Mistletoe

I learned a number of things from a driver, and virtually nothing about driving.  One involved cigarettes and gasoline, but the best may have been the mistletoe.  I'm not sure where I had thought mistletoe came from - I probably assumed it grew on mistletoe trees or mistletoe bulbs or mistletoe shrubs.  I have a shocking lack of curiosity about such things so am not surprised I had never asked anyone or looked it up.  And I had never noticed those odd ball-like things in winter trees - such is life among  the amazingly unobservant.

But I'm educable; I learned what mistletoe was and then more surprisingly, how people retrieve it.  At least here in the south, they shoot it down.  Seriously.  With guns.

So mistletoe is a hemi-parasite.  Our cultural icon of Christmas sweethearts - parasitic.  It lives off its host.  I was shocked to learn that those weird little balls in the trees were mistletoe; the driver was more impressed with the shooting of it.  Figures.

I still wouldn't toss a lit cigarette into a gasoline puddle, no matter what the redneck on YouTube says.  Regardless of his demonstration, or semi-scientific assurances.   Nor would I shoot at mistletoe. But it's been quite a while since I learned that's where mistletoe comes from; I long ago quit trying to understand the driver.   Hemi-parasitic bare-tree balls of Christmas kissing icons that are waiting for their end-by-firearm - they are ever so much easier to understand.