Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 January 2004 17:29:52
It came is a small cardboard box, approximately 3 by 2 by 1 inch, with all the instructions required to grow a high-speed bonsi. All that was required was a seed. My brother smiled at it, placed it to one side and got on with the unwrapping of more exciting presents... or were they?
After the excitment of Christmas had past, I received an e-mail from my sister-in-law regarding the gift I had given. It's steady amusment value had outlived the mini remote-control car and mountains of chocolate.
"Dear Tracy...
Thought you might be amused...
he has started his Bonsai potato."
That's right, folks, I gave him a bonsi potato kit... none of this waiting around years for a stilly little tree to grow. All you have to do is fish in the bottom of your veg box and pull out the most 'past it' potato you have, leave it to sprout and prune to shape.
However, the amusing thing was not that my bro had started growing his bonsi, but that his wife was determined to use it to wind him up; her e-mail continued:
"At work this lunchtime someone found a potato in a box which was well bonsaied- all wrinkly, with lots of mini potatoes growing, and shoots on it. I'm going to take it home tonight, and swap it with the one that is there currently, and see how long it takes him to spot it!"
I did wonder what a sort of person keeps a potato in a box in the office of an IT company, but I kept quiet about that and simply requested to know the reaction when the unusually-high-speed growth was noted by the zen enthusiast.
Today I recieved the brief but informative message:
"I think the main reaction was that he was scared I had thrown his potato out!
He was amused too, when I let him know where his potato was. I think he had been "being the potato" too much!"
Now I'm starting to worry that my brother has turned into a zen potato.