Four or five years ago, my brother, dad, and I stopped at Taxco Mexican restaurant for margaritas after hitting golf balls at the driving range.

I know, I hit golf balls.  It’s one of those things that I was roped in to through the enticement of beer and cigarettes.  My dad even paid for J and I to have lessons.  Lessons where to the utter frustration of J who practiced everyday all day long, whereas I was only in it for the beer, the instructor told us: “Now you, you have powerful effort.  But your sister, my god, she has effortless power.” Ah, cruel world where sometimes the lazy can be winners too.

But I digress.  We pulled into the parking lot of Taxco and got out of the car at which point I saw this:

My mouth hung open and my brain imploded.  How the hell did that pole get in that tree?  It was not possible.  This must be a magical tree.  What if I touched the pole a certain way and a portal led me to the Keebler Elves? Or, better yet, an underground world where all of the stuffed animals I ever owned as a child came to life and told me how pretty I was?

Needless to say, I have thought about this tree A LOT over the past years.  So when my mom and I were driving around looking for a place to get a beer this weekend and we drove right by Taxco and I had my camera in the car, I screamed, STOP!!!! There is a tree in that parking lot that I need to take a picture of!

And mom was all, ¿Cómo? A tree?

You’ll understand when you see it, I replied.

For at least thirty minutes we stared, coming up with theories for how this phenomenon might have happened.  You might not have these moments in your family.  You might walk by the tree and not notice or care that there is a huge metal pole running right through the center of it.  But, mom cared.  She felt just as freaked out by it as I did.  After I got my photos and we were pulling away from the parking lot, she said, “See, this is why no one is rich in our family. Because we keep this kind of shit to ourselves.  You should take your photos to the local news and get them to come interview you about the tree.  People need to know what you discovered.”

I have never loved mom so much as I did right then.

Please tell me if you know how the pole came to be lodged in the tree.  I encourage you to go check it out if you live in Atlanta.  There is a slight crack through the center of the tree that makes it look as though it swallowed the pole whole.  Please tell me so I can sleep again at night.