Dear Crabby,
My wife wants to plant more flowers around our house this year. Do you think this is worth the money and the effort?
Sincerely, Notso Green
Dear Mr. Green,
Flowers are a beautiful thing indeed. I personally love to see them every year, and I love their sweet aroma – as I witness them at other people’s 
houses. I have a strict “no planting” policy that I abide by at my home. Now, of course, that doesn’t stop Mrs. Crabby from buying all that rabbit food and putting it out for them to eat. The first year we moved out to the suburbs, I joyfully headed out to the flower shop in May and spent the kids college fund on several varieties of colorful flowers for us to enjoy. I spent all of Saturday and Sunday breaking my back and planting each and every little guy so precisely. Sunday night, the missus and I sat back and admired our handiwork. I went to bed as an accomplished man. Then I woke up Monday morning to find that half of my flowers were gone and the others were half-chewed by some sort of evil critters that sneak around at night! In the midst of my screaming and hollering, my neighbor came over and matter-of-factly stated that I should spray this awful smelling animal urine all over my yard to help protect it. I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of buying flowers is if you have to make your yard smell like animal urine to protect it? Well, Mrs. Crabby wanted to try to save the yard, so I tried the animal urine, and the bars of soap, and the noisemakers hanging from trees – all to no avail. I think the harder I tried the more those varmints came out to laugh at us! The final straw happened when I looked outside one night and spotted this large doe eating my petunias. I opened the back door and threw a tennis ball at the wild beast, hitting it square in the belly! Then the craziest thing happened. She looked at me, almost as if I was annoying her, and bent back down to finish eating my flowers! So I started running and screaming towards the stubborn thing. It took about two lazy steps back and just stared at me. I walked back into the house flabbergasted, and the doe went back to eating her garden buffet. That was the last year I participated in the “feed the neighborhood” program at our house. Now I limit the argument to one time per season with the missus, tell her to have a blast, and I simply enjoy other people’s flowers at their expense. Life is now good, and I sleep much better at night. Of course, I do still have this recurring nightmare of wild deer throwing a tennis ball back at me, but other than that I’m doing fine. So, in answer to your question, if you live anywhere near me, I advise you to go bananas and plant a ton of flowers! Otherwise, follow this old guy’s example and just enjoy the other flowers in the world.
Sincerely Dear Crabby
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