Honey 177

       I really needed to show my tree guys that new dump site for their next load of wood chips, but coming round Metals, the bastards turned on their roaring chipper, started feeding limbs into it. So I searched out a place with a view to wait the roar out. No more had I found my place when I smelled patchouli.
       "What's going on?"
       I turned to find Honey, a bitter neighbor lady, nose-high to my armpit. Honey was one of those far out hippie chicks who, at fifty, was still wearing her '70's hippie outfit. Though I found Honey, a practitioner of the truth, easy to talk to, her tie-dye clothes sure were hard on the eyes. Sheilding my eyes with one gloved hand, cupping my mouth with the other, I yelled, "They're taking that cedar out."
       "Is it dying?"
       "It is now."
       "Is is diseased?"
       "No, it's endangering the building."
       I had nothing pressing, so there I stood, taking it like a man. And, oh, what an earful the earth mama had for this wayward male, bitching him out for killing her friends the trees.
        No, Honey wasn't the kind of hippie who seized life by laying back and smoking Weed. Honey was the kind who shared the love by enlightening others on how they were going about it all wrong. And that's another reason Honey was easy to talk to. She presented the opportunity of showcasing a talent of my own--lecturing others on how they were going about it all wrong.
       The tree crew shut down their chipper, and Honey--her voice not lowering a notch in volume--wrapped up her enlightenment with, "You men, you're all the same; only happy when you're killing your Mother."
       "True," I said, "but she started it."
       "Are you insane?"
       I took off a glove. "Come on, Honey, look around." I waved my glove. "Sure, Mother Nature is all about giving life. But don't you go thinking for one minute the bitch ain't up to her neck in killing shit."
       Honey didn't say anything.
       "That's right; killing shit just like you, Honey."
       "I do not . . . I've never killed anything in my life."
       "Honey, Honey, you're up to your neck in killing shit--you just don't know it."
       "You are insane!"
       "Honey, Honey. That you are standing here before me," plump as a pumpkin, I was tempted to add, "reveals a lot of killing has gone down on your behalf. I don't care what it is you eat, whether ham or cabbage, but you need to face the fact that you live because others have died."
       "I'm a total vegan, and, I'm sorry, but eating cabbage is not killing."
       "OK, so maybe you didn't pick the cabbage. But some killer did. And thank God some killer did, so you could eat, so you could have a life."
       "You know, Anton; you're a real idiot."
       "That may be." I threw my glove in the air, caught it. "But that doesn't change the fact that killing is killing. You eat a cabbage, it's killing. I cut down a tree, it's killing. Killing is killing. Case closed."
       "Killing a cabbage is not a crime. Killing trees is. Trees are higher life forms. Very close to humans. What next, Anton; are you going to tell me eating cabbage is the same as eating humans?"
       Boy, didn't see that one coming. I searched the base of the big fir for a come-back line.
       

           

       "I'm not saying that," I said, looking up into the towering fir, hoping to find my come-back line up there. Of course, what I spied up that tree had "kill" written all over it. Damn, just like a male to have set up his lectern right under a gal-damned widow-maker.
       "What are you saying, Anton?"
       We males weren't exactly multi-taskers, so I couldn't speak--let alone think--until I'd back-stepped myself out of danger. "All I'm saying Honey, is you'd best get on up the walk, here, before Mother Nature directs this tree, here, to drop that limb, up there, on that vegan head of yours." I slapped my glove into my hand to punctuate my laugh. "Ya, ridding her of yet another head of cabbage."
       Honey stormed off, leaving me to curse out my sister. That's right, it was my sister who had hard-wired my brain to pull the trigger on an insult before I'd properly loaded my gun. 
       The loaded gun reminded me of something: I had yet to tell my tree guys I wanted them to get my widow-maker down.
       I turned to do as much, only to see that the wood-chip truck had driven off. I ran across campus to intercept the truck. Too late, had a third pile where I'd wanted one; had an entire sequel, now, for my Winter Of The Ruts. At least I saw it coming. No, things sure can go bad on a 29 day, huh? 
       

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