IT VEXES ME SO

I have been staring at this dead limb for months.

Every time I sit out on my patio in the morning drinking my coffee, or in the evening when I'm drinking a cold beer, I look up at the big dead limb on my huge oak tree and it mocks my tattered body.
"Come get my dead limb with your saw!"
"You were just up here a few years ago and cut some dead limbs even higher then this one is.
"Go to hell Pin Oak", I say, "you got a lot of nerve trying to goad me just 3 days since my shoulder surgery and my arm in a sling".
"So? Just last week you would have been able to do it with just one good arm and one bad one", the smart ass oak tree said, " I could read your mind, you sat there glaring at me plotting and planning it all out. Your 24-foot extension ladder hanging in the garage was pictured in your mind along with that nice lightweight electric chainsaw and best of all your wife was out of town on business. Everything was in place, with Jojo nowhere around to interfere with your plan to cut this dead limb into little pieces bound for your lakeside campfire. Now look at you, all hopped up on pain meds with your arm trussed up like a Christmas goose.
It's funny, you used to think you were oh so brave and tough so many years ago when you used to work construction, walking top plates of 2 story walls and working off 40-foot high trusses hanging on with only one arm and leg while you ran conduit like you were one of the Flying Wallendas.

That was how many years ago? 30, 35?
Now look at you old man, just sitting way down there looking way up here at my dead limb. Your pathetic, you make me want to ooze sap! Your boss, err I mean your wife wants you to bring in hired guns to trim my dead branch and cut down that dead cedar tree in the front yard.

Goes against your nature to have someone else do your dirty work doesn't it Mister D I Y?"

This mockery is what I have had to put with since I have entered the fragile stage of my life. I wanted to take out that limb and the dead cedar tree so bad I couldn't stand it.
So today I was sitting on the patio and my stepson and his buddy came over and asked which limbs I wanted cut.
Uhhhh, I didn't know you guys were coming over.
Yeah mom said for us to come over and "help" you cut some limbs off.
Well...... I guess you (pride swallowed), can get the ladder down and see if you can get up there and cut that damned thing down.
Oh, sure no problem.

It took the boys all of 10 minutes to cut the bastard limb off and into little pieces of campfire wood.
Then I had them trim several more branches in the front yard and we even cut down that 100 foot dead cedar tree.
I kept trying to "help" the boys pull branches and direct the angle of the chainsaw when we cut the cedar tree down and I finally figured that I could be of more use getting the hell away from them and let them finish up in front while I sit out back on the patio.

Staring at the big oak tree that is now minus one huge dead limb.
The mighty oak still mocks me, he rolls his eyes with mouth agape in a huge smile and says.

 "Well, well, well, you finally got that limb down didn't you? Or should I say THEY got that limb down while you scampered about, trying to look useful, you coward!"

"Yeah, maybe your right oak tree, maybe I did need help to do this little task. Maybe I am on the backside of 50 and maybe I am just held together with little screws and wires and pins and brackets and string. Maybe I am not the man I used to be physically, but with age maybe I am just a bit wiser these days.
I'm no Shakespeare scholar, but I do remember this quote, and it didn't have much meaning to me way back in the days when I would climb to the top of big tall oak trees like you just for the view.
Today I understand the wisdom of Shakespeare when he wrote”,
"Discretion is the better part of valor."