Suddenly, it was her darn air conditioner’s fault and she needed to get an HVAC upgrade to have plants
My mom is a really interesting human being. She is highly functional in some ways, and a complete space case in a lot of other ways. For instance, she is extremely skilled at creating a tight budget and living comfortably. However, she freaks out at basic tasks like going to a new place or leaving the comfort of her home. She is amazingly skilled with taking care of animals and giving them the exact care that they need it… But she can’t do the same thing for plants. For as long as I have been alive, my mom has been killing any plant that’s unfortunate enough to come inside her house. I’ve always encouraged her to try again, because they improve your indoor air quality and surroundings so greatly. Recently, I thought that I had finally found a solution to this problem when I raised some beautiful cacti and gifted them to my mom. Surely, she couldn’t ruin these minimal-effort desert plants – they just need dry air and sunshine. Well, she did. Apparently, my mom was cleaning one day and moved the plants away from their warm and dry shelf. Unfortunately, she set them directly next to an air vent and forgot all about them, while the outdoor air temperature steadily increased. The plants sat next to the ice cold air vent, being blasted with air conditioning for several days while the hot and humid outdoor air triggered the AC over and over again. When I came over to visit, I saw the plants looking miserable next to the air vent, and pulled their freezing cold pots away from the flowing air conditioned air. When I asked my mom why she would set the cacti right next to her AC outlet, she feigned innocence. Suddenly, it was her darn air conditioner’s fault and she needed to get an HVAC upgrade to have plants. There was now a $4,000 air quality appliance excuse for why she couldn’t even keep cacti alive.