I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I’ve seen a lot of Tarzan movies!!!
I mean, I expected to come across some new challenges when we moved into this house a few months ago – we’re fortunate enough to have a pool, so in turn there’s always the ever-looming concern of how to get things out of the pool that don’t belong in there…especially when they have teeth! We’ve also been doing battle with a relatively small leak in our living room that apparently would like nothing but to give us a second swimming pool in there, too. And of course, there are also plenty of struggles with our furry, little poop machine about where the ideal places for her to do her business are located…
But vines?! That’s one that I never would’ve seen coming!
They’re not exactly inside the house, mind you … at least not yet, anyways … so we’ve still got that going for us, although admittedly we did have one particularly curious tentacle that was exploring its way up the side of the house when we first got here. Luckily we caught it in time and were able to drag it back down to the dirty ground where it belongs with the rest of the weeds, but if it had managed to scale all the way up and possibly sneak in through our chimney or something – who knows?! I may not know anything at all about vines and other vine-related climbing plants, but I think it’s clear to see that they should be feared nonetheless like the untamable killers that they most likely probably are.
Sure, maybe there are some vines out there who just want the quiet, family life where they keep to themselves and don’t bother nobody, but what of the vines that you always hear about terrorizing little children and scarfing up unleashed house pets that were foolish enough to sniff just a little too close around that innocent-looking shrubbery? And what about Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors – that carnivorous creeper most definitely had some vines working in his favor, and although personally it wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit if he decided to make a snack out of my dentist, I can only imagine that eventually his appetite would grow to consider other cuisines for lunch as well and as much as I may tire of cleaning up puppy poop, I’d still never wish for our little Cleo to get gobbled up by an oversized Venus Fly Trap hell-bent on world domination…
…although maybe if just a little nibble might help to scare some common courtesy into that indiscriminating bladder of hers…
No, no – despite any preconceived prejudice pertaining to puppy piddle, I still insist it is of the utmost importance that we maintain a zero-tolerance policy for weeds around here, including but certainly not limited to those that want to climb up the side of the house, waiting for the perfect opportunity to sneak inside and turn us into just another 1980’s voracious mutant plant victim statistic! They may start out seemingly innocent enough, simply climbing up palm trees and exploring random shrubberies around the yard, but make no mistake about it – allowing these valuable training exercises to take place right outside one’s own bedroom window is precisely the lapse in judgment that they’re hoping we’ll make.
A few hours spent pulling vines from bushes and trees today is a small price to pay to avoid wrestling them free of loved ones tomorrow! But lord help us if any of them start singing show tunes…