Fake Plants

I drive a Cadillac Brougham, which is a full-size luxury vehicle; and I decorate my residence with fake plants — I place them everywhere. 

Fake plants are great because they look just like real plants, but you don’t need to invest a whole lot of time caring for them. Let me tell you some of their advantages: They need no water, and they come in sizes from big to small. They require no sunlight, and, as I said, they are indistinguishable from genuine verdure. You can additionally get fake plants in any color that you want — blue, white, etc. — whereas real plants only come in shades of green. Fake plants are also safe for cats, which is important because cats like to knock things down and eat toxins. 

Thus I advocate replacing the verdure and wildlife in all of our parks, woods, and forests with fake plants and statuary. Tourists can then walk past these things and remark: “Hey, those aren’t actual chrysanthemums!” and they will sniff the synthetic leaves and be astonished. Also, when they crouch down and feel the dirt that the plants are “growing” from, they’ll whisper to themselves: “This is Styrofoam, not soil.” 

Laughter is healthy. Only a fool would allow his blood to boil when he sees that I have replaced all living creatures with painted decoys. 

Once, however, an angry tourist confronted me, after having learned that I’m the groundskeeper of Midwest America: she yelled in my face, saying, “Shame on you for creating this Fake Plant Paradise. When will you stop playing God!?” — But, resisting the temptation to fight fire with fire, I displayed a mild smile and replied: 

“Look, Madame, this robot flower that you just kicked subsists on powdered uranium and nitroglycerin; so, if you tickle its stamen, it dispenses absinthe for nectar. What more could you want?” 

This tourist then stopped pouting and became a true believer in my Science of Substitution. (She is, in fact, to this day, a particular friend of mine: we often recline together beneath a plastic redwood and read Andrew Marvell’s “The Mower against Gardens” in its diabolical sense.)