I Gave the Plant a Haircut

I have a black thumb.

I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you that.  I am pretty darned good with kids, but plants?  I kill 'em.  Every time.

I tell people this, and they shrug.  And then they hand me their plants to care for.  Weird.  I guess they figure it's better that I--not they--send the plant into the next world.  My dad says plants do not have eternal souls, so we don't have to worry about it if/when they die.

With that thought it mind, I looked at Dean's poor plant.  It was stemmy and stringy looking.  I thought, "If this were my hair, I would cut it off."  So I got out the scissors and trimmed.  I trimmed a bit more.  And then I CUT.  What was left of the plant was 4 decently-healthy stems, each with a leaf on the end, sticking out of the dirt.

I felt kinda bad.  Not for cutting back the plant (because remember? it doesn't have an eternal soul) but because it wasn't really my plant to kill.  So I traded plants with Dean.  He came into the office the next week (this happened while he was out of town), and he said, "My plant looks really good.  But what happened to yours?"

Today the plant has FIVE decently-healthy stems, each with a leaf on the end, sitcking out of the dirt--with a sixth about to unfurl.

Phew!