Greenfingers? Me? Errr...NOT!

Eva is back from France!!! And I am SO HAPPY!!! Hmmm…you guys must be wondering who this Eva girl is, and why am I so happy that she’s back?! A brief introduction – Eva is my Taiwanese flat-mate, who had gone to Lyon/Paris to visit Yves (her French beau) on Thursday last week, AND she had asked me to take care of her plants while she was away.

And why exactly is it that I AM SO HAPPY now that she’s back? Well…I don’t have to take care of her plants anymore!!!

It has been quite a stressful few days for me – taking care of her plants. It’s a known fact that I can’t even take care of a cacti, let alone a proper plant which needs tender, loving, care, talking to (?!), the right temperature, not too much sun, not too little water, and God knows what else?!

I still remember when I had to take care of my sister Lala’s plants way back in 1995 when she went back to Malaysia with her family for three weeks. She left specific instructions with me on how and when to water them, how many times I need to give the plants their ‘food’, etc. And I followed her instructions to the letter, and yet, you guessed it – the plants wilted away, died and went to heaven…(Sorry, sis!)

So, you must understand how concerned I was when Eva asked me to take care of her precious plants! I kept checking the plants every ten minutes or so while they were under my care! The first thing that I would do when I woke up was check the plants. Every time I left the room and came back, I would check the plants. The last thing that I would do before I went to bed, yep, you guessed it – check the plants! Ayah was with me last week, and he was laughing away every time I asked him to check if the plants were still breathing, or whether they were in a coma, or barely having any pulse, or whether Ayah needed to perform an emergency angioplasty on them to make sure that they get enough supply of water to every part of their stems!

But, I did take the responsibility seriously, and I was praying hard that the plants would still be alive by the time Eva comes back from France. And it wasn’t helping much when I noticed that the plants were actually wilting away right under my nose, in front my own two eyes! I just didn’t get it (still don’t!) – I did EXACTLY as I was told, and yet the plants were dying on me…

So, when I heard Eva opening her room door this morning, I immediately gave the plants back to her (before the plants turned brown – which they were about to, I think!). I THINK I could just see her giving a “disbelief” look when she saw the condition of her precious plants, but I just didn’t want to discuss it with her…LOL! Well, I DID warn her about my past with plants : me…plants….we don’t go well together, and all that! And I feel so ‘free’ now that there are no plants shackled to my conscience anymore!

And Ayah, I think I agree with what you said the other day. When we move to the new house, we should either tile up the WHOLE green area around the house OR hire one Bangla gardener to tend to the garden at least once a week. And it’s not just because plants and I can never live in perfect harmony, or go hand in hand, but also because I can’t see Ayah mowing the lawn….EVER!

So, to those of you who have the same track records as mine when it comes to plants, wherever you are, just take my advice : next time somebody asks you to tend to their plants, just say “No, thank you!”. It saves you a lot of hassles, BUT more importantly, it is just not worthed getting grey hair overnight looking after the green thing…

Wassalam…