Weird Behavior? Moi? I Hide Plants....

By @GlenysOConnell

I hide plants.

There, I've confessed. 

While everyone else is out there nurturing their pretty green garden plants and jewel-toned flowers, I’m hiding houseplants. It's not like this is some dark secret  vice or anything - like talking to dead people or collecting booze bottles or having a mad crush on Justin Bieber  (if I was blah-blah years younger, maybe…)

No, I hide plants for their own good. Ever since a certain young lady came to visit for a while, brought by one of my sons, there hasn't been a safe place for plants anywhere in my house.

Her name's Miss Kitteh and she eats house plants. Now there's a dark secret vice if ever there was one.

It all started when the aforementioned son decided he was changing jobs and couldn’t keep his beloved cat with him until he had got settled in his new apartment. I sighed a bit (we already have two cats) but agreed. Of course, it was only going to be for a week or two.

That was three months ago.

And in that time, Ms. Kitteh has cut a swathe of devastation through my pride-and-joy house plants. Even worse, she's got the other cats chewing on them as well.

So I have plants hidden on a high shelf in the bathroom. And two on the guestroom window sill - a forbidden spot for cats but unfortunately, one where the plants get forgotten at watering time. Then there's in the window behind my desk, and another - one of my favourites - hidden on a filing cabinet behind my office door. And that door is kept tightly shut.

I occasionally wake up in a sweat (yeah, it's an age thing) wondering if I remembered to close that office door. Of course, I then elbow DH awake to ask him if he noticed it was closed. It's a good thing he's pretty patient. Or maybe just too tired to care.

Of course, I've read that some house plants are dangerous to cats if they chew them. That may be so, but nothing seems to upset Miss Kitteh's digestion.

What worries me is how I'm going to retrain the other two to stop chewing, once Miss Kitteh goes back to her rightful slave. I mean, owner.

She's a former stray with sharp claws, sharp fangs and an even sharper temper. But you know something? We'll miss her when she goes to her new home.

Like, really.

Glenys O'Connell, a card carrying member of the Crazy Cat Lady Club, can often be seen waving her arms to stop traffic while she rescues turtles, frogs, snakes, chipmunks and other assorted creatures on busy highways. Friends predict that one day she'll be smucked by a fast moving transport. But until that day, she plans to keep right on writing - right now working on Never Kiss Another Frog - a romance writer's guide to dating for women who no longer believe in fairy tales! Visit her at Romance Can Be Murder! or on Twitter at @GlenysOConnell