Plant Murder

Today was the sort of day that starts with looking at your house plant and thinking, "I am killing you by accident. Sorry." All of the leaves are dropping off my succulent because it is getting watered too regularly for a desert plant. I am what brings water. So I am the problem here.

My obsessiveness claims another victim.

This is why I cannot do plants. Plants cannot tell you, "I am seriously not thirsty, dude." They just keep drinking until they die, much like humans. This is why I could never keep a Tamagotchi alive. My little frog died every time because I fed it until its bar of food-consumption was full. The poor Tamagotchi was fed to death. It ate and ate until it died.

It would look out of the screen with a sad face, as if to say, "Why Laura? Why? I thought we were BFFs." And I would think, "What the heck is wrong with this thing?" Because I was a kid and didn't understand that you don't keep feeding things until they can't eat any more and then keep trying by holding the food out insistently, begging the thing to keep eating. I did the digital equivalent of sitting on the Tamagotchi's chest while cramming food into its mouth while it pleaded for help. I still feel guilty about unknowingly inflicting torture on that poor imaginary frog.

The internets say I should water my succulent one time per month. I have been watering one time per week. I am a plant-killer. Bringer of death. Destroyer of worlds.

I have decided not to touch it or make direct eye contact for the foreseeable future. I am too dangerous for that kind of one-on-one plant bonding.