Call The Cops!

My mother-in-law calls my hubby's work number this morning, something she is only allowed to do "in an emergency" as is understandable. Hubby's phone was through blue-tooth as he (well, the family) was in the car to grab breakfast really quick. Immediately, as her number shows on caller ID, we panic....she has a gagillion health issues (seriously..the doctor told my hubby, with your mom that sick, might as well just end your life while it is good ha ha just joking) and so we think, did she have an asthma attack? Chest pain? Accidentally take her meds twice? Did the pack of scorpions living under her house sting her?

(oh and ignore formatting below....the tuna casserole I had last night must have had msg...a migraine is just around the corner....hurts to really think)

So we cautiously answer and hubby says "you know, you can only call me on this line in an emergency" and she says, "well it kinda is....I was thinking of calling the cops" (and my mind wanders to the headlines in our little nothing-much-happens town, there was a murder and a home invasion/high speed pursuit this week! Did something like that just happen?). We hold our breath and she continues, "my plant. It is gone. I think I need to call the police. It is theft you know. They should know about it, maybe there is a pattern of thefts in the neighborhood."  (You know, with the high speed pursuits, murders, and home invasions, the police are totally concerned, it is number one priority, to solve a rash of plant thefts by the golf course...you know, a lost spider plant here and gasp! A plucked rose over there! Call America's Most Wanted! CSI! FBI!)

Hubby looks at me with the "I'm going to go bat sh!t crazy over this. I want to lock her up in the insane asylum" and I start to smirk. He raises an eyebrow and I inform my mother in law over the phone,

"Yes. It is stolen. Don't call the cops. I had to call PPS, Plant Protective Services, over abuse of Spidey and had to take him home to recuperate." See she had adopted our spider plant, Spidey, that my mom gave me, because we moved temporarily and spider plants don't like snow. So anyways, I had to call PPS. So I continued to tell her, "remember, I told you last night at dinner I was taking him back but you must not have heard."

thanks for saving me and my Spidey babies!!!!

See she abused poor spidey. She didn't even call him by his name (Spidey) or species (Spider plant) just "the plant". She claims to care enough about him to call the cops when he is "stolen" but just calls him "the plant". If she had indeed called the cops, they would have asked for a description and she'd say" well, he is green...a plant..." and that is all. I don't profess to be a plant saver...I do kill many a plant with my black thumb, but I am improving (rosemary, oregano, strawberries, mint, grapes, spider plants, and bamboo love me) but I don't FORGET TO EVER WATER THE PLANTS. Poor spidey was out in the 100 degree heat WITHOUT WATER. EVER. And I know plant species. She, bless her heart, is sooo anti-nature and afraid of anything nature-like, outdoorsy, that she didn't even know it was a spider plant or that you need to, you know, water plants.

So I rescued him. I also saw the aloe-vera looking plant (some sort of succulent, I know that much) that we'd fostered out to her, on his SIDE under a bush and it looked like he'd been there the entire year...

So both plants are home and happy and I got  a pic showing spidey's already green leaves, on the right, and his nearly lifeless babies on the left of the picture, which is what all of him looked like yesterday pre-PPS visit.