Once upon a time there was a man and his wife. The man and his wife had a tree. It was a good tree, but over time its leaves began to turn brown and fade. The bark on its branches began to peel, and it became very, very sad. One day, the man said to his wife, "I have consulted a 'professional,' dear." He suggests that we cut the tree's branches back, and then maybe it will begin to revive itself and will be a good tree for us again.


Now, this man and his wife were sometimes a silly little couple. Silly because they often felt that they could do everything themselves. Particularly the wife. She would begin a new project and then exclaim to herself, "What the heck was I thinking?!" Yet somehow, she never learned from her mistakes and would continue to get in over her head. This dying tree presented such a situation. The man excitedly said,"Hey! I'll borrow a chainsaw from Bro. Taylor!" And the wife said, "I'll help you!" They were very happy about completing this project together.

The man was happy because he was going to be able to use a fun power tool. The wife was happy because another "project" was about to begin. Yes, it was a joyful day. The process began smoothly by cutting back one branch at a time until one very large, very top heavy, very angular branch remained. The wife observed, "Dear husband, I think we might have a problem. It appears that this large branch may fall directly into our neighbors yard when you begin to cut it." The husband agreed. But because they were a very silly couple, they decided to attempt cutting back the branch anyway. They devised a plan.

"Dear wife," said the man, "I think that if you stand here in the corner on the stepstool and push the branch away from our neighbor's yard as I begin to cut, we might be able to keep the tree from falling into their yard."

"Ok!," said the wife, excitedly.

But all too soon the man and his wife could see that things were not going as planned. The man began to saw. The wife began to push. The branch began to fall. In the wrong direction. The wife, overestimating her ability and strength, decided to grab hold of the branch as its end began to soar upward, hoping to keep it from falling over the wall. She thought somehow she would be able to defy gravity and the weight of a 20 foot tree branch. Fortunately, somewhere between the time her feet left the ground and the time she was suspended 8 feet in the air she realized maybe she should let go before being catapulted over the wall into the gaping mouths of 2 rottweilers. Very fortunate indeed.

At that moment, the man and his wife looked at eachother and burst out in uncontrollable laughter. "How silly we are!" cried the husband. "What the heck was I thinking?!" laughed the wife. You see, the silly couple was in quite a predicament. Now they must devise a plan to retrieve the branch from the neighbors' yard. The rottweilers' yard. And we all know how good they were at devising plans.

Just then, the neighbor woman came out to see what all the barking was about. The man and his wife apologized, laughed, and apologized some more. She put her two beasts away and the man went next door to cut the branch into smaller, more manageable pieces. He painstakingly threw each log back over the wall. There were too many to number.

Moral of the story: It's ok to ask for help when cutting a tree down for the first time, but if you decide not to, at least fetch the video camera.