Tom Kwaske, Drunk on the Christmas Tree Lot.
Taken from one of my favorite writers and blogs, McSweeney’s, this post comes from Interviews With People Who Have Interesting or Unusual Jobs. Apparently working on a Christmas tree lot yields much more drinking than previously anticipated. Like MUCH more:
Q: You worked for a season selling Christmas trees on a lot. Tell me about it.
A: The lot turns into mud in no time. It’s just dreary and nasty. You start drinking. I was on the lot with this guy named Brendan who was straight from Ireland. He was a big drinker but also a real charmer. He would go straight to drinking whiskey—he wouldn’t even start with beer.
Q: How did the drinking start?
A: Brendan drank from the first day. For me it was usually around 3 or 4 o’clock. I started just doing shots of his whiskey with a little peppermint. But right down the street was the best liquor store you can imagine…
I remember one day I started drinking at 10 o’clock in the morning and by the time evening hit I’d had a fifth and I wasn’t even slurring my words. People are delighted and you’re much more pleasant. I mean you don’t shave and we weren’t showering every day…
Q: So why did you drink? Because of the people or the cold or?
A: I think it was more the mental state. It was just such a shitty place to be. We probably drank 300 bucks of liquor and they didn’t pay for food so we probably didn’t net much money from the whole experience.
I do remember one time there was a really nice guy in a Mercedes who got a 10- or 12-foot tree and asked us to deliver it to his house. He had like this three million dollar house, decorated to the max with Christmas lights and decorations. We set up his tree and he gave us each a double shot of Crown Royal whiskey as a tip.
We’d stack [the trees], cut the base off, tie them to the top of a car.
One guy came back to get another tree—I guess it came off the top of his car. He was going 60 miles an hour down the freeway and it blew off and almost hit the car behind him, and then a car ran over it. So he picked it up and brought it back and we gave him a new one.
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