There is a tree lot near my house. We have bought our tree there every year for the past 10 years. We always wait until the last day or two, to get a discounted tree, because they’re always deeply discounted the last day or so (we have it in the house a shorter time before Christmas, but keep it up until Jan 6.)
Well, when we got there, the lot was closed. The posts they lean the trees up against were all on their sides and piled together, and a couple of measly trees were heaped up at the side, all on the ground. The trailer was still there, the lights were on, and music blasting, but nobody was home. Not at 3pm. Not at 5pm. So we took one of the 2 remaining trees, left a note with our phone number and the tag off the tree, and there we were. I went back the next day to see if anybody was at the trailer. No. But the other tree was gone (no note).
Yesterday the grinch called and said to send the full amount to such-and-such a mailing address (yes, I verified it via Google to make sure it was the same business, same phone number with caller ID, same address, and not some yutz who got our phone number off the note and decided to call for free money).
Merry Christmas, mister grinch. Thanks for rewarding our honesty about something you were going to THROW AWAY and had abandoned, by slapping us. Next year, we’ll probably just get one of those string-wrapped trees from the grocery store.
Wait, why did you leave a note if you didn’t expect to have to pay for the tree? Are you pissed because he expected you to pay for the tree, or because he didn’t give you a discount?
I hear you Chotii. But be prepared for the responses that tell you that you shouldn’t expect anything. Regardless, I know what the ire feels like that comes from a realization that, under other circumstances, whatever was gonna be junk. Hell, even the Wal*Mart near my house had their live trees for just a buck on Christmas eve. Go figure.
You’re right on in hoping that extra bit of cash does him good. And may your New Year be bright anyway.
It doesn’t necessarily follow that because the other tree was gone, someone took it without making arrangements to pay for it (i.e. leaving a note). Maybe the Grinch himself took it away with him and donated it to an orphanage.
And maybe he didn’t give you the discount because, hey, the price for the trees was (presumably) prominently posted, and it’s not an unreasonable assumption to assume that someone who leaves a note indicating their desire to pay for a tree is also someone who assumes they’ll be paying the posted price.
In fact, there were two orphanages—in one of them, harried staff tried desperately on Christmas morning to convince the weeping children that their green nylon “Christmas umbrella” was almost as nice as the trimmed tree they’d been eagerly expecting from Santa…
Ah, makes the tree smell that much better!
Disclaimer: Cutting down trees to hang tacky shit off of for a few days/weeks is a DICK MOVE! Get a damn fake tree for the holidays and quite killing real trees!
What the OP did was possibly uncool and illegal too. Does taking a product and leaving a note/money make it right when the owner is not around? I genuinely don’t know.
What ever the case, my comment was a joke. If one took it seriously, make sure to plant two more come spring.
I’m pitting him for not meeting my expectations based on 10 years of buying trees from him, of course.
It’d have been a lot easier if he’d BEEN there. Who goes off and leaves their stock out in the open for 2 days without anybody there to take money for it? Either he’d abandoned it, or I had the worst luck in the world, not finding him there any of the times I stopped by. Blah.
We did once wait too long to get ours. We generally get them from the Optimist Club, who has a tree lot at the same place every year. This one year there was no more lot and a couple trees in the gutter. We did take one. We also gave them a handsome donation.
But don’t you go down to the lot on the last day to essentially get free money from the vendor of the trees? The vendor at that point has no choice but to sell his remaining trees at, or below, cost. But at least he gets something, right?
The only way he stays in business (so that you can conveniently buy a tree near your house) is if enough people buy at the retail price. You deliberately go out of your way to make sure he subsidizes your tree purchase every year and then have the nerve to worry about if someone else is going to rip you off. Ever heard the term ‘parasite’?
