I must have the LAZIEST venus fly traps

And here is how I obtained them:

Jen needed to buy plexi-glass. Brandon had a car. And I had an unexplainable desire to go to the Home Depot. So off we went.

On the way there, I had this aching craving for a hot dog. I mentioned to my friends, hey guys, wouldn't it be cool if there was a hot dog cart in the parking lot? As though Fortune herself heard the growling pains of my hungry stomach, we rounded the corner to reach the parking lot and spotted a hot dog cart resting within the brilliant rays of a stunningly purple sunset. Now if there was one day, just one day for each of us, that must have been the day for me to get everything EVERYTHING that I had wished.

I ate a pleasantly buttered bun cuddling a sizzling warm hot dog and made the first left inside the Home Depot: into the gardening section. This had always been my favorite section. Four years ago I had the pleasure of finding a perfectly nurtured ponytail tree, each leaf unfolding and falling to create a most beautiful waterfall of greenery. I named that one John Butts after a man that worked in my mom's office who once gave her a similar plant. This summer in Philadelphia I unexpectedly found a red flower exploding out of six pointed leaves among the mass of plain old crappy hanging plants in another Home Depot flower shop. Much to my sadness, both of these plants began with that certain champagne cork pop and their heads (and flowers) eventually fell off with the fizzle. But I loved them as they were and I still grieve the loss of their pinnacle foliage. But, today , I thought, this is the day when I get everything I wish for.

I had been lucklessly searching for another venus fly trap ever since I was ten years old. On one dreadful day, my venus fly trap decided that it had had its fill of hamburgers and bits of pizza that my brother and I offered it for lunch, and gave up the ghost. But there they were again! Ten years of searching and I had finally gotten another chance! So, after carefully examining each little pot of traps, I chose what I thought would be the most ferocious: these traps looked as though they would lap up hamburgers and eat baby cows for breakfast, they'd swallow a pizza whole before you could even scrape the cheese off the top of the box. These ones would be the killers. And for that they could survive anything.

I am looking at them right now. It has been a few weeks and their virile bodies have come to be a collection of drooping heads, halfway opened traps and dulled spikes around their mouths. I could stick a pen into their gaping pie-holes and write a novel on the insides of their leaves before they could even shut the gap and eat me up. They are too tired to close tight on a moment's notice and too big to snap shut just for the fleeting hope that a fly was caught inside. They haven't eaten in weeks and frankly I am worried. Courtney fed one of them a fly that she caught near the bathroom sink a week ago. Just the other day, that same fly trap turned into a blackened carcass and I had to cut him off before he infected the rest. Is it the plague that they've got? Are they destined to starve without hamburgers and pizza? What can I do now for these gentle giants that could sustain their life and strengthen them for the years to come?

I thought that day was my chance. I thought that Fortune was driving the hot dog cart and compelled me to take that fatal turn into the gardening section with my last five dollars. A rare species, they are. This is my second chance to cultivate them and make them into the people-eating carnivorous plants that they were meant to be.

I look back and wonder how I got into this mess. I wonder why I get so angry at them, why they don't just swallow up the black flies that circle around my room, the ones that tease me into chasing after them with books. Those black flies make me feel stupid and angry. And then the venus fly traps...well, they could be laughing at me just as well. Is it really worth it? Will they ever live up to such expectations? Am I really the chosen one to breed them into the beasts that they were born to be? or was it just one fateful day with a hotdog cart that I could never have again?

Too many questions. Not enough answers. Right now, there is a black fly zinging around my head. It aggressively brushes up against my eyelids every few seconds while keeping feet-ful distance from the carnivorous traps.

Really, I just don't know who is disappointing who and who I should be angry with anymore.