Saratoga News

One person's pet is another's geranium

By Mary Ann Cook

I hate geraniums, so when I saw the words "Goodbye California and Your Damn Geraniums" on a car leaving the state at the California-Nevada border, I knew it would become my all-time favorite bumper sticker. That slogan seemed to say it all.

In California you flat out can't kill geraniums, and if you tire of them, that's tough. If they've been planted in a particular place at any time since this state was a republic, they'll stay right where they were launched and grow bigger--much bigger.

You can hack them down for all you're worth. Don't kid yourself. In a few weeks, they'll poke a sprig up again. It's decidedly a losing battle. Their staying power is incredible.

It's the same awe-inspiring tenacity that is at work with those weeds you see growing out of cracks in cement. You can't believe they have enough nutrition down there to exist on, much less run a thriving business.

But, impossible as it may seem, there are those among us who admire geraniums, seek them out, encourage their growth. Even though I consider it a character defect, some of those who harbor such abhorrent behavior can be appealing in other areas of their lives.

Geraniums just go to show that one person's anathema is another person's pursuit. I find it unbelievable that anyone cultivates, coaxes and even nurtures to health the grungy geranium. The creatures are woody, gnarled and unkempt and smell awful. Their only redeeming quality is that they're bright and colorful.

But, viewed in the larger picture, it's a good thing we don't all prize the same things. Otherwise we'd all crave the same mates, and a large percentage of the species would be permanently put out of business. One person's grotesque can be another person's beloved.

I had a graphic example of the vagaries of the process of selection very recently. I was keeping company with a 9-year-old over the weekend, a grandson. He was set to be picked up in a couple hours but decided he really needed to get home more hastily.

So he called his father to retrieve him earlier than the appointed time. He explained to me carefully the reason that necessitated his accelerated exit, a reason that was designed to tug at my heartstrings.

He missed his rat.

Yes, I was dumped for a rat. That may be one of the bitterest rejections in my history. You have to have a mammoth ego to combat a rejection like that. I'm working on it now. Maybe I was a tad too harsh about those geraniums.

Mary Ann Cook is a Saratoga News columnist. Artwork is by Los Gatan Jerry McLaughlin.

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