Thoughts on other people's emotional baggage and plants.

I think I've mentioned that Chad and I like to lay in bed and talk. Sometimes it's just for a few minutes and other times it's for hours. Then we both hate ourselves in the morning for the few precious hours of sleep we got. But. Those talks have brought us closer together over the years. They have also revealed some startling confession from the guilty of heart. Not me of course, I am perfect and would never do anything wrong.

Well except for that time that I totally screwed over a used car dealer by selling him a car that wouldn't run anymore. I'm probably going to go to hell for that one for sure. I was just twenty one years old though. And he was after all a used car dealer, I mean, he probably totally had it coming, right? How did I do it you wonder. . .

Well, we're way off the subject of other people's sins but since I've peaked your curiosity. . . We were thinking of selling my Hyundai Sonata a car that was the bain of my existence. This piece of sh** car was ALWAYS breaking down and stranding us. My impulse purchase of this car when I was eighteen has been thrown in my face countless times by my loving husband. Even today! He will still bring up my bad purchase as a legitimate reason why we should get something what he wants to. People.


Anyways. It was a terrible car. But, it looked nice. It's only redeeming quality. So, one day we thought about maybe selling it and cutting our losses. It was running fine but we knew another expensive repair was just around the corner. I took it into a used car dealer where he checked it out from top to bottom and then offered me a paltry $2000 dollars for it.

Offended I rejected it outright and said, "Good day, good day to you sir."

Fast forward one week. The radiator blew up (again) and the automatic windows wouldn't roll down or up and the drivers window would fall down and not roll up. So, ehummp, I. . .did something, something kinda bad. I, um, had the car towed to a window repair shop, where I paid a guy $20 bucks to just put the drivers window up, not fix it, just put it up so it looked alright. Then, umm, I. . .had the car towed again.


This time, I had it towed one block away from the used car dealer (I can already sense you judging me, btw.) Paid the tow truck guy and for those of you who have a shared history of driving crappy cars you understand why just one block away. Cars with bad radiators will drive fine for a few minutes, until they start to "heat up". Literally, smoke, etc.

So, one block away from freedom at this point. I didn't even hesitate. I drove straight up to the used car lot. Parked it, walked in and said casually, " yeah, I think I changed my mind and want to sell it to you after all."

Used car guy getting screwed, "Oh, great! Sit down and I'll get you a cashiers check. Or do you prefer cash?"

. . ."you'd better make it cash."


I walked away with a cool $2000 dollars in my pocket, literally walked away. Called Chad from a pay phone to come pick me up. You can probably imagine his surprise to hear of my little outing. What can I say, I come from a long line of fiercely independent women. And, possibly some criminals, given my panache for it.

So now you know my one and only sin, it was a pretty big one. And occasionally I've thought about going back and trying to make it right but that dealer is out of business. Correlation? . . .no. Now ya'all just remember that great line from Raising Arizona, "you who is without sin can cast the first stone." I know, I know it was also written in the bible but Nicolas Cage really gave the line that extra umph.


Do yourself a favor and the next time Raising Arizona is on TNT, watch it. Then you can see one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. The part where Holly Hunter holds and looks at their new, stolen, baby. She looks at him, and immediately sobs, "I love him soooo much. Aghhhh."

. . . movie hilarity. Also watch Overboard and Baby Boom if they come on. For some reason, no matter how many times I've seen those three movies whenever they come on I can't resist.

This post has gotten way off subject. Back to things my husband has done wrong in his life.


You're probably wondering what pictures of all these houseplant have to do with; Chad's sins, me essentially stealing thousands of dollars from innocent people (be honest, you'll never look at me the same, right?), and movies from the eighty's. Well, a lot! Okay, only for Chad's sins. See, when Chad was a teenager his parents divorced. It was very sad time for him, a period of some hard years. Worsened by the quick remarriage of his father to an evil woman.

I've never met her and only seen one photo of her, but everyone (Chad, his sister and dad) agree that she was a terrible person. I bet she was even evil enough to sell lemon cars to people. . .

Well, this terrible, horrible, awful person that Chad's dad remarried a year later moved into Chad's childhood home. This person, brought her furniture, nick nacks, and, brace yourself, houseplants. Yes, this woman, this horrible horrible woman liked plants. Apparently, so much that she brought in multiple plants. The horror.

As with most relationships with pure evil people go, they eventually divorced. Thankfully, years later Chad's dad remarried a non horrible person. One that we all love. But, the damage was done. Chad hated plants. An emotional reaction Freud would call displacement or transference.


--Luke photo bomb!--

Had it, he did! Fast forward to our first years of marriage. Little, innocent Jamie in efforts to make her surroundings beautiful would bring home a nice houseplant. She would go to great pains to see to their survival but would always futilely fail. Frustrated, she would try again and again with more and more houseplants. Always to the same demise, and so quickly!???

Naive, trusting as she was she would blame herself. Then to cope, she would go and buy herself a new outfit. Years passed, through the stability of a happy fulfilling relationship (except for those first few, phew!), people (Chad) began to quietly heal old wounds. Here is where those pillow talk confessions come in. Apparently, those scars from his parents divorce/remarriage manifested themselves in plant murders.

Many many many plant murders were committed before Chad was able to overcome some of his emotional baggage. He would pour bleach onto my houseplants until they died. I never!

We'll we had a good laugh at some of the stupid stuff we used to do. Like when I would hide Oreo's in old shoe boxes (people from big families will totally get this and those of you (like Chad) from not big families will not).


But as you can see from our blooming house, Chad has recovered.

. . .and I even trust him enough to ask him to water for me from time to time. Cheers to progress!