That day I almost used a chainsaw...

Yes, I bought a pole chainsaw. Or, as I prefer to call it: a chainsaw on a stick.

Yes, I brought said chainsaw home, fully assembled it and read the instructions cover to cover.

But did I ever use it?

That would be a great, big NO!

Why?

I developed a healthy fear of my new purchase after reading the chapter dedicated to “chainsaw kickback”.

To be fair, I didn’t take the chainsaw back right away. I let the mental images fully mature for a good 15 minutes first: me accidentally cutting off my arm, severing some major blood vessel, etc. But what finally did it was the thought of Trevor returning home with dinner to discover his new wife dead in the backyard with a chainsaw embedded in her skull.

So, yeah. The chainsaw was returned less than ninety minutes after I purchased it.

And when the nice lady at the Home Depot counter asked me why I was returning a fully assembled, perfectly good, unused chainsaw on a stick? Yeah, I totally lied and told her that it wasn’t what my husband wanted.

Funny how karma catches up with you, though.

The limb I intended to fell with the chainsaw, was instead sawed down by hand. It took me over an hour. And when the limb was finally felled, it was too heavy for Trevor (now home) and me to carry to the curb. So, we had to cut the thick branch into four or five smaller pieces. By hand. At dusk. As a thunderstorm rolled in and the mosquitoes swarmed all around us.

It was miserable.

Not unsurprisingly, my new fear of chainsaw kickback was a source of great irritation to Trevor. And, as a result, my tree trimming privileges have been revoked. The next time a limb needs to come down, the professional tree trimmers will be called to do the job.

I wish I could say I was upset. But, yeah, totally not. Because honestly, I'm still completely terrified of chainsaws.