Meet Sprouty. He is a lima bean, lovingly sprouted and planted in a tissue-paper decorated juice container by one Miss M.

Prior to Sprouty, my success with plants was minimal. Taxman would love to personally regale each and every one of you with the sad embellished tale of Zoe. She was an aloe plant I bought to decorate our first apartment. I did not realize that Zoe was essentially a cactus. I killed her with love overwatering. (At this point in the story, Taxman will turn to me and say, “Murderer!”)

Last year, Miss M attempted this very same project. It did not go well. There was beanicide, on the way home, no less.

I applied my Lessons Learned* and carried Sprouty home myself. Miss M offers reminders for watering. I do it every 2-3 days.

But here’s the rub: a flourishing, although leaning, bean sprout, attracting bugs** (fruit flies? whatever they are–ew, they are in my house! in my kitchen!) and nowhere to put it. No garden. No yard. Just a preschooler very attached to school projects. In fact every scrap of paper she brings home, as well as the ones she produces here six days a week. I have learned, the hard way, that winnowing must happen when she is absent or unconscious or watching Super Why!

Taxman votes for a slow kill, withholding water. I think it might be better to rend the Sprouty-Miss M bond all at once. I just don’t know if I have the guts.

Could anyone use a lima bean sprout?

* Why, yes, I have worked for the government; why do you ask?

** Just to clarify, I have no issue with insects in general. Outside they do good work. But I don’t want them near my food.

Oh, and I have no idea why I have assigned genders/names to plants. I don’t mean it in a cute, Martha Stewart-y way. At all. ‘Cause ew, worse than the bugs.