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Lessons I learned from watering a fake succulent
“Was it before the pandemic? During the pandemic? When exactly did I get this plant? Why does it look so dusty?” These were the questions running through my mind last week when it dawned on me that the succulent I’d been watering on autopilot these past few years is in fact artificial. If you’re laughing right now, good. Mission accomplished. It’s pretty much the funniest thing I’ve ever done. Well, almost. There was this one time when I sang “Sexual Healing” in front of my 98-year-old immigrant great grandmother and our entire family when I was five. I mean I just thought it was a cool song. The content and it’s actual meaning were completely beyond my ken.
I know what you’re thinking. How could I not know the plant was fake? Right? You and me both. One of my friends on Facebook asked me what tipped me off. How did I all of a sudden have a new awareness that the succulent isn’t alive? And the sad truth is, I killed a “real” succulent using the exact same care as I’d given to the artificial one. Having grown up in a house full of plants with a mother who had a definite green thumb, it’s a mystery to me why I haven’t mastered the art of keeping plants alive. Maybe it skips a generation?
Looking at the artificial succulent last week so buoyant, verdant and bright, it finally hit me — I hadn’t miraculously kept this one plant alive after…
