Read by Matilda Longbottom

I thought it would be good therapy to devote myself to the garden and create a showplace. I bought a new outfit: a big sun hat with pink flowers on the brim, matching gloves, and a little pink pad to kneel on. The first day in the garden, as I positioned my kneeling pad, bees attacked my hat like little kamikazes. They travel in packs, I learned. I ran down the street shrieking, trying to escape. When I had encircled the block, still screaming, and was back at my house, I threw my new hat and gloves at them and escaped inside. I think this incident was what started the rumors in the neighborhood.

My next time out went better, but when I tried to get up from my kneeling pad, my legs wouldn’t move. Apparently, my muscles had locked in the kneeling position. It took me an hour, but I managed to crawl to the front door and scratch at the screen until the dog pushed it open with his nose and let me in. I’m still recovering from the rug burn I sustained getting to the bathroom.

I spent six hours cleaning out the flowerbed and planted two rose bushes, three lilac trees, and a Japanese maple. The rose bushes sprouted hopeful red-green leaves, which then turned black as snuff. The lilacs produced a single sprig of tiny purple beads between them, which then turned brown and withered. I picked the sprig and put it in a little bud vase by my bed.

I gave 110 percent, but my forget-me-nots forgot me, the Chinese lanterns refused to light, the California poppies needed Gestalt therapy, and the climbing roses fell to their death. I myself sank into a depression. My depression turned to rage late one night, and I chopped down a 6-foot rhododendron and left it in the yard as a lesson to the rest of the plants that they damn well better shape up. I suspected I needed help.

The neighborhood association called on me. The committee talked to me about dandelions and falling property values. They informed me that I was quarantined. I was being shunned, and it was the garden’s fault.

It was about this time that the police got involved. I had split a bag of 100 pink tulip bulbs with my neighbor the previous fall. Now, when it was time for them to bloom, I saw a squirrel dig up two of my bulbs and run down the street with them concealed in his cheek pouches. I was chasing the squirrel down the street with a spatula, and the neighbors called 911. The police weren’t even interested in the part of the report about the theft. All they wanted to know was why I was only wearing a bath towel and carrying a spatula. They never even looked for him.

Miss Neighbor’s tulips came up tall and beautiful Barbie pink. When mine came up, they were small, wrinkled, and beige and immediately fell over. They looked like they had gotten drunk, smoked a pack of Lucky Strikes, and passed out on the lawn. If I wanted that crap, I could’ve stayed married. I shouldn’t have cut the heads off Miss Neighbor’s tulips. I said I was sorry. Personally, I don’t think she should have pressed charges.

The next time they called the police, I had lost a lot of credibility. I had gathered all of the aphids from my yard in a net, and I was shuttling them to her yard. It was kind of late. All right, it was 2 in the morning. I was not peeping in her windows like she reported to the police. I was releasing aphids. The black tights and black T-shirt I probably could’ve explained. It was the black face paint that made things awkward. The sad part is that it didn’t do any good. Apparently, they were homing aphids because they were back in my yard before I even got out on bail.

I haven’t told the doctors here, but when flowers are delivered to the other patients, I can hear the flowers talking about me. They think they have won, but someday I’ll get out of here, and when I do, I’m buying a chainsaw. Then, carpe dandelion. ❖

About the Author: Nancy Ryan is a writer living in a beautiful tiny town on the Washington peninsula. Mainly writing comedy in the form of plays, screenplays and short stories, she has won numerous awards through the years. Her recent foray into gardening has provided an entirely new area of humor as she bushwhacks her way to serenity through communing with nature.