Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Finding my tree stump

Shortly after we bought our house we decided that the old apple tree in back had to go. The trunk was half rotted and it would only be a matter of time before it fell down. So we borrowed a chain saw and proceeded to cut it down. All that is except for the last 2 feet or so above the ground. There had been an old tractor tire put around it and that had been filled with dirt that had gotten into the bark. When we tried to cut through that we could tell we were just wrecking the chainsaw blade and quit.

A few weeks later I came home from my former place of employment in a bad mood. The bosses were having another one of those moments when they couldn't find their way out of a bathroom stall with a road map. I was really torqued off and needed someway to vent my frustrations. Then I saw the stump out back. I grabbed my ax and commenced to hack the living crap out of the gravel embedded hold out. As the steel bit into the wood and the chips flew I could feel my anger starting to fade. About an hour later I had the stump chopped down to the ground (remember it was half rotted, I'm not superman after all)!

As I stood there with ragged breath and sweat dripping off of my brow looking at the receiptiant of my triad I felt better. So now when I have some sort of pent up emotion that I need to deal with, I just find some physically demanding job that requires strike something (ice chipping works well too) and let loose. There is something to be said for constructive destruction.

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