#horticulurist

[michelleoshen]

#iykuk #plantsformysoul #itsdefinitelyaprincess. #philodendronlove #horticulurist (at Long Island, NY) https://www.instagram.com/p/CoVDvdhpe_6/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[fuck-customers]

Garden center anon here

There's this woman, probably mid sixties, and to say there is something deeply wrong with her is the understatement of this century. We have had problems with her in the past because she loves to buy trees that will be absolute behemoths for her tiny condo. The condo association has literally told her she is not allowed to have them (for good reason!) but nope here she is with a fucking Colorado blue spruce (mature height is like 50 ft to give you an idea of how much this baby needs its space) and an arborvitae (about 25 ft tall on average but can go waaaay bigger). And not ONLY has she gotten the most condo-inappropriate plants you could possibly think of, but she was calling us daily because this fucker had decided to keep them in their nursery pots, which they had already outgrown, for a year, and she was surprised that the plants ended up with pest insects. No matter how many times myself and the manager, both horticulurists by trade with a half a century of experience between us, told her they need to be planted and then here is this spray, make sure to water regularly. Every day she would call and be concerned over the same thing (but would recall exactly what we told her yesterday) and this went on for MONTHS, nearly our entire season. She would even bring in bits of branches that looked like they'd been ripped off (cuz yeah, everything likes pieces of themselves yanked off their bodies right) to show us what we had already diagnosed. It's like she was fishing for a new answer so she was trying the same question, just phrased differently, over and over and was stunned that we kept our stories straight! Shocker!

Fast forward to now, it was a really rainy day and we see her brightly colored little car pull up and my coworker and I nearly start sobbing. She walks in in her floor length puffy winter coat, with a tank top, a skirt, flip flops and leg warmers??? and begins asking us if we can inspect these sugar pumpkins for bruises (pumpkin...doesnt....bruise???!!!) and I pretend I've inspected them thoroughly and yup, no bruises here. She asks where our bathroom is. We point to it. She is in their for about 12 minutes and I'm dreading what is going on in there. Comes back out, is asking about how to keep pumpkins from bruising 😭😭😭 asks all sorts of weird questions about just the stuff we are doing (which was like, spot-watering plants or dusting the shelves cuz we are bored) and just isn't leaving! Asks where our bathroom is AGAIN! And is in there for a couple minutes. Finally she takes her fuckin pumpkins and leaves. I've finished everything for today so I sit down and pull some crochet work out of my backpack.

I heard my coworker go "mother...fucker" and look up to see that damn car pull back in. It is 5:49 and we close at 6. She asks for our bathroom AGAIN!!! IT'S BEEN TWENTY MINUTES!!! Ends up getting another sugar pumpkin. And then she just...wouldnt leave. She kept hanging around and asking weird questions about things we are doing. We are visibly uncomfortable. And then she goes "is it 6?" And I lie and say yup, just turned 6, we're closed (it was like 5:58). And she just is like, okay, bye. And walks out.

Did this fucker just PURPOSELY come back with the intention of holding us hostage til close???? Why do older, lonely people think they get to force themselves on retail workers?