I got so sick of taking care of my farm, day after day. Those ungrateful plants. Every single day I had to walk outside and turn the hose on. And they were never happy to see me, always sagging down, so dramatic, like a whole night without water has really taken it out of them. That would be like me pretending to be dying in bed every morning until somebody came in and gave me breakfast. Do you know how many times somebody’s done that for me? Zero times.

But I had to do it for these plants every day. And I would get out there and as soon as the hose started and the water hit the plants, all of these mosquitoes, thousands of them, would get woken up by the water and turn into this cloud of pests that would fly immediately right over to me. I’d try to shoo them away, but it was absolutely futile. Even if I were to constantly rub both of my arms, I’d still miss three or four mosquitoes every time. And I don’t even have two free arms, I only have one, because the other arm is busy working the hose. Hey plants, why are you always letting the mosquitoes hang out anyway? It’s like, what’s my daily reward for feeding you, getting a million bug bites?

So finally I had enough. I let a day go by where I didn’t even go outside. Take that plants. Maybe you can get your stupid mosquito friends to go find you some water. But it rained that day. And as the rain poured down, the plants all stood up really straight, straight to the sky, as if to say, “Thank you mother Earth for feeding us!” and then the wind kept blowing them so they were all facing me from the kitchen window, taunting me, going, “Ha! We don’t need you Rob, you and your pathetic hose, you loser.”

And I thought to myself, drink up boys. Every farmer knows that the rain’s got to stop eventually. But it rained that whole week. Sheets of rain. How else can you describe heavy rain? It’s always in sheets. Or in buckets. You never hear any interesting new ways of describing a storm. Nobody ever says anything cool, like a five-alarm rain. No, they always say five-alarm chili. Why not a five-alarm rain?

Finally it stopped raining. I woke up on that first dry day and pressed my face and hands against the window. Are they dead yet? I hoped and wished that I’d gaze upon empty dried out husks, but all of the plants were fine. They looked better than ever. And the wind was moving in such a way that it looked like they were all dancing. And I could hear them singing, taunting me, “You idiot! It’s been raining for a week straight. The ground’s supersaturated with water. We’ve got plenty to drink. Come out here and have some water. There’s enough to go around! Hahaha!”

I was so pissed. But I knew that I just needed to be patient. Drought’s coming boys, drought’s right around the corner. I stared out at the farm and pressed my hands against the window even harder. It was probably a little too hard. I could feel the glass start to bend, so I released some of the pressure. But just some. I was still pressing against it pretty hard. I thought, all I’ve got to do is wait this out.

And sure enough, one day turned into two days and four days later, not a single drop of rain, those plants started looking a little thirstier than usual. On day five I walked outside. The garden tried it’s best to act like nothing was wrong, but it was obvious what was going down. All of those bugs were starting to make holes in all of their dried out leaves. None of the plants were standing up straight. Flowers were wilting. I could tell that some of the smaller plants wanted to cave, to apologize to me and beg for water, but the bigger ones remained defiant. “We don’t need you!” they cried, “There’ll be more rain! You’ll see!”

So I walked right into the garden and I started weeding. After all of that rain there were a ton of tiny weeds. I plucked out all of the weeds and my plants were having a great time of the whole thing. I’d pick out a weed that was really close to one of the plants and the plant started mocking me, “Oh yeah, that’s it right there. Oh yeah, just a little to the left. Yeah, that’s the spot,” and all of the other plants would laugh. Keep laughing boys.

Then I got a bunch of pots and some soil. And I replanted all of the weeds. The plants got real quiet after that. Then I got out the hose. Those plants had been so busy having their fun they forgot just how thirsty they all were. And I turned on the hose real slowly. I brought it to my lips and took a nice big sip. After my drink I started watering the weeds. And I came back the next day and did the same thing.

After a couple of days my farm looked terrible. All of the plants, they couldn’t even stand up anymore. They were all losing their color, fast. One day it looked like it might have rained, but it was just cloudy, and the sun broke through before even a drop came down. Finally the plants broke down. “Please! We’re sorry! Give us some water! We’ll do anything!” And I said “OK, sure thing boys.” And I got out the hose and pretended like I was going to feed them, but then I said, “Just kidding,” and I went to water the potted weeds, which, by this point were bigger than any weeds had ever gotten before. And they were grateful for it. Their whole lives, it had always been simply whatever they could get, a few drops of water here and there, if the plants weren’t using it. This was a different story.

Right before the plants died, I went outside with some lighter fluid in a bucket. I went out and splashed it all over the farm. The plants must have been so deliriously thirsty that they couldn’t tell what it was. Those stupid bastards, started sucking it right in, right inside. By the time they all started choking, it was too late. I struck a match and it went up all at once, combustion from the inside out.

Farming was cool, but the whole thing got out of control. Next year I’m going to pave the whole backyard and make a basketball court. I was going to say a volleyball court, but I went to the Sports Authority to check out volleyballs, and I couldn’t help but thinking they were all looking at me funny, like not even really caring if I bought them or not, imagining to themselves that I’m not even good at volleyball anyway. Stupid balls. I came back with a tiny pin and, while pretending to check them out, poked a bunch of really small holes. They wouldn’t deflate right away, but they’d fall flat by the end of the day, and the manager would find them, scratch his head, chalk it up to a bad day at the volleyball factory, and dump the whole supply in the trash.