Before pet owners condemn me to deep doo-doo, please believe that I hold the utmost respect for animal lovers. They invest enormous amounts of time, money and love in their animal buds. One friend even shares hot fudge sundaes with her German shepherd.
I’d share with my husband. On his birthday. But with a dog?
Sorry. I don’t get it.
Yes, God made sure Noah took animals aboard the Ark, though it soon would rain cats and dogs. However, plants would have required feeding only once every two weeks. The family wouldn’t have shoveled nearly as many, um, by-products.
But the Lord counted on plants to take care of themselves — a big reason I’m a plant person.
I’ve never paper-trained a plant. They don’t nudge me at 5 a.m. to go outside. They don’t bark or jump on guests. Plants don’t lick.
I haven’t lost a single new shoe to a plant’s fangs. Nor does my fern, unlike my daughter’s dog, shred the family’s underwear. If a plant outgrows its space, I can trim it. A plant will even hold still. (Just try this with a Lab.) I don’t scour neighborhoods for runaway plants or pay hefty shelter fees to bail them out. No vet appointments inflate my budget.
Unlike horses, they cannot kick me in the head.
Plants never eye me with the “Oh, is that you, peasant?” stare favored by most felines.
My black-eyed Susans and tiger lilies engage in leaf-to-leaf combat for dominance, but they never yowl under my window during the wee hours.
Plants even diminish carbon dioxide and add oxygen to the air. Animals? The reverse.
Admittedly, plants are not perfect. While they don’t bite, some boast nasty thorns. My child preferred to teethe on poisonous ones.
Plants shed, but their shedding is localized. I don’t find a thousand leaves stuck to my Sunday morning attire.
Plants also can be fussy as your Aunt Prilla Lou. They readily lay on wilt-guilt when I subject them to too much sun, not enough sun, too much moisture, not enough. Despite my friend’s assertion that “you can’t kill herbs,” I am a serial basil killer.
That’s the biggest reason I am a plant person. I grieve the herbs I kill and the poinsettias that shrivel, but I rarely shed tears for them. I never conduct plant funerals, as I did for our children’s hamsters, ceremonies so numerous the neighbors suspected a cult.
Hats off to folks who not only risk tears, but share sundaes with animal buds.
Still, unless my daffodils ask outright for a taste, I’ll handle hot fudge by myself.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you a plant or animal person? Both?
