Hortensia Has a Conniption

Of all things, it is one of the worst things that she could ever have imagined! No. It just cannot be possible. One of her worst nightmares is happening right before her very eyes! No, no, NO!

Noooooooo!!!

She held her head in her hands and closed her eyes. Her breathing was becoming rapid and shallow. She squeezed her eyelids together tightly, trying not to imagine the most awful outcome that could occur, but she did it anyway.

"Whatever shall I do? Whatever shall I do!" she whispered frantically over and over again, as she paced about and wrung her hands.

Her mind became full of fretful and even dreadful thoughts.

She just knew that she should have isolated it. It was one of the first rules. Why hadn't she done so? Well, that was obvious— every windowsill in her tiny apartment was crammed with as many plants as she could fit. She had even added extra shelves wherever possible, and was contemplating where she might be able to install grow lights.

"Oh, I feel a headache coming on," she groaned, putting her hand to her forehead.

Just where was she going to isolate this one? She couldn't even put it outdoors temporarily, they were having unseasonably cold weather. Three, count them, three! snowstorms in the past three weeks, bringing an accumulation of almost three feet of snow. If it were January or February it would have been more acceptable, but this was almost the end of March!

Her ire began to rise much more. Did it have to happen to her most prized plant? Her Pilea peperomiodes!

She had to put all this thinking behind her. She had to get to work. She pulled on her hat, boots and coat and headed out the door.

On the long drive up to the office, her mind turned back to her beloved little plant, and all her her other dear, dear plants.

"Whatever shall I do?" she asked again, this time out loud. "At least I'm headed to a place where I can get some answers. Jenna will know just what to do. She just has to have the answer."

These words consoled her only briefly, and she was back again to her nightmare visions.

Her plants! Her plants! And her most prized Pilea peperomiodes! It was so rare, everyone wanted one, but it was she who found one. And now ... she might lose it, and all of the rest of her plants, too!

They could all get it! They could ALL DIE!

Finally she could stand it no longer. She screamed at the top of her lungs while driving furiously over the mountaintop road—

"My plant has SCALE!!!"

She then began to sob hysterically.