When I was in college, I wrote a paper for Ethics class on the ethical dilemma I faced in trying to decide whether to discard a plant I loved that had scales. I think that's what the disease is called--little brown hard half shell kind of things clinging to the leaves.

I wrote about how I'd had the plant for years and had tried to medicate the plant without success, and how the disease was getting worse. But I couldn't bear to throw the thing out and was it fair to keep a plant around, knowing it was going to die a horrible death by having these things suck out all of it's juices instead of just dying for lack of water or something if I threw it in a dumpster.

I think I got an A.

I'm always like that with plants. I torture my plants by not watering them for weeks, literally weeks. They do OK regardless, and when certain sentinel plants droop excessively, I water them all and they come back, repeatedly.

Most of my plants, if not all of them, need to be repotted. I've got golden pothos-philodendrem thingys with big stretches of vine that are dead and therefore should be cut out and restarted.

I need a live-in horticulturist. Madison is a pretty educated town--I bet I can find someone with a horticulture doctorate (is there such a thing?) who's driving a cab and looking for a second job, helping out horrible houseplant people. I'll sign right up.