When I was recently at my mom’s house she asked if I could do her a simple favor. Of course, I agreed without knowing what it was and managed to make a huge mistake. It’s not that my mom was asking for anything extremely important or difficult, she just wanted me to watch an indoor plant for her. You see, my mom had been overwhelmed with all of her tasks at home for a few months. She noticed that her indoor plants were struggling without receiving adequate care. She asked if I could take her oldest, largest plants off her hands and pointed to a huge viney thing in the corner of the room. Of course, I agreed. I brought the plant home and almost immediately managed to kill it. It turns out, this plant is not a big fan of indoor air quality control systems. When I got home I put it in my window and walked away. I had no idea that the overhead air vents would blast it with ice cold AC and quickly destroy the plant. Every day, as the outdoor temperature rose my central cooling system worked a little harder to keep my indoor air cool and dry. These were obviously the wrong air temperature characteristics for this plant to thrive. I started noticing brown spots on the leaves as they swayed in the breeze from my central cooling system. After a week of living beneath the air ductwork, the plant was effectively gone. I carefully broke the news to my mom and she was exasperated with my HVAC disaster. For the past 20 years, this plant was kept far away from the air vents at my mom’s house. Give it to me for one week, and watch me kill it.
