Today les Soldes start and all the stores in France have their prices marked down for pushy shoppers who will stop at nothing to get what they've got their eyes on. It's a nationwide, bi-annual and often violent sale that lasts a month. I'd check it out but the last time I went during the first week I almost got a black eye and lost a shoe in the cyclone of price tags and panic (not a joke). So I did something that should have been less stressful. I did away with our Christmas tree.
Husband told me we're not allowed to just leave it on the sidewalk; we have to cut it into bitty pieces and dispose of it properly. I'd love to disbelieve that, but it is true that I haven't seen any abandoned trees outside in the neighborhood.
"I think I've got a saw in the cellar," says Husband, leaving for work.
Damn. I hate our cellar, but I want to get rid of this tree, so I grab the keys and go down into the underground corridor lined with broken glass and rat poison on the floor. Each tenant in the building has a storage compartment and I unlock and open ours- which hasn't got a saw in it. So where is it? How can you lose a saw? Frusterated I've braved the dungeon for nothing, I go back upstairs. Now, I'm just getting plain mad that I have no solution. I try to tie the branches and trunk together into a neat bundle, but the branches balloon out again. I break off a few of them with my hand. Then a few others. Suddenly, all my frustrations from the last week surface.
The Prefecture who makes me stand in line for hours to ask about paperwork they should have sent me in the mail last October.
My neighbor who believes "If it ain't worth yelling, it ain't worth saying" and excercises that belief at all hours.
The fact that I was promised a job last fall that still hasn't started and have had to resort to starting the job hunt all over again.

Bam. I am a relatively calm person who has suddenly morphed into a madwoman attacking a Christmas tree with her bare hands. No gloves even, just me, tree and Le Tigre's Deceptacon blaring in the background. Think Edward Scissorhands meets Single White Female and you've got me violently snapping away with pine needles and tree dust flying all over. I'm sure there is some environmental group in San Francisco that would have me arrested for this.
But everyone gets mad and needs an outlet. Since there are no batting cages or rollercoasters in my neighborhood, this is actually working quite well. When I've finished, my tree looks like it just stumbled away from a nasty barfight. But most importantly, it's ready to be thrown away in a clean, responsible manner.
I can see the conversation tonight:
Husband: Oh, it's gone! You found the saw, then?
Me: No.
Husband: Then, how...?
Me: It doesn't matter.