2021

Two days after a bunch of Trump-idiots stormed the capital (I will not call it a coup, as there wasn’t any real plan, it was mostly mob mentality) I can think of no better time than talk about my new hobby….plants.

Until the Pandemic, I’ve always had a little hostility to plants. My father was a plant hoarder. I remember he would always bring me plants to my new apartments and I would hate that he would try and push his addiction on me. Each plant would die and I would tell my father, “I don’t know why I can’t keep plants alive.” I would water them for a little bit and the first sign of death, those plants would find their thirsty asses in my trash. I have no time for this nonsense. Either be an amazing plant all the time, whether or not I water you or get out.

My father would exclaim, “But plants breathe life into a room!!” I would look around at the piles of plants everywhere in his home and I could feel the plants sucking the air out of my own lungs as I navigated through a room with the hopes of not being pricked or scrapped by a cacti. These plants were not taken care of, they were Zombie plants, they were either coming back from the dead, or barely hanging on. If there was a hospice for plants, they needed to go there.

When my father died, I’ve never felt more bitter towards plants. In one room he had cactuses jammed everywhere and some fruit tree that was sapping all over the carpet. Stacks of half taken care of plants were spread throughout the house. We couldn’t park in the garage because there were dormant bonsai trees everywhere. I didn’t even know trees needed a winter nap? What time do they need to be woken up? The backyard had random trees planted everywhere. Clearly, there was some tree sale my father couldn’t pass up and decided to plant it randomly in the grass. We removed 10 trees in the yard immediately, which still left the other 20 trees. Do we live on acres of land? No, the whole plot of land is just under a quarter acre! That year we easily killed 200 plants worth thousands of dollars.

I was determined never to have plants in my house, and if I did have some, no more than 5. I didn’t want to ruin my house with these straggly ass zombie plants everywhere, fucking up the hardwood and furniture. No, we would have a CLEAN home, with no water damage, no sap on the carpet. It would be a gorgeous plant free home.

But that isn’t how this story ends.

My husband had to have an emergency gall bladder removal. After getting him home and secured, I ran to the store to grab medicine and a bit of food. I stopped by the floral department to pick something to cheer him up and bought a money plant. It looked like a palm tree. The trunks were braided and it said it brought good luck. We put it by the sink so we would remember to water it every day. (Hey kids, for the record, a very FEW indoor plants needs to be watered every day.) We also noticed that our financial situation was on the rise since we bought the plant and became superstitious about keeping it alive. How we didn’t drown that plant, I will never understand.

The thing about addictions is that they start out slow. No one starts out drinking 12 beers a day….to be continued.