Saturday, April 7

(One of) the grossest things I've ever seen

I've had this orchid for two years that I've nearly killed at least eight times. A couple of months ago I thought I had finally killed it for good by overwatering it, and so bought a new one. Last week, after almost two months without water, I was surprised to see the old one valiantly trying to grow a new, healthy leaf in addition to some new, healthy roots.
I decided to replant it to help it out and set about cutting off the many dead roots my previous rabid overwatering left behind. (Orchids have wild and wayward roots that look like the picture above).

As soon as I snipped one particularly black and flaccid root remnant, the bottom dropped out of the root clump and out fell what has to be the nastiest consequence ever precipitated by over-watering a houseplant.

It was hideous! Unraveling from the bottom of the plant was a clumpy chain of what looked like tiny, slimy, flesh-colored worms. Some parts of the chain were black and covered with spotty white mold or fungus. The whole thing shivered with simulated life thanks to my shaky hand. I gasped, shuddered, dropped the orchid back into its pot, and ran to the closet to get my gardening gloves. It looked a lot like the ball of worms pictured below. I was afraid to cut it with my scissors because I was sure it would coil up and attack me. I had been hungry up to that point but completely lost my appetite in that moment and I still feel sick now just remembering it. I eventually got the plant repotted, but did not eat dinner or plant anything else--as I had been planning to do--after that fiasco. I may never be able to eat ramen noodles or coconut or rice noodles ever again--for serious.

I know what my nightmares will be about tonight. I just thank fuck I didn't accidentally touch the slimy monstrosity.

(BTW, don't ever try to google images of maggots to, say, illustrate how disgusting something is in a blog entry or something. You will be extremely sorry that you did so).




2 comments:

Mrs. B. Roth said...

I once googled warts with no filters ... why do people put such things on the internet?

Jenny said...

Good question. You shouldn't be allowed to put just anything up!