Did your parents ever lie to you as a kid to prevent you from getting into trouble? Maybe they said that the boogie man will get you if you misbehave or Santa won’t give you gifts unless you’re good. Well, my parents took this to the next level with their tales of intrigue and horror, designed specifically to keep us out of harm’s way… and probably to scare the bejesus out of us too. I remember one tall tale that made a particularly big impression on me. Mum told it to me the day I was mucking around with Dad’s work tools in the shed, sawing bits of rubbish with a handsaw.
The story starts, innocently enough, with tree stump removal services. Melbourne, or the part of Melbourne where mum lived near Clayton, was newly developing at the time and a lot of people were lopping down old trees on their properties. According to this story, Mum reckons she knew a boy whose family were having trees and stumps removed. The boy looked on at the workers, fascinated by their tools, in particular the chainsaw they used to demolish the tree stump. When the company were done with removing the tree, the little boy snuck into the shed, thinking he’d have a crack at his dad’s chainsaw. As you can imagine, it didn’t end well. The poor kid sawed his hand off at the wrist!
I was mortified by this story the first time I heard it. Now I can see that it was likely a fabrication. Thinking about it now though, I could use some arborist services myself if I can find tree removal in Clayton or surrounding suburbs. Some lessons you never forget – and while I’m no longer experimenting with my dad’s work tools, I’m not going to try my hand at tree removal myself. That I’ll leave to the professionals.