Poinsetta's Peril

2002-11-30 - 5:10 a.m.

I'm 2500 words, or 17 hours (whichever comes first) away from the end of the National Novel Writing Month. I think I'll do it.

Yesterday was Buy Nothing Day, which I meant to write about, to remind y'all, but forgot to. On the bright side, though, I managed to, with impovershed flare, buy nothing! This was aided both by a lack of money and by a call from the cable company wondering if we planned on paying for all the nice cable they've been giving us lately.

And now, the tragedy:

My poinsetta disappeared. I meant to write about this about a week ago when it vanished, but, you know, novel.

One day, I was at work, it was there in its happy place on the water cooller, it was green, it was healthy, it even had new leaves. The next day, it was gone: all that remained was the little tray that caught water and one whithered, brown leaf. No note or anything.

I waited, expecting a ransom note or something, completely shocked at how integral that poinsetta plant had become to my "getting water during my work shift" routine. I wondered what kind of a monster would just steal someone's plant. Sure, it's not mine, but I'm the one who watered it, talked to it, the one who...dare I say it?...The one who loved it.

But yesterday, it was returned.

Leaves yellow and falling off, a pile of dead leave sin its too-dry soil, a wraith of the healthy plant I knew. I now know that at least one of the people I work with is a monster: they took the plant for no reason at all, hid it in a dark place, starving it of water and light, and then returned it in its decrepid state for me to see.

Pookie says that you have to hide poinsettas away from the light for a couple of days in order to get their leaves to turn red. I say that they've gone too far.

The leaves aren't red, they're yellow. Almost brown. Whoever thought they were bringing in the Christmas spirit was WRONG! They've brought in the spirit of Death! They harmed a helpless plant and in the process has brought my heart to the brink.

If the plant lives, I'm stealing it. Sure, we live in a hobbit hole of an apartment with no light ever, and sure it gets cold there because the land lady who controls the heat likes ice to form on the walls, but I'm sure that the poinsetta would be much happier, healthier, and -safer- in a home that doesn't house a sociopath.

Cheers,

The Magus

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