Thursday, January 16, 2025

My brother, the plant influencer

    "You're just a goddamn plant influencer!" some rando on the internet accused my brother. 

    For the record, my little brother has a kelly green thumb, and he's pretty active in the online plant forums, sharing his indoor-grown potted olive trees, his giant poinsettia, and his 7-foot tall (2.1 m) fiddlehead fern that he grew from a mere 18" (46 cm) tall. 

    Paul wasn't bothered and just thought it was funny. A plant influencer?  Hell of an insult, right? I laughed when he told me about it and wondered what set the guy off.   

    I searched Amazon and found the following T-shirt, and had it sent to my brother.


    I didn't say who it was from, figuring he'd get the joke and know who sent it.

    But weeks went by, and no texts asking me if I'd sent him the shirt, no FB posts, nothing.

    So, finally, I texted him:

Hey, did you ever get a T-shirt in the mail that you weren't expecting?

Lol yes

    Then the phone rang, and Paul was laughing. "They sent me a shirt, and I thought it was a scam. Someone sends you something you didn't order, and they include a barcode, and you scan it, and it blows up your phone or something."

    "A scam?  Why would you think that?"

    Paul started laughing harder, "because it's the ugliest shirt I've ever seen."

    It was hard not to laugh along, but I was utterly flummoxed. The shirt I’d ordered was kind of attractive - I didn’t think anyone would describe it as ugly. "What shirt did they send you?!?" I asked.

    At this point, Paul was wheezing with laughter, and it was almost hard to understand him. "It's a picture of a ripped werewolf," and then he said something about a kitten.

    "Whut? Can you send me a picture?" I asked. A moment later, he texted me the following image:


    "Mom and Sean are looking at me like I've got two heads," he said, still laughing, then called to them, "It's my sister." Then to me, "It's dinnertime, and I need to go."  

By this point, I was crying with laughter, so I texted him a picture of the shirt he was supposed to get, and he texted back, "That is MUCH BETTER than the one I got."

    We hung up, and then, because my husband and daughter were looking at me as if I'd lost my mind, I explained. Chris discovered there was a whole line of ugly werewolf T-shirts, one of which said, "Lock up your wives, the ALPHA is here!"  We started joking about sending him werewolf shirts on purpose.

    After dinner, I talked to Paul again, and he confirmed that if he'd received the plantfluencer shirt, he'd have at least known it was someone he knew and would have asked who sent it to him.

    The story has a happy ending. Amazon refunded me for the shirt and didn't demand we return it, and I just ordered another plant influencer shirt for Paul. I wonder what shirt they'll send this time?  Probably the right one, but ... I can't help but hope he gets another ridiculous T-shirt.   


No comments:

Post a Comment

Neither spam nor mean comments are allowed. I'm the sole judge of what constitutes either one, and any comment that I consider mean or spammy will be deleted without warning or response.