Honestly, I am starting to believe that behind that sweet smiling generous face lurks a serial killer. This is probably why two other houses have recently gone on the market and I didn’t see the owners move out. All of a sudden the houses were just empty. She killed them. And she kills in the most insidious way, she will never get caught. It started out so innocuously, she offered to give me a couple of her Azalea bushes because she has too many. Sounds innocent enough right? Wrong, once she gets you in her yard, the evil begins.

She picks out a large mature Azalea bush and says how about this one? You think, wow a full grown bush, this will look great in my yard. So you say sure, that is so nice, thank you. Then you have to dig it up, not easy, after that you have to carry the full grown bush to the truck, remember it is a full grown bush and the roots are covered in about five pounds of dirt. After you place it in the truck and turn to say thank you, she says in a super sweet voice, oh I have more for you. You can’t leave with just one.

The first plant transplant excursion with her netted me four mature Azalea bushes, three Foxglove plants and one large fern. That’s how she sucks you in. She gives you a reasonable amount of plants to whet your appetite. Just like a crack dealer. The second plant transplant excursion she had me dig up four more large Azalea bushes and a sickly Rhododendron. One of the Azaleas was so large we had to get her husband to help lift it up in the truck.

She caught me on Monday and told me that according to the Almanac, Tuesday was the day to move plants and she had another Azalea to give me. Stupid me, I fell for it again. I got over there and she had me dig up eight Azaleas, one more Rhododendron and two very large Barberry bushes, resplendent with a ton of small sharp thorns. That was so much fun, I think I left a pint of blood in her dirt. Maybe that was the whole ploy, get me to bleed in her dirt and fertilize the soil. She wanted to give me three more extra-large Azaleas and two seven-foot-tall Rhododendrons, but I begged off by saying we should wait until the rainy season when the soil is easier to dig in. Maybe by then she will have forgotten or I’ll be dead from her generosity and it won’t matter.

I am going to have to up my game if I’m going to survive and expose her for the evil wicked woman that she is. Giving away extra plants in an evil ruse to make my yard lush and beautiful. Such evilness. Well I’m on to her game now and I’m eating my Wheaties, so I can dig with the best of them.