Pointsettia is an Undead Curse from the Holidays

Some of you are probably in the same predicament as me. You don't want to throw the thing in the trash because that seems wasteful, even mean. It was a gift after all.

But watching that Christmas poinsettia die a slow, tortured death on the kitchen table isn't what you'd call a day-brightener, now is it? Friends who've observed my Addams Family centerpiece with its dry, curly leaves fall into two categories: They either say: "For heaven's sake, put the poor thing out of its misery! They'll be, what, a buck fifty at Wal-Mart next year?" Or they say: "You can't throw it away; it's still alive and it'll bloom next Christmas if you just take care of it a little bit."

There ought to be some kind of Kervorkian house call guy who just handles this sort of thing.

He would tell you when he could come, then you'd leave the door ajar, go for a walk and by the time you get back, there's no sign of the poinsettia and a bill's on the fridge under the "Don't Tell Me To Have A Nice Day" magnet, right beside that stupid reminder to watch the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes announcement because YOU MAY ALREADY BE A WINNER.

As if.

And while we're on the subject of sweepstakes, sorta, why do they always put your name on the "You may already ..." letter with two goobers from Salted Slug, Alaska, or Deliveranceville, Mississippi? What're you gonna do? Call them? Exchange Spam Casserole recipes? I don't care who wins, so long as it's me.

Face it. Anybody who's actually got that TV tag reminder to watch the sweepstakes announcement on their TV is pretty much telling the world, "Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I am a loser."

That's why I keep mine on the refrigerator. You don't look so gullible. I don't want to be one of those people who hollers, "Buford, tell Buford Junior to get out yonder to the corner so's he can spot the Prize Van when it passes the Tastee-Freeze." *

But back to this poinsettia thing. It was awfully pretty when I got it as a hostess gift right after Thanksgiving.

The plant was, in contrast to its current condition, uh, alive. The leaves were luscious scarlet instead of the sad, yellowy-beige color they are now. And don't ask me what that gross stuff that looks like oatmeal is on the stems. Lately, I swear I can hear the thing screaming when I walk by. The cats, originally concerned because they'd read somewhere that poinsettias are poisonous to them (they're not) have stopped giving the plant a wide berth because they see it's in no condition to hurt them.

Now they sit staring at the stemmy, oatmealy, yellow-brown former plant in the green foil-wrapped pot with the same look they reserve for lizards that are long dead but they think, in their kitty brains, that they're going to somehow rise from the dead like Super Lizard.

The same dead lizard's been on my screen porch floor for three weeks now and the cats still hiss at it. Mo-rons.

Anyway, for a couple of weeks after Christmas, I watered the thing. The poinsettia, not the lizard.

Somebody told me I shouldn't water it very much and somebody else told me I should water it a lot so I split the difference and one day I'd water it a quarter-cup or so and the next day I'd give it a coupla gallons.

Despite this hard work, the stupid thing kept shedding leaves like crazy. Then, last week, I stopped watering altogether, because I thought it was only prolonging the agony. It was becoming like one great big Lamar Alexander campaign.

Well-meaning types fuss and cluck over my poinsettia and tell me in cheery tones that if I'll just "water moderately, prune severely, place it in the sun for five hours a day, then keep it in a pitch-black room for no more than 14 hours a day beginning around October, it will bloom again."

Right. I'm the kind of person who takes the frozen dinner out of the microwave 2 minutes early; patience isn't my thing. Free poinsettia to good home.

Close Window