ODE TO TRIBLY

I am on a plane to Minneapolis, and it has struck me how truly awful I am at gardening. This probably stems (sorrie) from my struggle to remember everyday things, facts or tasks if they are not directly relevant to people. Hello directions! Hello inner workings of binary fission! Hello html code! 

I am told by Myers and Briggs that this is consistent of everyone with my personality type, and thus shouldn’t be too awful a thing to concede, because we have other good things going on that people who remember how to get to their own houses and water their potted plants simply don’t.

I used to work for a magazine. This basically meant that at 10am each morning and to my absolute joy various bizarre things would land on my desk. I have always had a borderline unhealthy fascination with the mail. I remember that when I was seven instead of playing with barbies I would force whichever friend was over to join me in stringing up fake communication networks across my room consisting of paper cups and twine, and we would send enveloped notes to each other down the twine. There was also an invisible ink phase involving large quantities of lemon juice. (Yes, in retrospect my parents should've been faintly alarmed by all of this.)

Anyway so one day at mail time the latest brainchild of a PR maven to wind up on my lime green workspace happened to be a glittery potplant. Why was it glittery? How did the glitter get there? Whatever its intention, it clearly didn’t get the message across in a memorable way, because the point is that I can’t remember what the plant was meant to be drawing my attention to at all. Frankly it was far less exciting to me than the survival kit promoting some Man vs. Wild-esque new series that I'd received earlier had been. This had far less emergency blankets and dehydrated rations involved. Nonetheless, because the plant was glittery, I took it home. “What is that?” asked my flatmate, bemused by my apparent conversion from inked to green fingers. “It’s a potplant I got sent at work today.” “Why is it glittery?” “Certain things can’t be explained, Renée.”

I named it Tribly. A fact which now also remains inexplicable to me. I watered that thing carefully, for a time. So novel! A plant! To think, I am sustaining life! And I don’t even have to take it for walks, or buy it food! Then the novelty wore off, at a rate directly proportionate to which the glitter did. Tribly began to display disturbing changes in texture and give the Leaning Tower of Pisa a run for its money; covering the counter with disintegrating, vaguely shimmery debris in its pleas for attention.

“Tribly’s dying.” I said dejectedly one day to no one in particular. “That’s because you forgot to water it again.” One of my cohabitants pointed out. “I feel like this bodes badly for any future attempts at motherhood. Or holding down a relationship. What were Sandra Bullock’s rules in 28 Days for recovering drug addicts? I think they weren’t allowed to date until they had successfully kept a plant alive, and then a small house pet. I haven’t even made it to HOUSE PET!”

I was depressed about it for a while, mostly because of my inherent fear of failure.  Then I remembered that both motherhood and relationships involved other people, and so hopefully that would all be fine. Then I flew to Australia for a month, and if ill-fated Tribly had not resembled a wizened desert cactus pre-walkabout, then good lord, he certainly did upon my return.

“I think it’s time to throw Tribly away.” My flatmate whispered, with a consoling pat on my back as if to soften the blow. “It’s ok.” said I, bravely. “I got the new iPhone while I was in Sydney. I have Siri now. Far less risk of dehydrating her than Tribly. If anything, I think she’s supposed to look after me, or something. That’s my kind of postmodern house pet."

Maybe potted plants aren't for some people. My plan is to go and find these people and join their foliage-free cult imminently.

It's going to be really nice.