If a guy has a red nose he’s a drunk. If a guy has a red ass he’s chapped all the time. If a guy has a brown nose he’s a butt kisser. If a guy has yellow teeth he has a hygiene problem. If a guy has brown teeth he’s too chummy with the dude with the brown nose. If a guy has a black eye he blocked a punch with his face. If a guy has pinkeye he’s been touching the guy with the brown nose. If a guy has purple toes his shoes are too tight. If a guy has green ears he’s an Irish elf and if he has blue balls he needs to find love. Me? The only colored part I’m looking for is a green thumb.

Gardening should never be confused with yard work. Yard work is done with a rake and your back, gardening is done with a bypass pruner and your brain. As the years roll by, you may find yourself in need of a hobby. Maybe you should consider gardening, shit, you’re probably growing cannabis already so why not take a chance on harvesting some different kind of buds?

Plants are generally easier to grow than kids and if they displease you, you can grab them by the neck and pull them from the ground, a tactic generally frowned upon in parenting circles. I think you’ll find that when you feed the plants in the garden, you’re really be feeding your head. Ya, start out on an early spring morning, as the sun shines down on your pale brow, you can find your happy place. Try roses, try succulents, try hibiscus, try some of those leafy bushes that will turn into hedges and eat the kids’ whiffle balls. Talk to them, tell them about your problems and listen to theirs. Make up the names of them if you want and pretend you know way more about the science of growing than you really do. You may be rewarded with beautiful blooms and if you don’t you can blame it on conspiring circumstances like you do with every other thing you suck at.

I think you’ll be good at this and, like I said, your mind will calcify if you don’t develop some outside interests. Remember, cruising the Internet and drinking from a flask aren’t hobbies, those are the things you do at work.

Anyway, about that green thumb. It is said that a person who spends hours in the garden, pinching (gardening term) spent blooms and getting in touch with the greenery around them will at some point find thumb and forefinger stained with the chlorophyll that gives plants its earthy hue. It is also said that when an aspiring gardener becomes proficient to the point where more things grow in his garden than die, he has a green thumb, a concept borrowed from centuries past when an especially skilled miller was said to have a “golden thumb.” But a far more entertaining explanation of the green thumb comes from the British who will tell you that all great things and all worthwhile fairy tales were conceived within the British Isles. The legend goes that long ago and far away, a king liked peas, a lot. He had serfs shelling the disgusting little vegetables night and day, and as an incentive to shell your ass off and to satisfy his appetite for peas, he would reward the best sheller with untold riches. That sheller would ultimately be identified by his green thumb.

Personally, I will shell for no man and if the cost of the green thumb is the consumption of the little emerald orbs I shall keep my pasty white digits as they are.