The Side-Eye from a Sad Ficus
It all started innocently enough. I, like many others during the pandemic, decided to invite a little greenery into my home. “How hard can it be?” I thought, naively gazing at the perky little peace lily I’d just purchased. Oh, sweet summer child, I had so much to learn.
Fast forward three months, and my once-vibrant peace lily resembled something out of a haunted house. Brown, crispy edges replaced the vibrant green leaves. It drooped lower than my spirits after a weekend of binge-watching reality TV. And then it hit me: the plant was judging me. I could practically hear it thinking, “Seriously? This is the best you can do? I bet you don’t even know where my happy place is.” (For the record, I still don’t).
Since then, I’ve tried to redeem myself. I invested in a fancy watering can (because aesthetics, duh!). I even downloaded a plant app that tells me when to water, fertilize, and sing to my leafy companions (apparently, jazz is best, who knew?). But still, my plants remain unconvinced.
Take, for example, my majestic (or once majestic) ficus. This thing is huge! It takes up a whole corner of my living room and, I’m convinced, silently judges my every move. I’ll be curled up on the couch, engrossed in a particularly juicy episode of my current TV obsession, when I swear I feel a shift in the air. I glance nervously at the ficus, and sure enough, one of its massive leaves is drooping ever so slightly in my direction. It’s like it’s saying, “You know, there are more productive ways to spend your Sunday.”
The Case of the Disappearing Succulent: Plant World Justice?
But the most incriminating evidence of my plants’ silent judgment came in the form of a mysteriously vanished succulent. Now, succulents are supposed to be the low-maintenance darlings of the plant world, right? Wrong. One day, it was perched happily on my windowsill, soaking up the sun. The next, poof! Gone. Vanished without a trace. I checked under furniture, behind curtains, even in the (completely irrational) hope that it had somehow sprouted legs and run away to join a traveling circus.
The only logical explanation? My other plants, fed up with my subpar plant parenting skills, had staged an intervention. And the succulent, bless its tiny, spiky heart, was the unfortunate casualty.