Remember a few weeks ago when I confessed that I can’t keep a houseplant alive, but then somehow managed to accidentally grow a plant in my pantry when a sweet potato went rogue? And then I gave it googley eyes and a name?
Well it turns out I can’t even keep a yam alive because – in spite of my care – Sam turned gaunt and withered and started to decompose. Sam was blossoming just fine when he was lost in the back of the pantry but when I rescued him he started dying immediately. It’s like my love is deadly. Like I’m an accidental Black Widow, but for plants and sweet potatoes.
We had a quiet funeral and I buried Sam, but only up to his eyeballs (which I had to remove and reset) because the spoon I was using as a shovel broke. And also because I read that if you plant the bottom part of a dead sweet potato they’ll sometimes come back to life.
Then Victor looked out his office window asked me why a sweet potato was staring at him from the yard and I explained that I was attempting to make a vegetable zombie, which is sort of true. Then he sighed at me because apparently bringing the dead back to life is another thing on The List Of Things I’m Not Allowed To Do According To Victor. I didn’t even mention the broken spoon because if he’s this upset about me trying to Frankenstein a potato I figured he was too irrational to deal with silverware issues, so I took the broken spoon and buried it next to Sam because that way Victor won’t find it and also it’s probably a good way to add iron to the soil.
Then Victor was like, “You don’t have funerals for spoiled potatoes You throw them away” and I was like “You can’t throw away something you’ve named. Where is your humanity?” and then he said that I needed to stop naming vegetables, which is just insane because I’ve done that ONCE in my whole life, Victor. Way to focus on the negative while I’m in mourning. Honestly, Victor could take a lesson from that upbeat potato.
But the good news is that on my way back inside from burying the broken spoon I saw something that made me smile in spite of the grave situation.
I saw a tiny little weed sprouting out of a small hole in our stairs.
I’m going to call her Shirley.