Something About Entering Your Place Through The Floor

I’ve always wanted a tree house, always. Dad kept promising, even using it as leverage in chore negotiations: “If you pull every rock out of the ground on our property, we’ll build a tree house.”

Yeah, much like that mythical trip to Australia, the tree house never materialized.

I helped my cousin in trying to build one one summer. It was essentially just a rough sort of lean to, nailed between three trees – no roof or anything. The only fun thing about it was watching my cousin take an 8 foot fall as he sawed right through the plywood he was sitting on.

My friend, Mike Vincent, had an excellent tree fort in his back yard. It was all perfect, right angles, boards placed tight, 80’s hair metal posters hanging on the walls and a trapdoor in the floor. My god, I have a hard on for trap doors! There was a locker in there where Mike kept binoculars, Pringles and an occasional issue of Playboy he had managed to steal from his dad. Mike’s tree house was locked up and considered off limits after he was found doing some heavy petting with Jodi – a girl I had incidentally gone to kindergarten with.

But I never petted her.

Still to this day there is this faint flicker of desire for a tree house. I think I would like to live in one. I mean not like the Swiss Family Robinson tree house at Disneyland or anything – let’s face it, that’s just ostentatious, and frankly who has a huge cement tree anymore. But I would like something tasteful and somewhat spacious with a rope swing and everything in a nice natural wood color. I’m thinking probably two levels, maybe three, with boards nailed into the tree for use as a ladder and the whole thing at least 8-10 feet off the ground.

You know, to avoid bears and stuff.