Stringent Glue Gun Laws for Flowers

My world is abloom and I could not be happier.

With all these blooms come bees.  Bees are the Fringe Family’s mortal enemy.  They turn Bee Boy into a swollen red tomato who cannot breath and has to fight for his life.

On any given day, you can find me standing on the porch with a tennis racket in one hand a flip-flop in the other.

I can swat a bumble-bee outta the park, baby.

I’ve never been so fearless of insects.  Before my son’s life was on the line, you could find me running down the road doing the shake, toss, and tumble all because I heard a buzz in my ear.

And let’s face facts, my hair is like a nesting ground.  I think a shingle hangs from a curl around the back of my head that says vacancy.  Bees, spiders, and mosquitoes all want to get in on my low rates, and once these pests move in, they’re lost for a long time.

Yesterday we went to Lowe’s to buy bee spray.  We buy it by the case.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, my daughter asked, “Can we go look at the flowers?”

She is obsessed with the idea of planting a garden, any kind of garden.  Beans and Begonias are all the same to her.

I love plants like anyone else loves plants, except for the lady down the road with the beautiful garden.  She loves plants more than I do.  In fact, if I’m totally honest with you, I just assume push brightly painted metal flowers into the dirt and call it a garden.  I can’t kill metal.

Then there’s the financial aspect of planting.  I never knew dirt cost so much money, and don’t get me started on the blooms.

So we stood in the middle of Lowe’s garden center, a few lone humans in a sea of fragrant summer color.  My daughter touched each bloom and exclaimed over its beauty.

I love that about her.  I look around and see a whole bunch of beauty lumped together and say, “These are pretty.”

She notices every bloom on every plant.

I left my daughter and walked to where my husband was standing.  “She wants flowers.”  I said.

FringeMan gave me the look like that pot of Marigolds is going to break our bank.  And I turned  around to think, because sometimes there are ways of doing things.  You just have to think outside the flat of flowers.

When I turned, there was an entire metal cart of half dead plants marked down to .75 cents.

They were a hearty, long-blooming annual and I knew we could bring these babies back to life.  So I picked the best flat and called out to my daughter, “We can get some flowers!”

She ran over, took one look at them and said, “They’re dead.”

“Ya, but they’re only part dead.  We can bring them back.”

We were surrounded by dozens of varieties of beautiful full blooming flowers and we were walking out with a half dead seventy-five cent plant, and I started laughing, because we do this sorta thing all the time.

My husband pulled a dollar from his wallet and my son walked up holding a tiny cactus with an orange bloom on top.

“Can I get this?”  He asked.

Dang.  I bet it’s more than seventy-five cents, but FringeBoy wanted to add it to our cacti/succulent garden.  He was enamored by the orange bloom atop this ugly spiked round cactus.

We paid for our “flowers” and got into the truck.  Not more than two second later, FringeBoy exclaims, “This orange flower is hot glued on.”

“No it’s not.  It can’t be.”  I said.

“Yes it is.”  My daughter agreed.

After a few minutes of fussing, I grabbed the cactus for an official inspection.  Now I’m no Martha Stewart, but I’ve been around the DIY block with a glue gun.  I know the feel of hot plastic after it hardens.

Sure enough, glue.

And we laughed hysterically, because we just paid a good two dollars for a craft store dupe.

“Do you think I should sue them?”  Asked FringeBoy?

“No, honey.  I think we can settle out of court on this one.”

In the case of People versus Crafty Lowe’s Employees, please lower your glue guns, because background checks will now be required for all those wanting to purchase glue sticks.   Furthermore, glue sticks shall hereafter be sold individually for commercial and non commercial use on cacti or other garden variety houseplants.

Unless you live in Texas, because then you can buy all the glue sticks you want and they do solemnly swear not to artificially alter their cacti.

Judgement for the plaintiff.

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Tricia Gillespie