Planting Love

For just Three dollars and fifty cents a month, you can have a lovely plant come live with you. The driver smiled to himself as he read that line. The nursery manager always scoffed at that phrase. “Where else,” he would say, “Can life be purchased so cheaply?” As the driver opened the rear doors, the rich smell of earth after rain and the freshness of new green growth filled the air. Inside the young recruits were lined up like soldiers for a dress parade. There were all heights and types of plants in various sizes and shapes of tubs waiting expectantly to see where they might be assigned. The driver looked at his clipboard, and then carefully selected a lovely lacy looking Ficus. He slowly separated the fragile, drooping branches from the surrounding plants. They seemed to be hanging on as though they were telling a dear friend goodbye. This was the moment Freddie Ficus had been waiting for, ever since he was old enough to understand that one day he would leave his home at the nursery, and be sent “on assignment”.