It Will All Be Fine

Here at Greenhill Manor we are optimists—everything is always at least half full or half positive. For example, I have annual anxiety about the Christmas tree. We have a tree stand that drills into the tree base so as to enhance water uptake. Roughly half of our trees drink like crazy, and the other half never seem to drink anything at all. In my memory at least, the former stay fresh through the season, and the others dry out the week of Christmas. Every once in a while, we’ve had a tree that would drink like crazy and we (meaning “I,” since no one else will do it) forgot to water it. Whatever the case, I really, really want the tree to be fresh.

So imagine my delight when we got a tree this year that was literally cut on the lot. Extreme freshness! We brought it right home, got it right in the tree stand, and filled that stand with water. And by the next morning, it had drunk . . . nothing. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s drunk nothing the entire season. I’ve supplemented it once or twice because of a combination of Dobby drinking from the stand and evaporation, but the water level basically doesn’t go down. A few days ago, one of the small branches at the bottom turned brown. The smell became especially fragrant, and Lauren said, “The tree is smelling awesome!”

“That’s the smell of it drying out,” I said.

“How do you know that?” she said.

“Because that’s how it smells every year when it dries out.”

“I’ve never noticed that.”

“Well, I have.”

Just this morning, I was feeling the needles, and I swear the lower branches are going dry. I felt some further up the tree, and they still feel fresh. I’m not an arborist, so I have no idea if trees dry out bottom to top or top to bottom. Lauren didn’t have to say it—she wasn’t there after all—but I could hear her voice in my head: “See? Still at least half fresh! It’s our best tree ever! We’ve never had such a fresh tree!”

So it is with various other things. This morning, I cracked the dishwasher, and it was already full. Likewise, the kitchen trash was also full.

“I suppose I’d better start this damn thing,” I said. Starting the dishwasher is a chore because the door seal is broken and the dishwasher leaks, so as you may recall from an earlier article, I have to lay out a towel and some bowls since I’m unwilling to kill the thing yet.

“The Laws Family—where the trash and dishwasher are always full,” I groaned.

“We’re optimists!” Lauren called back.

One of Graham’s jobs is taking out the trash, but he doesn’t believe it’s his job until someone has said to him, “Graham, take out the trash.” That someone inevitably has to be a parent—a sibling won’t suffice. It hardly matters if the trash is piled so high that the trash can lid is entirely open: it is not his job until he is told to do it.

Speaking of trash, we switched our trash and recycling service a month ago. We used to be with a private contractor, but the town did a big contract with someone, and we could get town trash and recycling for about half the price and save $400 per year. Using the logic shown in insurance bundling commercials, I should now be able to afford three weeks in Cancun, but I digress. One of the worries I expressed to Lauren was that the new trash can was a few gallons smaller and that the recycling only came twice a month not once a week.

“It’ll be fine,” she said. “We only have one kid at home most of the time.”

“But we fill up the recycling can every single week right now even with just one kid at home.”

“It will be fine.”

Baseless assertions of positivity in the face of objective evidence—that’s optimism, right? Well, readers, it is not fine. Whenever we put a can out on the curb, the wind blows various of our items into our neighbors’ yard because our garbage and recycling cans are too full to shut. It has been only one week since the last recycling pickup, and the main can is full, the little green box is full, bags of recyclables are piling up next to them. We will put the can and box out, they will get emptied, and then be full one day later because of all that is piled up waiting to go in them. At some point this year, we will have so much recycling in the garage that Lauren will say we should just leave a car out of the garage, but this is nonnegotiable for me—cars go in the garage unless she is willing to take over thorough snow removal (I hate hate hate hate hate cleaning snow off of cars).

Maybe it won’t matter. One of our LED bulbs on our tree could short out, and with the tree being dry, it could go up in a second. The house could burn down with all the recycling acting as tinder and kindling in the garage to accelerate it. At least the floor around the dishwasher and refrigerator won’t burn since both spew water on the floor. If Lauren can get it to happen when only I am home, she will get the insurance money.

Don’t worry folks. It will all be fine.