The Mystery of the Jade Plant

After a full day running errands in town and driving back in separate cars, John got a haircut and I went to visit his sister. We hadn’t caught up in a while so were busy chatting away and within a few minutes my scalped mate also arrived at her place. Then more chatting and realizing it was now very late to get home in time to feed the chickens while they were still awake, John left. But I haven't. I preferred to finish my conversations that I was in the middle of explaining. Women do that. Especially when there’s a big tale to tell. Everything had to be added in the right chronological order and full attention to every minute detail. This was a whopper of a story but suddenly, I too, felt the need to go home, since it was definitely getting darker and I have enough difficulty driving in full daylight hours on these roads. So, I jumped up and said my hasty goodbyes. But at the doorway I hesitated for a moment. Sue came out and asked if I wanted a piece of that jade tree that was in a pot near where I was standing. ‘Sure do”, I said as I headed out to the wrong side of the car and almost got in (as if John was going to drive me home). We laughed. I left with the little bit of greenery somewhere near one of my many purses/bags next to me on the passenger side and I made it home with the help of a full moon rising. Without that illumination it would have been touch and go since I could barely make
out the road in the last part of the thip on the slippery gravel section near our house. Pulling into the driveway, I expected John to run outside and greet me but that didn’t happen since he was in another part of the cottage and didn’t hear the car. So, I stuffed all my most important stuff into the largest bag, or was it the smallest? Either way, I knew that I took that plant inside with me.
The next day, in the daylight hours when I could really see what was in my handbags and shopping bags, I couldn’t locate the plant cutting. Hmm. Jade plants are supposed to bring good luck, good fortune really and already I didn’t feel so lucky. But remembering that I actually saw the plant after I parked the car, I moved heaven and earth inside and out looking for it, but to no avail. I even went so far as to walk around the car several times, checking under the seats, between all the cracks where one’s hand doesn’t fit but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So, after an epic try to locate it, I decided not to stress, that it must be somewhere close by and it would show up at some point. The following day my spouse decided he had to run more errands and he left early and came home hours later with something green in his hand that he saw when he parked his car next to the one that I drove the other night. It was the missing jade plant. I guess some of the many leaves around our cars that have been falling nonstop were blown around by the wind and the bright green stubby little cutting became visible. I was ecstatic, having looked under every plant where I walked in the garden the day before (in our veritable plant jungle). So, somehow, in my zeal to plant it in a container outside that had been empty a while, I went outside with it in one hand and started pruning some dead plants with my other hand and I must have put it down again somewhere, in some unknown place. So again, I lifted every bush, leaf, vine, flower, stem, stalk, branch, pot to locate this little green devil of a plant cutting, but again I couldn’t find it. So, I gave up looking again and went back in the house and retraced my steps again for the tenth time and still I had no luck, thinking to myself that if this is the luck it’s bringing me, then it might be good that I haven’t found it to plant it. I even told John we should (meaning him) look in the garbage can and open a few recently thrown out (yuck) rubbish bags. He just stared at me like any sane person would and say it wouldn’t be in there and so I forgot about it for a few minutes and then decided I’d look in one more general area. And there sat the little sucker. Right near where I put an assortment of things from the outside of the door into the house hastily, rather than putting it outside the door where creatures could devour it suddenly.
So, the moral of the story is that if somebody’s nice enough to break off a piece of a jade plant, go home and put it in a pot immediately. Or don’t if you want to drive yourself nuts looking for it the next day and the day after that. Just saying. Up to you.