Truesday: For Real - For Fake
*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors
There’s nothing quite like the real thing. The real thing. REAL thing.
The Real.
Real, actual money is pretty sweet compared to the fake variety. Canal Street Rolexes, like the one I found abandoned in a NYC cab one time, are pretty much pieces of no-time-havin’ shit. Other “real” versions of things are typically preferable to shoddy facsimiles: violent emotions, male/female breasts, teeth, chupacabras, and Irish Whiskey.
But sometimes you just can’t swing the real deal. It simply isn’t reasonable to go that road. Like that time you wanted to buy your super high-maintenance high school girlfriend a Fendi purse for Christmas. So you actually went to their fucking store at The Galleria and took a breeze over their no-pricetag-having trinkets and such. After realizing that said purse would require more than the pathetic alms hiding in your wallet, specifically: it would require a loaded gun and the wherewithal to wave it with convincing malice in the faces of strangers, you gave up on that insanely ugly piece of dyed leather… bag.
You also gave up trying to get that purse.
Honestly, you HAD to back off that plan because remember: you’re not convincing as a stick-up kid. And unconvincing thieves get caught even before the stupid ones do. Furthermore, even without first-hand knowledge, you’ve always held that jail is no place for your kind. You’re far too pretty to be traded around between tear-dropped bears for cash value equivalents far cheaper than that of the stupid purse you were so pathetically scheming on.
And she probably wasn’t going to put out before Easter anyway, so, fuck it. You’re far too smart to waste The Real on her.
But some things deserve The Real treatment. In fact, they more than deserve it, they’re OWED it. Well, maybe not “owed” in a universal sense of the application of that word. But from you? They are most certainly owed that debt.
This past Christmas I bought a live tree for my girlfriend. A real tree with roots and everything, but only about a foot tall. More like a bush, really. A Real bush. It was mailed to her, naked in a box, nested next to a zip-locked baggie of plastic balls, tinsel, and other brightly colored shit that was to be sprinkled upon it. You know, for the sake of festivity!
I realize how strange that might sound in terms of displaying holiday spirit:
“A live Christmas tree, mailed to her in a box?”
“Yeah. Like that whole dick in a box deal. But it’s a potted, live tree instead of a potted, live… penis. SNL really needed that bit. They really did.”
“Like, shipped to your girl, pretty much in a coffin?”
“More like a box.”
“You mean a coffin box for the dead Christmas spirit.”
“No, just a box.”
“Do you hate Jesus or something?”
You see, we made it point this past year to NOT suffer through the allergic snotscapade that typically waltzes alongside the arrival of Christmas cards. We bought a fake tree to minimize that seasonal irritation. It’s alright, and already has the lights all connected into it, ready to burn the house down. So that’s a plus on the lazy front.
But after a few days of enduring that plastic toilet brush's lazy mockery of my lady’s Christmastime fun, something had to be done to get The Real involved. Hence, the Tree In A Box, mailed to us by way of some creative florist somewhere, who was obviously overrun by midget bushes, who boxed them up and passed them off as true Tannenbaums.
While not necessarily bragging, I am proud to say that she was most pleased with my effort. Success, it was.
We nicknamed it “Little Dude” since it was so diminutive in size. He was horrifically bald/bare on one side. Kinda Charlie-Brownish, which made him all the more endearing.
Christmas came and went, but the The Real tree remained in our immediate care, even after the fake one was boxed up and probably lost somewhere in storage. Little Dude kicked-it in the living room for a while, and then got booted outdoors because it was decided that he should be an outdoor tree. You know, like a cat that still has its claws.
Up until a week ago, it was kept in its original pot, sitting on the driveway, probably expecting some sort of permanent position somewhere in the yard. Crying.
Who the hell knows what the trees cry for these days. But I know he cried! And OFTEN!
During the immediate months after he the went outdoors, all sorts of plagues and maladies have fallen upon him. He got run over a couple of times. I think the neighborhood domesticated dogs/feral children have peed him down on more than one occasion. Blown over by the wind (lost his inner-pot after one wind storm, so he was sans-knickers after that). Repeatedly kicked over by the postman. Sunburned and dried out to kindling on a couple of occasions.
But he’s The Real. So none of that mistreatment did him any lasting harm. In fact, amongst all that abuse, his bald side began to sprout some green tufts. New growth. A testament to the ever-impressive stabilization skills present in most natural forms. The Real forms.
And if it weren’t for his showing that he could sprout and thrive amongst such atrocious conditions, I might never have bothered to try and plant the little dude. But a week ago, I did. And in that week’s time he’s already grown an inch or so, valiantly flourishing amongst my blowing-trash-riddled, weedscaped lawn like it was the majestically sloping side of a nutrient-rich Norwegian fjord.
Or wherever the hell it is that Christmas trees prefer to put their root down. Wherever The Reals put their roots down.
The Real.
It’s springtime. Time for Little Dude, The Real, to put his blessedly determined root down.
