Wednesday, December 13, 2006
YO HO THE MISTLETOE
Brendalove@gmail.com
Tis the season and I can't help but notice the trees in the parking lot at work. A few of them are LOADED with mistletoe. I bet you didn't know that I can spot mistletoe growing in a treetop from a mile away. You can only see it in the winter though, after all the leaves are gone.
I want some of that mistletoe. But it only grows in the treetops.
Do you think anyone would be alarmed if I showed up in the parking lot of work with a shotgun and shot some down?
I've only had live mistletoe once. When I was a young teenager I spotted a small bundle growing just out of reach. I couldn't believe it, real mistletoe that I could get to! Yeah, we used to get excited about things like that back then. And there was a big bonfire for the youth group coming up on New Year's Eve, so I was already calculating who was going to be there and who I was gonna kiss. And I WOULD get the most kisses because everyone has to obey the Power of the Mistletoe, right? There was one guy in particular I wanted to plant tulips on. Get it? Tulips? Never mind. It was a great secret and I wasn't sharing it with anybody.
The little patch of mistletoe had been tricked into believing it was growing in a treetop because the tree was a dwarf pine. I tried to shimmy up the tree but no-can-do. I slipped and my hands rubbed into the bark. Nice and bloody. Yuck. There was no way I could use a shotgun.....the preferred method of harvesting. Somebody would hear that and come running.
I actually tried to make a bow and arrow with rubberbands and a stick but that was a bust. Finally, I had to recruit a cousin in on the plan, which sucked because now I had to halve my ball of mistletoe and who knew who SHE was plotting to kiss? But there was nothing else to be done. She made the little cup with her hand and boosted me up. I got to the branch but couldn't reach the mistletoe. Just out of reach. I hung there a minute and then dropped.
I was going to get that mistletoe, whatever it took.
So we had a recruit a neighborhood BOY to help out. Not one of the bonfire boys, mind you, just a regular BOY. He was bigger than us and he knew exactly what he wanted as payment. A kiss from both me and my cousin. OH YUCK! But we said we would IF we got the mistletoe.
He gave me the boost and I was able to sling my arm around the branch. Just a swing and.......the branch broke. I probably only dropped 5 or 6 feet but it felt like a million. I hit the pine straw forest floor hard. No broken bones, but I was scratched and sore. And in my grubby little hand was the mistletoe!! It wasn't the whole ball of it, but it was enough to get the job done.
So then we had to kiss the neighborhood boy. It was really gross. We weren't worried about him telling other people though...its not like we had a choice...we had to obey the Power of the Mistletoe!
By the time of the bonfire, everybody under the age of 18 in three counties knew I had real live mistletoe with Magic Power. I shared it a leaf at a time, and then we started splitting the leaves in half. I am pretty sure everybody got at least ONE kiss from someone at the bonfire on New Years' Eve.
And yes, I did get my kiss from the Special Boy. But he couldn't kiss worth a damn, all slobbery and stuff....ewww. That was the end of the road for him. I ended up dating the gross neighborhood boy later on instead.
Posted by brendalove@gmail.com @ 10:48 PM
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