The room mate

I think my roommate was a little jealous of my new flower that first year. She got a plant of her own, but made sure it was really easy to care for. She got an Aloe vera. She knew it was a desert plant, and thus it lived in sand and didn't need water. However, she didn't know why someone had planted it in soil.
After a month of watching her unfortunate aloe wither, I suggested maybe she water it, just once. She replied that it was a desert plant and, like a cactus, it needed sand, and that water was just not something a cactus needs. The only reason it was dying was because someone had planted it in soil, and she needed some sand so it would be in its native habitat.
Another month passed and half of the plant had dried out. She announced she would likely not be replacing the soil with sand. Despite that watering it would kill it, she explained, it was a goner anyways, so I could give it as much water as I wanted. A week later, when the surviving leaves had grown plump and green, she admitted that perhaps it had needed water all along.
With two plants that had survived my care by the end of the year, I went home proud, and pawned the multiple plantings of kalanchoe off on mom. They've lived there ever since, despite her more and more frequent pleas for me to stop filling her house with plants that always "followed me home".
The room mate took her aloe home. It's a tough plant, so it just might have survived.

No comments:

Post a Comment