Loony 2 “Wow! That sounds really cool. Let’s go do it right now! But instead of killing just one tree, let’s kill MILLIONS of them!”

Loony 1 “Bitchin! And I know what, let’s make a big ceremony while we’re doing it, ok?”

Loony 2 “Too much, dude! We’ll get EVERYBODY involved with it! Maybe the whole country! Maybe the WHOLE WORLD!”

Loony 1 “Yeah!”

Cut to the real world:

And oh yeah guys, don’t forget to do it again each and every year, ok?

Would somebody please help me out here with christmas trees? Preferably somebody from OUTSIDE the asylum?

What in the fuck do these fucking idiots THINK they’re doing here? Is there any thinking taking place at all? Or is this yet another priceless example of Lemmings at Play? Well, maybe not. At least not the “at play” part. christmas trees are capable of generating a wide vista of curse words coming from the poor schlub who has to RIG the fucker. And, now that I think of it (even as I bash these keys), it’s almost ALWAYS a GUY who has to rig the damned thing. Yet another example of how guys idiotically permit themselves to be manipulated by wimmin. Do I want to go off on a guy/wimmin tangent right now? Nah. Maybe later. Let’s get back to our original rant, ok?

In case you didn’t know (Just drop in from Neptune, hmm?), christmas trees take a LOT of rigging. And that’s not even counting the ridiculous Dance of Bullshit that’s involved with merely SELECTING the damned thing, down at the christmas tree lot. Christmas Tree Lot. What a concept! I don’t even want to discuss all the horseshit required to verify that your newfound Sacrificial Shrubbery is worthy of being placed upon its altar. Let’s just skip that shit, ok? Hell, I’m halfway through my rant and I haven’t even started my rant yet. Christmas trees can do that to a guy.

We’re gonna bring home a sawed-off tree and let it die a slow agonizing death. But we don’t want it to die too fast now, do we? That would spoil all the fun. The needles would fall off too soon. Can’t be having any of that, can we? Does the tree get a vote in all this? Hell no. My guess is that it’s some kind of vegan conspiracy.

Vegans. Murderous motherfuckers. Once they’ve decided that they won’t “eat anything that can see them,” or whatever (Eggs can’t see, can they? Come to think of it, dead chickens don’t see worth a shit either, do they? But somehow the vegan knows What’s Right.), it’s open season on everything else. Do I want to go off on a vegan tangent right now? Nah, Maybe later.

Meanwhile, even as the tree emits a piercing death wail perceptible only to other trees, Mummy and Dummy are busily moving furniture around in order to make a place in the living room for the damned (in more ways than one) thing, so as to cheer the hearts of their little tots. And also jump them into the gang by teaching them the Ways of The Tree.

Ok, it’s not weird enough that we’ve put a doomed evergreen in the house with us. We need more.

I know, let’s HANG shit on it.

Is this why god gave trees branches? One could make a fair decent case in favor of that proposition.

And let’s not just hang ANYTHING on it, ok? Let’s hang a bunch of DANGEROUS stuff up there. Let’s put a little excitement into it. Let’s make this thing so attractive that no waking four year old can resist grabbing it to check it out. GLASS ornaments, what a great idea! ELECTRIC lights, what a great idea! Zillions of little strips of plastic, coated in conductive aluminum, what a great idea! Hell, forget the four year old, this thing has the power to kill ANY of us.

And it DOES kill people! Lots of them. Every year. But does the local eyewitless news presenter give us a breathless account of the incredible risk-taking behavior of everybody who pulls out into traffic (consider THAT for your list of risk-taking behavior) with a christmas tree sticking out of the trunk of the family sedan?

Of course not. What are you, some kind of communist?

And then we’ll put the presents (What, exactly, is the deal with putting presents under a fucking half dead tree in the living room?) way back up underneath the fucker where there’s a much better chance of knocking the whole psychotic array down while we’re crawling around back there.

And then we’ll just sort of let it sit there, doing more or less nothing (we hope) until the Big Day. After which, it continues to do more or less nothing until somewhere around the turn of the year. At which point, we go through an incredible hassle to UNrig it and get it the hell out of the house and out by the curb, so the poor overworked trash guys can come and remove its ugly carcass from our presence.

Is this not one of the STUPIDEST things you can POSSIBLY imagine?

Nevermind that things should go horribly wrong at three a.m., and the cat decide to pounce upon a glittering bauble dangling from it, causing it to tip over and spill the water in the stand thing it’s imprisoned within, which then floods over to the part of the tree where there’s a bare spot on the wiring for the lights, sparking a massive short circuit, which then ignites the tinder-dry twigs and branches of the thing, starting a fire that melts all the plastic in the toys underneath it, which produces a highly toxic cloud of gas, which proceeds to asphyxiate everyone in the house before any of them have a chance to wake up and call the fire department to come and put out the blaze which winds up burning down the ENTIRE apartment complex, killing an additional thirty-seven people, three of whom never wanted any damn thing at all to do with christmas, trees, presents, cats, fires, or any of the rest of it, but who died anyway for no reason at all.

Fuck that shit. I’m not having anything to do with ANY of it, and I don’t care what any of you lemming bastards have to say about it.