There's No A In Gerbera

It happens every Spring.  As soon as Mother's Day is done rearing it's ugly head and the flesh wounds have started to puss over I make my inevitable "I Want Everything Green and Pretty!" trek to the garden store.  Last year I didn't really do any damage because Hubby and I had just moved into the Big Yellow House and I had no idea what the sun patterns were or what exactly I wanted (aka-we just bought said Big Yellow House and we were tapped.) The year before I hadn't purchased any pretties because the midgets and I were living in the teeniest duplex apartment post divorce and I was drastically short on time, money and green space.  And so this year when I crossed the threshold of the local garden store with the scent of green and dirt filling my freezer-burned nostrils, my brain went a little wackadoodle.  I was so high on green that I started helping other herbaphones.  One lady, her hubby and 4 year old midget had their cart over-flowing with annuals when they stopped to admire a Star Jasmine when I totally pulled the long since retired retail goddess outta my ass and told them how it was the most amazing plant-it'll bloom all summer and then you can bring it inside for the winter and it will continue to grow and then will go crazy with blooms a few weeks after you put it outside again. They were amazed and all looked at each other with glazed over eyes and nodded like a bunch of Republicans at a fetish convention.   They were piling the jasmine on the cart with their other treasures when they turned and asked me how long I had had mine.  That caught me.  "I had it for 3 years," I said,  "then I got divorced and My Douche Bag (sorry kid) is still holding it hostage, but I drove by yesterday and waved at it on his front porch."  Silence. Awkward stares. (That seems to be what divorce does to you, makes you the star of endless awkward stares-well me at least, but that might just be because I'm a foul-mouthed clumsy stuttering weirdo.)   And so, on the way to the check-out with far over my budget of plants that will be dead clumps of wilty browness in 6 months, I paused for a minute and then turned back and hauled the biggest, fullest, most yummy smelling Star Jasmine I could onto the tippy top of my cart.  Sometimes budgets are made to be broken and sometimes they are made to be shattered.