Killer Houseplants Want YOU

Miss Crankpants is sick and tired of her houseplants. Talk about Drama Queens! Not only are they almost as lazy as the cats, they constantly demand to be waited on hand and foot, er, root.
The pothos are getting pretty long in the tooth–as evidenced by their fifty-foot lengths. And although Miss CP stores them on top of an armoire, they whine. “We’re awfully thirsty!” 
Just because Miss CP forgot to water them for six months, these ungrateful potted plants sulk and adopt a melodramatic and limp pose–even putting out sickly yellow leaves to get Miss Cranky’s sympathy.
Since Miss Crank lives in the great Rain State, you’d think she could simply send them outside to play. But up here in the Northwest, this winter’s been freezing. So we eye each other balefully, trying to co-exist without killing one another. If sympathy doesn’t work, plants threaten to murder those responsible for sticking them in a cheap plastic pot with no running water and a balloon mortgage.
Just this morning, Miss Crankypants discovered a new houseplant casualty. Flopped lifelessly against its ceramic pot, the littlest pothos has apparently died of thirst. At least it looks pretty darn dead. She’d bury it in the garden, alongside Xena the Warrior Kitty, but it’s too darn cold to venture out. Instead, Miss CP will try to save it by cutting it back to its roots, throwing in a dash of Miracle-Gro and keeping fingers and toes crossed.
But if the littlest pothos doesn’t pull through, Miss Cranky had better watch her back: the rest of the houseplant jungle will be out for revenge, as their viney tendrils inch ever closer to Miss CP’s side of the bed. Like the movie, “The Blob,” a vengeful houseplant is a dangerous adversary, and Miss Cranky’s plants would love nothing more than to choke the African Violets out of her. The moral of this story is: Don’t forget to water your killer houseplants. You never know if they’re really dead or just waiting for the right time to attack.

About Linda S. Clare

I'm an author, speaker, writing coach and mentor. I teach both fiction and nonfiction writing at Lane Community College and in the doctoral program as expert writing advisor for George Fox University. I love helping writers improve their craft and I'm both an avid reader and writer of stories about those with wounded hearts.

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