Derek looks at the his newly acquired refugees and sighs. He really, really should not take them in. Laura made a plant dad joke a year ago and he’d just laughed it off because, sure, he had some plants. So what? He liked them.
Then, six months ago, someone moved into the complex who, apparently, was desperate to experience the joys and wonders of plant ownership. Except they had the worst brown thumb Derek thinks he’s ever come across.
Surely, a normal person would have given up by the time they were throwing out plant number twelve.
The guy in unit 4 was, apparently, dead set on killing every plant the local nursery would sell him until something survived. And, in the mean time, everything that didn’t ended up on the sidewalk, waiting for the garbage truck or– or Derek.
He’s acquired twenty two new plants since August.
Half of him wonders if he should talk to the local nursery and see about getting the guy banned.
The other half of him–the half that actually saw the resident of unit 4 last Saturday as he shuffled to the sidewalk, dejectedly carrying two pots of very nearly dead (but not entirely) monsteras, oblivious to the way that his sweatpants were a mild breeze from sliding off his hips–had been mulling over how to start a conversation with the guy who Derek had taken to referring to as HSPK: Hot and Scruff Plant Kryptonite.