My darling husband is very good at handling household dilemmas quickly, and, honestly, he has become quite handy over the years, but you better be very careful about what you suggest as a potential problem and hope that he does not independently discover something that he views as an issue, because he is a swift and creative man of action, who will frequently solve things in very blunt or unique ways before you even know what happened. (Let's put the chainsaw down, man, and talk about how the hydrangea bush rejuvenates on what appear to be dead sticks *before* you slice it in half. *ZIP!*... Or make it eight inches tall. Whatever works.)
Anyway, last night I walked past the precious fairy garden that the 9-year-old Twerp and I have been working on, and noticed that all of the purple flowers that rise up above the hosta plant when in full bloom were chopped off. I mean to say, the flowers were severed from every single stem. Then I looked at the succulents that I had strategically planted and saw that the biggest one had been seemingly plucked out of the ground and dropped on its side, still with the perfect square of dirt and roots attached at the bottom.
Dear husband was working hard on mowing the lawn when I took notice, which was more than I could say for myself, so I didn't bring it up; I just scratched my head, wondering what on earth he had been thinking. What possibly could have bothered him so badly that he felt compelled to snip off all of the hosta flowers and unearth the succulent? Then I started thinking that maybe our sonny boy, who has been working in landscaping this summer, went off the rails when trying to show off his new weed-whacking skills. Since he was not around, either, I shrugged, decided to wait until later to bring it up, and moved on with what I had been doing when I first noticed it.
Many hours later, midnight actually, Sean went outside to put out the trash and I remembered the plants, so I ran out to confront him near the garden. Juliet and Natalie joined me, because when they asked where I was going, I answered, "I think Daddy cut off the flowers and dug up the plant," and they wanted to investigate.
Sean stood expressionless as we all huddled around the area, and he asked, "You think I cut off all of the flowers and dug this up?"
"I do! I don't know why, but I think you snipped the flowers off the stems, like the Munsters," I answered, trying not to laugh.
"Why would I do that?"
"I have no idea, but I would really like to know. They were obviously cut. Look at them!"
"But why would I do that? It had to have been an animal," he said, also laughing at the absurdity of the late-night, outdoor conversation, as the girls stood by giggling heartily. "Look," he continued, "They are the perfect height for a deer to snack on. And look!"
We all moved closer to notice that the whole hosta plant, all of the leaves, had been chowed down.
Then, to mock my accusation, he exaggerated a demonstration of himself cutting all of the flowers, throwing them over his shoulder, and ripping out the succulent.
I agree that it seems ridiculous, but in my defense, I have a long, long...long... list of really strange ways that problems have been viewed and solved in this house. It was not necessarily a completely unfounded accusation, but there was no hard evidence and circumstantial evidence pointed to wildlife, thus he was acquitted. To clear his name, he temporarily adjusted the security camera so that it would record all activity surrounding the fairy garden last night.
Bambi, beware.