NOW, Saturday, December 8

Saturday, December 8

Today's adventure reminded me of a story from my childhood.

When I was a kid, we had a tree trimming party about this time every year. It wasn't a huge party, my parents, my uncle, the neighbors across the street, and Al and Janet Rietch, a couple my parents knew from work.

My parents rarely drank, unlike my uncle (an alcoholic of the first order), the neighbors and the Al and Janet (the friends). But they did imbibe on special occasions and the tree trimming party was such an occasion. My father and Al put up the tree and started stringing lights on it. They kind of worked on the Julia Child model of tree trimming: put up the tree, have a drink. String a strand of lights, have a drink, String another strand of lights, have a drink. You get the idea. By the time all the lights and ornaments were on the tree, everyone was pretty well looped.

Back then, way back in the middle of the last century, trees weren't topped with stars as often. the tree-topper of choice was a ball - like a round ornament - with a long glass spike on top. When it came time for the tree-topper, my father pulled the top of the tree down so Al could reach it. Al shoved that spiky tree-topper on and my father let go.

It was a tall tree, taller than I guess they realized. When my father let go, the spiky glass topper hit the ceiling and shattered. "Well, damn!" Somebody - I don't remember who - said it. Probably not my father though; he didn't swear.

Al and my father trimmed the top of the tree and went out in search of another tree-topper. My mother and Janet cleaned up the glass. The neighbors went home; my uncle kept drinking.

In due time Al and my father came back with another spiky glass tree-topper. My father pulled the top of the tree down, Al put the spike on, my father let go. I guess they didn't trim quite enough off the tree because the spike hit the ceiling and shattered. "Well, damn." This time I think it was my father.

More trimming and another trip out for another tree-topper. The third time must have been the charm because this time when Al put the topper on the tree and my father let go, the topper didn't shatter. It cleared the ceiling by maybe an inch.

With the tree fully decorated and the topper - the third topper - safely in place, everyone could sit down, enjoy it's beauty, and have a drink.

My adventure today, my quest, was for lights for the tree. We haven't really had a tree since we moved to Puerto Rico; we decorated Ola Lola's. Now we have a house, grand kids are coming, so we got a tree. Yes, it is artificial. We can get cut trees here at Walmart and Sam's, but they come from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Which means that to get here for Christmas they must have been cut in July.

Anyway - we really didn't have many lights before. Most of what we had we left with Stephanie and Jordan. But no big deal, right? Two-and-a-half weeks before Christmas everybody has lights. Wrong! An early beat-the-traffic trip to (gasp!) Walmart. Nope. Not a single strand of lights. Nada. I had to stop at a big chain hardware store on the home. They'll have lights. Nope. Nada. They don't even carry them.

How can you not have Christmas lights two weeks before Christmas!!!!!!? It's worse than after the hurricane! Last year the stores had lights, there was just nothing to plug them in to..

So I came home, unloaded the truck, and headed back out in the rain. We checked Walgreen's online and supposedly the one closest to us had lights. Nope. Nada. I called Elaine and asked her to check Amazon. They could ship us lights but wouldn't guarantee the would get her before Christmas. So back out into the driving rain to drive to another Walgreens. Yep they had lights. In cases on a dolly in the middle of the floor. No one around to unpack or stock them so they couldn't sell them, even though there were about 20 customers standing there looking at them.

Back out into the rain, drove past a K Mart (because their website said they were completely out of lights!), on to yet another Walgreens. This one had lights  Not exactly what I wanted but they are lights! While I stood in line, the power went out. Their generator kicked in but it took ages for their systems to reboot. Then the system wouldn't take my debit card. I had to run out to the car to get my credit card. As I ran out, all the 50 or so people backed up in line scowled at me because I had the only currently working register tied up.

All this for Christmas tree lights two weeks before Christmas. Sure hope they all work.