Why I seriously have a phobia of plants

At the INETA party during TechEd 09, I told my “Uncle Jimmy Stories” for nearly 4 hours. Since I’ve had quite a few people ask me to blog these stories (and even more ask me to share photos), I’d thought I’d share my “kick-off” story of my childhood – why I (seriously) have a phobia of plants . Yes, ordinary household plants cause my blood pressure to skyrocket, and even the thought of just watering a plant makes me want to have a root canal instead. Here’s why…

Uncle Jimmy had a garden when I was little.

Now I need to pause for a moment to explain Uncle Jimmy. When I was 7, he moved into the shed behind the house, where he slept on a waterbed that would freeze in the winter. We had to run an extension cord from the house to the shed, so he could sleep on top of an electric blanket.

As I said, Uncle Jimmy had a garden when I was little.

He decided to experiment with a new way to grow the plants and vegetables. Now, my guess as an adult would be he tried to use oil. But oh no, that would be way too easy and simple.

Electricity. He tried to shock! the plants and vegetables into growth. He ran electric wires criss-cross throughout the garden. I was told as a little child (4 or 5 years old) to never, ever go near the garden or much less let the plants touch me, or I could get electrocuted. I must have seen him water the plants without turning off the electricity as a small child. Why else would I rather a root canal than to pour water into a little plant pot.

And to this day, plants stress me out.

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 08, 2009
  Have you read Huxleys "Brave New World"? I can't stop thinking about the "conditioning part" reading this article....

• Anonymous
  June 09, 2009
  no, i haven't. Should i be afraid? =D

• Anonymous
  June 09, 2009
  I guess that test swag they sent us, the potted weeds that I planted in the team room, must have been upsetting. Belated apologies. :) Luckily, it died nearly as quickly as it grew.

• Anonymous
  June 09, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 09, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 10, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 11, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 11, 2009
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• Anonymous
  June 13, 2009
  couple of days ago was sitting on leather couch of my analysts office & remarked green plant for first time, why?

• Anonymous
  June 18, 2009
  You just haven't found your inner plant. :)

• Anonymous
  June 18, 2009
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• Anonymous
  June 19, 2009
  He does seem interesting, but I misread the story the first time through and thought it said something about watering the plants without turning off the electricity and without using a water hose....

• Anonymous
  June 19, 2009
  Im sorry, this is totally sad, plants are awesome, and help ground us folk who are near electronics all the time.  You probably stress the plants out with your fear, which is then returned back to you.

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2009
  Odd I thought I'd gone to a technical site! Why is a link to this center stage when I go to msdn.microsoft.com?

• Anonymous
  June 30, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 30, 2009
  now that would make sense, but sadly (sadly for me that is), that's wasn't the case.