Plastic Plants There are a few things I can’t stand in the world. For instance, warm Italian Ice. Especially if it’s a yellowish color. It makes me feel as if I am eating frothy spit. Disgusting. At any rate, this isn’t a kind of short-term commitment involving me giving heart and soul (or maybe just time and energy) to express how much loathing I feel for you, it’s more like a… subdued form of protest. But before I begin, let me just explain some jargon. I do not hate YOU. Nono, not you, personally. When I say ‘you’, I mean the people who are not currently reading this, and I doubt they ever will. Yes, t’would make much more sense to just say outright, ‘Why I Hate BlahBlah and the Blah of Blamerica”, but c’mon, it was a hook. Would you really read this if I entitled it, ‘A History of Loathing, by Shley, Including the Economic Crises of Today and Future Political Suggestions’? Yeah, be honest. And no, this isn’t concerning that. Not right now, anyway. The irony is, I know as much about America and its government to stuff into a flea’s skull. Well, I know just enough to keep me moaning. I’m getting off topic. The jargon is officially done. We begin in the end. I am dead. That’s the end for me, anyway. You’re probably alive and kicking. Or, if you served in World War III, alive and flailing whatever limbs you have left that haven’t been affected by nuclear fallout. I hate plastic plants. That’s what this is all about. I work in a goddamn flower store, where plastic plants are my superiors. The average American probably has one… or has at least seen one, be it at a friend’s house, in a dumpster on the street corner, or at Kris Kringle’s Krappy Kristmas Outlet Store. If there was such a place… sorry to get your hopes up. In short, this fake foliage is completely unnecessary. When did we decide to not only clone sheep and conquer Mars, but also un-live a living thing? When did it become a decorative necessity to plasticize and ostracize organisms for our personal benefit? Not only that, but to do it poorly..? That seems a bit unjust, don’t it? It misleads oxygen breathers, is what it does!! Say you had an ignorant man asked to take something along with him as he was carted away to an airtight room for the rest of his days? And this man knew enough that he breathed in stuff that his superb shrub exhumed..! I mean, exhaled. Later, as he was getting short of breath, he took a whiff of his lifesaver and discovered a smell faintly similar to New Car… what a doomed young moron. ‘Course, he probably had it coming. Anyone who can’t recognize a silicone sprout from what it is ought to be shot in the leg. Purely hypothetical. But it COULD happen. No, no it couldn’t. The fact is, a plastic plant feels like a raincoat. It’s rough and incredibly shiny and has the consistency of rubber. It is a firm and malleable example to modernize the world by getting rid of even the most basic forms of life in our homes. I mean, who needs a dog when you can have something full of wires and electronic gizmos? Who invented the ingenious idea of drying out sponges and using them to clean floors? It’s a matter of control. I mean, taking care of a living thing is a tiring and frustrating task. It’s just so much more convenient to turn ElecroPooch upside down and let him ‘sleep’ than to tell the family dog to shut his yap, he’ll wake the neighbors. Is this the climax of absolute power? To completely miss the point of tenderly loving something by replacing it with a more efficient, more attractive, more stylish and avant-garde money sucker? Whoopdeedoo. Just stick with what you can do well instead of wasting your time making and marketing a neoteric shell depicting beauty. --Shley