On Sunday, my husband came home from work and saw an empty planter.
“What happened to our plant?” he asked.
“I threw it out.”
“Was it dead?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“You just got tired of it?”
“Kind of.”
“So you euthanized it?”
“I guess,” I said. “I kept it alive for two years, then I got sick of it.”
“Good thing you don’t feel that way about our kids.”
Indeed.
Have you killed anything recently?
I haven’t gone through with it yet, but I am considering strangling my husband if he doesn’t step up and help plan this bar-mitzvah.
I get that. Can you delegate the color of the linens? 😉
Oh honey – don’t get me started on the gardening! If BJas wasn’t hounding me to water, etc then my garden wouldn’t have stood a chance!
Our house had a lovely garden before we moved in. I often think the woman who lived here before must drive by and weep. I need a BJas (mind you, I have neighbours who plant things in my flower beds for me; two months later, I see dead things…all the time).
I kill all my plants. On accident. I just forget to water them.
Yay. Someone like me!
We are hanging on to our last remaining live plant over here. It’s clinging on for dear life. But, frankly, things don’t look good. And, frankly, I don’t care.
Do you think it’s a SW Calgary hex?
I think the hubby may have overreacted a tad. But still, it led to a great post, so the plant didn’t die in vain!
The plant will likely thrive in the landfill. Maybe I’m giving it back to the earth?
I have killed the last plant I bought by overwatering it (I think?). I can never keep a plant alive. So now this dead thing, still in the pretty wrapping paper around the pot because I just bought it 2 weeks ago, is just sadly sitting in my office.
Oh, and my dog if she doesn’t stop leaping at the glass door while incessantly barking when she wants to come inside . . . usually 2 seconds after I let her out for the umpteenth time that day. Shut up and lay down pooch!!
I hear you. This is why I like fresh cut flowers. Because they die. I don’t have to throw them out nor do I have to blame myself for their death.
My husband wouldn’t notice if I burned the house down, much less killed a plant. I think there’s something to be said for the fact that he noticed! In fact, the planters next to the table we eat at every day have been housing plants that, while not technically dead, are at least metaphorically dead, for at least 9 months now…
Metaphorically dead. I like that. But you said “planters” – maybe my problem was that we only had one plant…
I can’t kill a tomato plant to save me, but house plants don’t really stand a chance. And I always seem to forget to water the container plants. Then there are the container plants on the deck that the dog EATS.
So, unless you’re a tomato plant, your days are numbered at my house.
I love the smell of tomato plants. I always rub the leaves between my fingers and then inhale. (That makes me seem even weirder, doesn’t it? Oh well…)
We don’t have house plants and I don’t have a lot of outside flowers in pots. I don’t tend to water them too much. I figure if they can’t survive on just rain then they don’t deserve to live.
I’m forced by my daughters to plant these flowers. I think they keep hoping I’ll turn into a gardener. My husband gave up on that years ago.
LOL. I love that your husband gave up. My kids think plants come from stores. And they’re kind of right…
The last plant I killed was left in my care by an out of town coworker.
A 6’6″ coworker. (Leanne: that’s like 8 meters Canadian).
I’ll have some explaining to do…
Wow. I like your math. So that’s why NBA players looks so tall? I’m translating their height into metres!
Hahahahaha love it. So simple and so funny. Wonderful.
Thanks, eh?
I have killed multiple bugs. If they enter my house they are intruders and they must die. I’m protecting my wife and kids.
Rob Shep: Professional Bug Slayer.
I almost certain my hubby wouldn’t notice if a plant died. I have many. In fact, I do know he wouldn’t notice. He doesn’t water them all summer while I’m gone, half die (or almost die) and he claims, “it looked fine to me.”
LOL. All our plants are going to that great garden in the sky…
Due to a variety of factors, chiefly brown-thumbery, we (my family and I) have no indoor plants. We do have dogs, but this being America, and us living in the county that is home to the (self-proclaimed) toughest sherriff, we can’t eat them. Truth be told, they’re awfully small, and I suspect rather bony. Plus our children would be upset. 😉
Totally kidding there, eh? Ok.
Thanks for dropping by my little home on the Internet tonight. You Canadians are alright! (For the record, I voted Team Ricky).
We’ve joined you. Now we too have no indoor plants! (And I approach our outdoor ones with the Darwinian approach).
Team Ricky: yay! Were it not for Acuff, we would have kicked…
First of all I had to come over here and see why, according to Klout, you’ve got the corner on the whole Dead Chicken market. I’m a little envious of that. 2nd of all, I’ve never heard another human being put plants through what I do – the whole half-dead for a year while I’m wondering whether we should water it/then euthanize it/then the empty planter longing to be filled = cycle repeats.
This post was so funny. That dialog w. your husband, priceless.
Yes, the dead chicken thing was a guest post. I also have the market corned on caged monkeys. And gorillas pleasuring themselves.
A veritable psychiatric menagerie.
I spent four hours weeding last night. I plan on hiring a gardening company next year to rip everything out and plant a rock garden.
Good plan, though I’ll warn you: We kind of have a arctic rock garden thing. It game with the house. The weeds have taken over that too. Can I blame global warming?
I kill plants. I don’t mean to, it just happens. I’ve given up and put plastic flowers in my front boxes so it looks like I have something living. I change them out with the seasons just to spice things up.
My poor daughter moved recently and was so frightened to leave her plants with me, she enlisted the help of her friend’s mother. I really can’t blame her. She’s got a very green thumb. I wouldn’t trust me with them either.
I love that your daughter out gardens you. That’s going to be the case in my house before too long.
I grew up on a farm. My dad and brothers hunted and trapped every day in the winter. I saw dead things a lot. But that one time I accidentally ran over a kitten on my bike *shudder* I think I still need counseling, after all these years. I hate killing things.
Okay. I’m laughing. It’s insensitive. But the image of you riding over a kitten on your bike…
I don’t have any living things in my home, besides humans. This is totally on purpose. I find my nurturing skills are quite limited and I’m focusing them very pointedly on my family. Maybe when the kids are in college. Maybe.
Christine, I so get you.
Sorry it took me so long to comment on this post.
But after I read the title, I had to go watch “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Twice.
You crack me up, lady.
Always.
Killing me. Like a plant.
That’s not quite dead.
“I feel happy…!”
Didn’t know how many people would get the MP reference. Should’ve figured that you would! 🙂
Oh! What perfect timing. I just dug up a floundering rose that was fifty percent dead from a freeze last winter. My husband can’t even stand for me to prune (he says prune is a euphemism for butcher) plants. He has to leave the room.
When I held the specimen in my gloved hand I noticed the roots were about one-third the size they should be for a plant that age. I marched it, dangling roots and limp leaves, to the front yard and showed him the wisdom of my actions. He didn’t faint but had to sit down for ten minutes.
Hey, at least I made the sign of the cross in front of it before I uncermoniously dumped it in the bin. ;}
You’re supposed to prune plants? Is that the same thing as pulling off all the dead stuff?
Love the sign-of-the-cross detail. Laughing!
I’ve done the very same thing to plants several times. I felt guilty for a second, but only a second. I also got so completely sick of our giant fish tank that I sent the fish to live in a nearby pond. Although I doubt they could survive. I think it’s fairly safe to say I will never be a hoarder. 🙂
Is “sending the fish to live in a nearby pond” a euphemism for “flushing the toilet”?
These fish were too big for flushing. (Which probably makes me even more evil.) I had to chip through a layer of ice on the pond to “set them free”. Sick, eh?
Well, I thought I just killed a fly in my office. It buzzed me for 10 minutes until I got tired of that and smacked it with a History Channel catalog. A few minutes later it reappears on the wall. I thought it was a different fly. But I was wrong. This time I really laid into it and tweeted about a potential zombie insect. Then it seriously reappeared, climbing up the wall like Terminator post crane smash. I went to kill it again but it fell. I looked for it. He was gone. Spooky. I think it’s coming for me.
Hilarious. Well, from my perspective in Canada, it’s hilarious. Zombie insects. Can you stretch that tweet into a book? 🙂
All our indoor plants are dead! We are pathetic. Our outdoor garden was impressive however so I don’t feel too bad. Nice BIG WORD though 😉
I totally get that! I’m not good with potplants.
Amen. Plants are overrated.