Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Monday, December 07, 2009

Trick Or Tree!

At home in Marikina I’m the one who always puts up the Christmas tree and hangs the lights. Then my mom and sister would take over and put the rest of the decorations.

My housemate T has never had a Christmas tree for the past 20 years; her previous pads never had enough space. So when we moved into our current pad, she vowed we must have a Christmas tree.

Yesterday we trooped to SM to get ourselves a tree. After several minutes and gawking at several kinds of trees (Ooh the color! Ooh the leaves! Ooh the height!), we saw one that T immediately liked. It was a pine tree with subtle gold highlights at the tips of the leaves. And at 7 feet tall, it was the perfect height for our place. Then we saw the sign hanging on one of its branches: “50% off.”

Suddenly it was the most beautiful tree in the whole universe.

Excited, we immediately looked around to see what kinds of décor we’d like to hang on that tree. While going around, I noticed a lady with a salesman approaching our chosen tree and pointing to it. Uh-oh, we’ve got competition! I grabbed T and whispered to her, “Someone’s trying to get our tree!” So we moved closer in an attempt to find out what’s going on, and to possibly thwart a hostile take-over. We accosted another salesman and asked if they still had stocks of that tree. He left us to check the inventory, and I moved in closer to try and eavesdrop in on the conversation. My eyes suddenly widened when I recognized who the lady was.

I whispered to my housemate. “T, the lady who wants to get our tree is Tessie Tomas!”

She took a closer look. “Oh my god, it is her!”

And then I swear I saw the former Ms. Amanda Pineda look at me for the briefest moment. Then she turned to her salesman and said, “Wait, I think this tree’s too small.” She then whipped out her cellphone and called someone. I heard her asking the person on the other line something about height, then she moved away from our tree.

T and I swooped in and blocked the tree from other customers.

When our salesman returned, he told us that the tree we were looking at was the last of their stock.

“SOLD!” T and I said in unison.

So now the tree’s in our living room. I just placed the lights first; the rest of the décor will follow.

(That’s Max admiring his very first Christmas tree ever. He’s also quite the attention-whore, but don’t tell him that.)

10 comments:

gibbs cadiz said...

love the tree! and the dog--both of them pala! and the place! podcast na ulet, haha! :)

rudeboy said...

Ah, your first Christmas tree away from home. And a lovely backstory with it, to boot.

That warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart, Joel. That plus the dog, too.

jamie da vinci! said...

eeets so purrrr-teee!!! :)

Herbs D. said...

wow wow wow. 7 feet?! :D

joelmcvie said...

@HERBS: Yeah. I actually thought it was 6 feet tall, but when I looked at the item description, 7 feet daw siya. Whatever. The height is just right for our pad. =)

Ming Meows said...

i only see the lights. nevertheless it looks natural. like it.

Yj said...

again, thanks for having us in your place joel.... till next time...

and yes, and ganda ng xmas tree.... kung nakatayo na yan nung nag podcast tayo, sana nagpapicture ako, wala akong xmas tree eh hahahahaha

Flipping Felipe said...

Awwwww..... I used to have a pug and his name was Max din. :(

Rainbow Runner said...

it's so beautiful! i would have grabbed eeet immediately once i saw eeet. happy christmas!

a said...

ganda! i still have to have my own place and my own tree. cge lang. balang araw...