CHAOS

I finally decided to tell my father about the plants today. When I first told him that I had plants in the house and that I thought they were the reason why our room smelled so great, he kind of brushed it off saying “Don’t be silly David, now is not the time to be joking around about something as ridiculous as that... of course you don’t have plants, … no plants in the house... I am really busy...” and continued to walk past me while being harangued by text messages coming from his PDA. After getting a brush off like that I decided to make a point. I made the quick drive over to Sissy’s house to pick her during lunch and when we got back, we got sandwiches to go from the kitchen and retreated to my room to plan out how to get through to my Dad.

In the end we came up with a scheme to make sure my Dad knew beyond a shadow of doubt that there were plants in the house. With Sissy’s help, I filled a pot with some dirt and transplanted a tiny bush and a couple of flowers into it. We arranged it so the bush was in the center of pot with flowers forming a ring around it. Then before she and I left to drive her back to her house, we left the pot on top of my dad’s desk. Usually, when I leave my room close it firmly behind me and lock it up tight so my Parents and siblings. Just for effect, I made sure to leave my door wide open when we left.

After I dropped Sissy off at her house I came back home to complete pandemonium. Evidently, my mom had walked into the common room as it was smelling fresher than usual, noticed the pot of plants on my dad’s desk shrieked, turned around to face my rooms open door to a jungle of plants and proceed to faint on to the floor. My dad who had come running at the sound of my mom’s yell, was not happy. Apparently, he wanted to get to a piece of paper lying underneath the pot and the plants were in the way. By the time I got there, there were a couple of guys in sumo wrestler size containment suits trying to angle around my Dad’s desk like ungainly elephants as while trying to move the vase without too much contact. After turning into a swollen jalapeno pepper and launching into a fiery tirade and grounding me to the common room (as my room was being decontaminated of plant life), my father finally calmed down enough to say with an exasperated grimace, “wow you weren’t joking about the plants earlier”. My mom, who had long since recovered from the shock of having plants in the house, was now furtively sniffing the flowers along with a couple of governmental employees behind my Dad’s back.

Unfortunately, my Dad chose to turn around at that very moment to ask my mom for input on my punishment. “Honey, I think David should be groun...WHAT ARE YOU DOING DEAR?” my dad exclaimed as he finished wheeling around. “Smelling the plants my dear, I think they give the room a wonderful aroma.” she replied serenely. “Honey, ” my Dad replied forlornly “you do realize we have to test all those plants for hazardous characteristics before we should touch them...”. In the end I ended up having to sleep on the couch overnight as a hazmat crew scrubbed down my room with bleach and various disinfectants.