The Green Thumb

I killed this once-beautiful plant.

My grandpa had a green thumb. My mom has a green thumb. Suposedly I also have a green thumb. I learned a lot about houseplants, roses, orchids and garden ornamentals from them. I'm no organic vegetable farmer, but I know more than your average city-dweller. And yet, for reasons unknown, I always manage to kill this plant; it's called Schefflera, it is supposedly an easy houseplant to grow, and this is my third tragedy. At a previous job, we had a huge one in a pot beside my desk. "Is this an easy plant?" I asked Suzanne, the plant goddess of that office, and she assured me that it was. Indeed, I sat beside it for months and it seemed to never diminish, maintaining its waxy, glossy green perfection from the day Suzanne brought it in till the day I quit that job. It never dropped a leaf, in the eight months I sat beside it. And it hardly got any natural light; it was in a bland, terribly lit office, the kind of office you see in comedic films about boring offices. There the Schefflera flourished.

I had a big one at my old apartment that died. I blamed it on the apartment. I blamed it on the chemically pre-fertilized soil.

Now this little one has died, or almost died, despite good organic soil and judicious watering. I took it off "life support" and composted it before it could worsen. Now I'm listening to the all-time saddest song in the recent history of American rock (Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen) and looking out the window at the fog rolling in and the sun disappearing...
Bleh.