Resident Plant Doctor...chapter 2

When you begin working at the church, you are issued one or two standard little house plants. Some of my bosses had a forest comparable to Max's in "Where The Wild Things Are," they had worked at the church so long. Still others, like me, were just hoping to keep the little guys green for another month.

One day, my little plant was looking particularly stressed. Even though it was only a year old, I was pretty sure it was outgrowing it's little pot. My boss, Tim, suggested I take it down to the Plant Room for a diagnostic evaluation. But that's where HE is, I thought. However, my need for a beautiful plant, and my love of self-deprecation won over my pride and I traveled to the underbelly of the Church's operation.

As I walked into the long skinny room full of pots, potting soil and recovering fauna, I eyed Michelle, and Bryan. They were both wearing the standard issue white shirt and khaki pants and the nice little aprons. I was a little jealous of him, because here he didn't have to wear a tie or anything but he was a blue tagger. Now, there were different levels of security at the COB. Yellow taggers (aka. peons) could only go in the main building during regular hours. End of story. Blue taggers (more important people than peons) could come and go after hours with a few restrictions. Green taggers (these were the REALLY important people) could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted without any suspicion from the ever-present Church Security. I was a yellow tagger.

Bryan smiled when I walked in and I told him what the problem was with my gangly little plant. He was cute, and I was surprisingly nervous. I had to keep kept looking at the floor as I was having trouble looking him in the eye.

He gently took my plant out of it's container, placed it in another...I think this one was green...and put fresh clean dirt in it. Then he warningly reminded me that most plants are killed from overwatering and told me not to overwater. I am NOT an overwaterer, I thought. And I walked away with my now-happy plant, with the faint sound of laughter in the distance.

Now without ruining the story, this next part, I had to find out a few years down the road.

Apparently, Bryan did repot the plant in a different container...but it was exactly the same size. He and Michelle apparently laughed for several minutes over ditsy "Star Wars Girl." (he still didn't know my name.

You SEE why I didn't like him?!