I just put my new fake tree together.
By accident I had left my old fake tree at the ex-girlfriend’s place. It was a cool fake Christmas tree, too. Tall, but thin. It had style. But when a relationship ends, sometimes it makes sense to just buy a new fake tree. So I did. I decided to go tall and thin again. A sign of respect to the previous tree that was likely covered with dust in her storage unit. The new tree arrived and I assembled it. The ornaments and lights and even that thing at the top. Treetop hat or whatever. Then I realized I didn’t have a tree-skirt. I must have left that with the tree at her place. I shook my angry fist toward the heavens, but then purchased a swath of canvas online a few minutes later. I had an idea. A great idea? Yeah, actually it was.
This same thing happened to me once back in high school. I had been playing guitar for a few years and one day I was screwing around and all of a sudden I had written the greatest song in the world! I quickly grabbed a pen and wrote down the sequence. Later that day a friend came by and I proudly played him this riff. He said, “That’s Ozzy, dude. Mama I’m Coming Home.” I had written note for note the opening part of that famous Ozzy ballad. Now, I was embarrassed (that I didn’t realized I had ripped off an Ozzy song) and worried (that he thought I was trying to pass off the Ozzy song as my own). Let’s go back to the Christmas tree.
When the canvas swath arrived, I unfolded it and placed the tree in the center of the cloth. I then rolled up the corners and tucked them inward, toward the tree’s trunk. The idea was to make the canvas look like a bag, with the tree growing out of it. I felt pride. This was clever and original. But because my memory is garbage I often double check my “genius” before posting on social media, or bragging via text to loved ones.
It took all of three seconds to find out on Google Images that 7400 people had thought of this concept before me. Turning the base of the Christmas tree into a canvas bag is not a fringe holiday decor idea. There are websites with exclusive tutorials on how to make this on your own for $6 and a trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics. Thank the stars (old expression that needs to come back) that I remembered how dumb I am and double checked. I was milliseconds away from bragging about this achievement far and wide. And I just saved myself from another Ozzy moment.
So, in the end I didn’t invent the original concept of making the tree with a canvas base. I did, however, successfully trademark it last week. Well, not “it”, it. But the name of my new product, TreeBaseSack. Wait, let me show off the official digs. Okay – check this out. TreeBaseSack™. How cool is that? Oh man, I’m gonna be so rich. Who knows one of the Shark Tank producers? Hook me up.
first photo credit: Jonathan Bayer Ozzy via photopin (license)