Christmas Tree Shortage and Zombies

Christmas Tree Shortage and Zombies

By Kami Bryant

When I heard on the radio that there was a Christmas tree shortage, and that people could expect to pay three times as much this year on their tree, I paid it no mind. I also, didn’t pay much attention to the radio, when the newscaster was describing an affliction that had infected a local man, and that the unidentified man was showing signs of so-called zombie-like symptoms plus vomiting.

This Christmas was not going at all the way I had planned it. I had a job that I hated, but at least it paid the bills and then one fateful day, my supervisor scheduled a meeting. I was, of course, ten minutes late to the appointment. As I sat down she said, “It is my responsibility to let you know that your employment has been terminated.”

“What?!” I asked. “What did I do?”

“Well, here’s the letter,” she said and handed me a letter with a list of my faults that I didn’t agree with. “This is b.s.,” I said. I shook my head and muttered to myself as I continued reading all my imagined faults. “This isn’t fair,” I protested. The company was losing money, blah, blah, blah and they were forced to hire someone else who had more expertise, blah, blah, blah.

“You don’t have to agree with it, I just need you to sign that you received it. I have your final check here; can you go get the printer?”

I pulled my work laptop out of my bag and obediently held it out to her before she asked. Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to delete my browsing history. I drove home to retrieve the company’s printer. “I got fired!” I shout out to my son, in greeting, when I made it home. I was an emotional mess as I carried the heavy printer to my car and returned to the office. It doesn’t feel good to be told that you are incompetent.

I drove back to the office, stumbling up the steps and E. came out of the office to help me. Then she gave me my final check.

And now it is December 2nd, and I have no idea how I am going to pay my bills, let alone provide my son with a Christmas.

“Christmas is only fun if you have money,” I posted on social media. “I would be having lots of fun if I had a $1,000 gift card.”

“No,” replied someone on my social media post. “It isn’t about the money.”

“Well, it isn’t supposed to be,” I replied to her reply. “But I am influenced by commercialism.” I couldn’t really find that peace on earth and good will to men, love one another, or anything like that in my world.

My son and I went grocery shopping since I at least had food stamps. I put cocoa mug kits into my cart. I would be able to buy them with my food stamps. “If there are nutrition facts on it,” my friend Karl once told me. “You can buy it with food stamps.” He called the EBT card the poor person Visa.

“You can’t buy those with food stamps,” said the clerk as she told me the cash balance of my purchases.

“Yes, I can. Look,” I said pointing at her screen, “the other ones went through as food.”

“How can you tell if it is food stamps?” asked the incompetent manager, trying to help his incompetent clerk.

“It says food stamps,” I answered.

Yes, I was that one person in line that had a problem, delaying everyone else from checking out.

“It doesn’t say food stamps,” answered the manager.

“Yes, it does,” I repeated. “FS is food stamps.”

“Oh,” said the manager.

I slid my card through the reader for the tenth time. First, they had to refund my money to my poor person Visa, then take off the mug set and then I had to run my card through again to pay for it. It was embarrassing and I was getting cranky. My son was whining and people were muttering behind me.

“Pin,” said the manager. Then he said, “There must be something else that didn’t go through.”

“It says, nine dollars and seventy-six cents remaining balance. That cocoa set is $6.99, and the cat litter is $2.77. There isn’t anything else that isn’t going though.” It didn’t seem fair that I knew more about the man’s job then he did, and I was the stigmatized one.

“Let me see that other set, so I can check,” said the manager.

I handed the cocoa mug set to him and he scanned it. “See,” I said. “Food stamps,” pointing to the letters F and S on the screen.

“Huh,” he said.

I left the store feeling pathetic and poor.

Later that night, my son said he wanted to put up the Christmas tree. I had an artificial tree that we used last year, but the one I bought online came to me with a stand that wouldn’t fit. It was as if they had mixed two different artificial trees and thrown them into a box. The stand belonged with another set. I should have returned it when I got it, I did write an angry review, but I had kept it because that was all we had. I wasn’t going to bother fighting with it this year. My friend lives on a Christmas tree farm owned by her parents.

I called my friend, Donna and said, “Hey!”

“Hey!” she answered.

“I need a tree.”

“You need a tree?”

“Yeah, and I was wondering if I could get a discount. And when I say discount, I mean free.” She laughed, and I continued. “Or, I could pay you in two weeks when I get my child support or maybe I could work there, on the farm, to pay it off?”

“Mom,” I overheard her say. “Kelsey wants to know if she can work for a tree, or if you would donate to her cause?”

“No,” said her mom. Bitch, I thought with tears springing to my eyes. “Sorry,” added her mom.

“I can just loan you the money,” said Donna. “If you swear that you will pay me back when you get your child support.”

Child support and food stamps were my only income. I kept getting letters from the Employment Dept. stating that there was a problem with my unemployment claim.

***

“Your claim is invalid,” said the man on the phone when I called.

“But, the other person I talked to said she added the income for the first and second quarters.”

“Then it would be valid, but it hasn’t been processed. Also, were you terminated from your position?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“These claims must be looked at, which is a process called adjudication. They can’t look at them until your claim is a valid claim.”

“It has been four weeks already. How long is that going to take?”

“The process typically takes three weeks. The soonest will be two weeks.”

***

“There is a tree shortage,” Donna was saying. “We sent a lady to a different lot to get a bigger tree and she said they were closed. A guy who owns a farm near us, came to us to buy a tree. A lot of the farms are going out of business.”

“How much do they cost, anyway?” I asked her.

“If you go and cut one yourself, they are about $20 to $40. How big a tree do you want?”

“Maybe six feet. I can’t cut one down,” I answered her. I tried to imagine myself wielding an ax, chopping down a tree. What would I do? Borrow an ax or a chainsaw from them?

“I don’t know how much the ones on the lot are.”

“Can I come tonight. Are you open?”

“We close at five,” she answered.

I glanced at the clock that read 6:23. Crap, I thought. “Tomorrow, then?” I asked. “Are you open tomorrow?”

“We open at nine. Nine to five every day. Just come by and find me,” she answered.

“I will see you tomorrow,” I said.

“See you tomorrow,” she chirped.

The next day my son and I slopped around in the mud and rain looking for Donna on the farm.

“I like that one,” said my son.

“I would have to cut it down, though.”

“How would you cut it down?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” I replied.

We found the store, so we hurriedly walked over to the door, mud splashing my jeans up to my knees as we walked through the lot. The rain continued pouring down. We opened the door, and walked through the room, its walls covered in Christmas ornaments and other tchotchkes from floor to ceiling. The place smelled like pine, cinnamon and shattered dreams. Or maybe that was me.

“Wow,” said my son.

“Yeah. There sure is a lot of stuff in here.” We walked up to the cash register and Donna.

“Hey,” she said.

“How am I supposed to cut down a tree? With an ax? Do you cut them down? Where do I get an ax? What is that?” I asked pointing behind her to the row of bow saws.

She laughed and said, “Yes, we rent out the bow saws.”

“That seems like a lot of work,” I said imagining the back and forth sawing in the rain and mud. “Is there something easier?” I asked her. “How heavy is that chainsaw?”

“It is really lightweight and cordless. It is really cool.”

“Should I wear goggles?” This was probably a really bad idea. I am most likely going to cut off my arm, I thought.

“It’s easy,” said Donna as we walked outside. She showed me how to get the motor started. My son ran through the rows of trees. Then Donna’s mom walked over.

“Hey,” I said trying to be cordial.

Then we all turned as we heard a strange commotion, which sounded like a guttural growling and people screaming. As we watched, a man came stumbling over, splashing through the mud and pushing his way through the trees. My son ran up to my side. The lurching man jumped on Donna’s mom and ripped out her throat with his teeth. My son screamed shrilly in my ears. Donna screamed “MOM!!”

As Donna ran to her mother’s side, I picked up the chainsaw from the ground where Donna dropped it. I swung the whirring blade in a wide arc. The man, stumbled toward me, Donna’s mother’s blood and gore dripping down his mouth, staining his shirt. I thrust forward with the blade, hit the man in the face and drew the blade across and through his head. I was quickly splattered with pieces of flesh, bone and offal which covered me from head to toe. “Gross,” I said. It smelled like putrefied nastiness and I gagged and threw up a little bit in my mouth which I unconsciously swallowed.

Then, Donna’s mom started growling and stood up, her teeth gnashing and her head hanging by strings of tendons to sit on her shoulder unnaturally. Donna screamed as her mom jumped toward her. I grabbed Donna’s arm and yanked her away and stabbed through her mom’s face with the whirring saw blade, more pieces of blood, bone and brain pieces splashed me. “Yuck!” I said, spitting out a big glob of nasty on the ground. Then I asked my son, “Where did you say that tree was?”

“Over there,” he said. “What is that stuff?” he asked. “Is that bone? Is that brain?”

“I am trying not to think of it.” I really wasn’t in the mood to classify all the pieces of Donna’s mom that covered my shirt. I chopped down the tree that my son wanted and he yelled out “Timber!” as it fell.

“Hey,” I called out to my screaming friend. “Is someone going to help me wrap this up and tie it to the roof of my car?”

The End