©2017 Bill Murphy
Steve Martin famously called himself a ‘wild and crazy guy!’ In the Jitney Jungle Advertising Department we had numerous wild and crazy guys – and gals.
Our work was ALWAYS deadline stressful. I’ve heard it said that operating room humor relieves stress – it sure did ours. We turned work into fun. Our boss summed it up perfectly saying, “All this and money too!”
The list of our workplace shenanigans are far too numerous to relate here. That would fill a book. Perhaps someday it will.
Sometime during the 80s, my parents gifted me with a large schefflera plant. The pot alone measured a foot across and almost 2 feet tall. This was a big plant. I had it in my office, near my desk. It was a beauty.
Sometime later, long after the office oohs and aahs had died away, I noticed a new found interest in my plant. Like I said, our work was stressful, and our hours long. On days when the completed ads left us, often it was in the wee hours of the morning when we finally got home. So, depending on work-related assignments, our individual hours were not always the same, but staggered by necessity. Fellow workers began wandering in to chat – and I noticed that they also tended to glance at the schefflera.
After I’d noticed this strange behavior several times, I began to also ‘inspect’ my plant more often. Tiny sprouts. Dozens and dozen of very tiny bright green sprouts began popping up in the smooth soil of the schefflera plant. I’d pull them all up. The next day they’d returned. And my plant-visitors (both human and organic) continued.
I purposely stayed late one night. I cleared off my desk, and covered it with newspaper. Then I began digging out the soil from the birthday plant. Every scoop was laced with tiny seeds, seeds which look for all the world like the seeds of an okra pod. I had to dig down over a foot before a I reached seed-free soil. Then I carefully sifted the seed-laced soil, separating seed from soil. My suspicious were dead on – my pot plant had been seeded with pot.
But I didn’t tell my fellow workers that I’d weeded all the weed from it. (I never learned the identity of the culprit.) The idle chat/plant glance routine continued for a week or more, until someone could take it no more – and asked if I’d notice ‘anything happening’ with my plant.
What did I do with the seeds? On my way home late that night of weeding, I stopped on a small bridge which passed over a large drainage ditch in south Jackson where we lived – and tossed them off the bridge and into the wind. I’m sure someone, somewhere, eventually reaped that harvest.
~~
Pen In Hand 