Insidious, Pernicious and Evil

Flowers. Avoid 'em if you can, don't let them creep into your life. I have kind of a generously-sized foofy side--I enjoy cartoons, talking nonsense to my cat (not Katie!), and I love flowers outside (the petals are kind of a mess to clean up inside, and they can get buggy). So we have no fewer than six hanging batches of flowers--five pots along the walkway, and one of those flower bags right on our front door, as well as a pot of bright-red daisies on our patio table. Each has flowers of a different color (kind of hard to find bright orange flowers that like full sun), and I take care to water them every day. I take real pride in having a rich bank of brightly-colored blooms to look at when I leave and come home, and to announce the Sutherland home to anyone who visits.

Enter my dear mother-in-law. She's happy and encouraging and ever-ready with a big smile...and she began furiously plucking off the aged blossoms from the hanging pots on Friday night when she and her husband Dave visited. "You should clip the dead blooms from these plants. Didn't you know that they'll keep on flowering all summer long, if you deadhead them?" as she solicitously kept snapping off the droopers.

Now I do take pride in my flowers. I fertilize them with my coffee grounds, water them twice on especially hot and dry days...so I couldn't just take this remark from my mother-in-law lying down. No, it was a challenge: get off your duff and treat those poor flowers with some respect, young man!

So now I'm helpless. Spent forty minutes, after eleven PM, on Saturday night pulling dead blossoms off all our plants. Spent ten more minutes this morning. Now, every single time I walk by, I'm looking not to admire the blooms...I'm looking for freaking deadheads.

Thanks, ma. Thank you very, very much. I'm glad for what you said.

(And I also know that you're comfortable enough with me, that you can clip your fingernails in my car and leave the clippings there...now that's family. And yes, you were right: I'd never have noticied if Katie hadn't told me.)