I may have a few answers for this one.
I’ve always known that I would never exactly get rich, but I’ve had some experience in scamming up money. I’ve been in enough dodgy situations that I had to bail myself out of…

One of the not-so-bright schemes I tried was cutting down trees for people. How hard could it really be, after all? A chainsaw is a pretty simple piece of equipment, after all. A friend of mine had shown me how to use spikes to climb a tree (the kind that strap to your leg like a demented rooster spur), and I knew I could borrow his set for this.

A bloke I knew had a tree that was mostly dead and had been for some time. I told him that he should get a couple of estimates and I’d beat the price, but that he should also contact his insurance company to find out what they’d pay toward it. (The answer is: fuck-all. Unless it had been hit by lightning or some such, it was purely his responsibility- and now that they knew of it, if it fell on anything they wouldn’t pay out any damages, as he was obviously aware of the problem. Translation: get it cut down now or you’re buggered. He was NOT happy. Arse.)

Well, I agreed on a price, and went shinning up the tree- a spindly oak that had been surrounded by trees before, so it was a toothpick with branches at the top. I figured I could top it out below the branches, let that part fall into the yard, then come down a way and do it again. I climbed higher and higher, but was still a distance below the branches- when I heard the tree creaking beneath my weight.

Oh shit.

Very well then, I’ll cut it here and let a somewhat larger chunk fall into the yard than planned. I had been trailing up a slender rope that was tied to the chainsaw, so I hauled the thing up the tree, ignoring the creaking going on around me. I started the saw, cut the notch, then the back cut well above it. The top groaned and toppled the direction I had planned, so I stopped the saw and used one hand to grip the trunk.

You know how every action produces a reaction?

Imagine a toothpick tree losing a third of its height. The top third leans over, pushing against the very tall stump. What happens when it lets go? That’s right- SPROING!

It was a good thing I had my hand on the trunk. When I stopped swaying up there I realized that something else had let go as well. I had not come prepared with extra pants, sadly…

I got the tree down, and my mate told me not to worry about cutting it up further, that he’d take care of it. He handed me over a wad of cash, and I begged a plastic bin bag from him for the seat of my truck.

It was a squishy ride home, but at least I could now pay rent for the month…
(Shimrod, Thu 31 Jul 2008, 18:03, Reply)