Sometimes I like to think about jobs that I would never, ever consider doing. Jobs that are crazy stupid, as jobs go.
One of them is working for those tree cutting companies. Not the ones with the cherry picker that raises someone high enough to cut branches. That’s kind of civilized. It’s the fine dining of tree-cutting. I mean the insane practice of people climbing and hanging from a tree via a complicated rope system while holding a working chainsaw, probably having a cigarette in the mouth, and dismantling the very thing that’s holding them up.
Will people do anything? I couldn’t possibly do a job where every day is a Tom Cruise movie. Only I’m not nearly as hot.
“Ya, I do my own stunts at work. I particularly like working with 500 pound logs that are out to kill me. I get goosebumps. Too bad there’s no Oscars for Arborists.”
Pretty much the only thing I like to hold that has fast-moving metal parts is my razor. Maybe an electric carving knife around Thanksgiving. Did you know there are 30,000 chainsaw accidents a year in the U.S., many life-threatening? Why don’t we need a licence to use one of these monsters? It’s a gun with an anger management problem.
I’m more suited for finger-climbing a Bonsai tree using some string and a nail trimmer. No stunt double needed.
And then there’s writing. Oh God, writing. Very dangerous.
Is it just me?