Last weekend saw all the big Christmas tree chipping events around town. We were en route to taking ours to the local high school when I saw the following scenario: a red-necked yahoo (I may be characterizing a little) in a big-ass truck carrying about 8 now-defunct Christmas trees and a teenaged boy in the back of the big-ass truck lying on top of said Christmas trees. My best explanation for this is that the high-school that was collecting the trees as a fundraiser was picking them up at another school location that had already had their tree chipping the day before.  The high school was very smartly capitalizing on people showing up there on the wrong day and taking their trees and donation from them at this location as well as their own home school. But, of course that leads to the problem of transporting the trees back to their own home school. I can only assume that this is what I saw in progress. That, or red-necked yahoos often decorate their abodes with upwards of 8 Christmas trees. But let’s assume for a second that my first explanation is the correct one. This parent, at a high-school fundraiser, decided that his BEST course of action was not to go home or even to Canadian Tire if he had none at home, and get some, you know, ROPE, but to get his beloved teenaged son to lie on top of the trees so that they wouldn’t fall out of the pickup truck.

So, all I can say is this.  I may not win any parenting awards. But at least I’m not using my kids as ballast.