a growing friendship

I was unaware of the similarities of synapses of the human brain and the root system of a plant. Obviously one is far more advanced than the other and their functions are only similar in the fact that they both move things from one end to the other. In the case of the brain it’s chemical signals while the roots perform the more perfunctory task of providing nutrients but on some level it’s the same.

I should know.

I don’t want to pretend to be an expert in either field but what I can tell you is that a few months back I got a raspberry seed stuck between my molars so I now know a little something about synapses and roots and whatnot. You see, I left the seed there too long and the next thing I knew it actually sprouted. And took root. In my mouth.

Creepy right?

Not as creepy as the fact that after I felt this discomfort and saw what had happened I not only didn’t pick it out of my teeth but I allowed it to stay there and grow.

Creepier right?

Not as creepier as the fact I ate a few pinches of Miracle Gro plant food. Well, not so much ate as put a pinch in between my cheek and gums like a big-leaguer ball player. Tasted like ass but I got to spit and look cool for awhile.

Sleeping was a problem at first due to the fact that it is crazy painful to have a plant grow into your gums. I know you think you can imagine it but you can’t. Crazy painful and it never really gets better. Once it bore through my upper palette and made its way into my nasal cavity you’d think the worse would have been over but let me tell you something… nope. I will admit that once it was through the bone it did grow faster though. It snaked its way up to behind my eyeballs in no time.

That’s where the whole synapses/roots thing comes into play. I know it sounds farfetched but I swear we hooked up somehow. I actually saw or felt the tiny little ends of the raspberry bush roots touching some of my neuroreceptors. Tickled something awful at first.

Did I get superpowers? Not at all and believe you me I’m as disappointed as you are. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe super tree strength or something, but after weeks of excruciating pain the payoff was a little on the lame side.

So what did I get? First, I got the superpower that everything I eat tastes like crap. Or dirt to be more exact. I was thinking it would taste like raspberries but no such luck. I haven’t been able to eat any raspberries yet as I feel that it would be somehow wrong. Not exactly cannibalism but close enough for my liking. I’ve yet to eat any berry to be honest.

So what else did I get? Well I couldn’t exactly call it talking but I was empathetic as hell to a hanging plant outside my front door. Suddenly I knew it knew how much it hurt me to hear my favorite song I Melt With You used in a Burger King commercial. Even I was unaware of how much this nauseated me that the band would allow their song to be used to pitch burgers and french fries, it wasn’t until I was standing there next to my hanging plant that this huge sense of remorse and angst swept over me and then I felt the plant quiver ever so slightly in sympathy. I sort of nodded at it and then asked it a question. Not so much asked as wondered it to myself and felt it answer me.

I’d always wondered why it never grew well. I watered it and took care of it but it was always on the verge of dying. It never got full and green and never flowered.

Turns out that it keeps looking over the edge of the pot and seeing the big drop to the ground and thinks to itself “this can’t be right”. I laughed and tried to explain that everything is ok but every time it sways in the wind it knows that it’s not in the ground and its unnatural and can’t quite work up to blooming. When I thought about it I couldn’t find any fault in the logic so I forgave my hanging plant for being a tremendous underachiever.

And that’s really the only powers I got for allowing a raspberry bush to grow inside my head. It has the common decency not to sprout outside my head or try to grow leaves out my ears so I see no reason to evict it. It seems content to live raspberry-less inside my skull and share a higher consciousness with me so I guess we’re stuck with each other.

A superpower would have been nice though.