Sept. 6: The carnivorous plant has a change of heart

When I was a kid, I owned all 12 volumes of the Charlie Brown ‘Cyclopedias. The complete set looked like this:

Man, I loved those books and I learned a LOT from them. In Grade 4, when Mr. Poilievre asked us what the most important muscle in our body was, I was the only one who knew it was the heart. In Grade 8, I knew the difference between weather and climate before Mr. David explained it to us. I also learned that the cells in our fingernails are the exact same cells in a bull’s horns (explain that, Mr. Darwin) and that the planet Saturn is so light that it would float on water.

To be fair, some of the facts in the Charlie Brown ‘Cyclopedias have since been disproven. Volume 1: Your Body claims that different parts of the tongue pick up different sorts of taste (bitter, salty, sweet) and this has since been rebutted. Taste buds are all over the tongue. If you’re being forced to eat mustard, you can’t escape the taste by only letting it touch the tip of your tongue.

I like peas.

One of those books had a section about plants. It explained that there are many different carnivorous plants but the three most famous ones are the Venus Fly Trap, the Pitcher Plant, and another plant that looks like a green leaf with little goo-covered spines on them. Bugs would land on the goo and the goo would trap them and then they would get eaten. This kind of plant has a long scientific name so I will simplify things and call it the gooey bug-eating plant. (I should note that I just found a video on youtube about deadly carnivorous plants. The plant I am referencing above is called a sundew, but I like gooey bug-eating plant better.)

We want Domino's

For the most part, plants are awesome low-maintenance lifeforms. They require sunlight, air, water, and nutrients, which they can get from the soil. They are not needy. They don’t need you to talk to them on the phone for eight hours a day, like this girl I used to date when I was in my early 20s, and they make oxygen too. Plants kind of exist to be eaten. Animals eat them and people should eat them too but lots of us prefer eating McDonalds and garbage instead of plants and this is probably why so many of us are fat and why we are dying of cancer and diabetes. Not AIDS though. You don’t get AIDS from not eating plants. You get it from bumsex.

Anyway, the most famous carnivorous plant of all time is the Venus Fly Trap. Which looks like this:

Dayum, Shteevie's on fire today

Ahahaha. I will stop being a comedian and show you a real picture of Venus Fly Traps.

Venus Fly Traps on Black Friday

You can buy Venus Fly Traps from pet stores. Supposedly, they act as fly deterrents. This would be an awesome thing for people like me who live in rural areas. That’s because in the summer, flies find their way into my apartment. They then go buzzing around at 3 in the morning when I am trying to sleep. You can’t kill flies with your hands or magazines or bricks or Dolly Parton’s severed head. You have to use a fly swatter. I am not sure why but there is probably a scientific reason for it. Maybe fly swatters move faster. Maybe the other objects emit a warning breeze. Maybe flies just have really fast reflexes.

It was a bad year for flies in my apartment and that is why next year, I will buy a Venus Fly Trap. I will put it right beside my sink so all the fruit flies that hang around my apples can get totally genocided. I don’t care if we wipe out a million fruit flies even though, evolutionary speaking, human beings aren’t any more special than fruit flies. I would not be happy if a million people were suddenly wiped out (even if they were all Vancouver Canucks fans) but this is because humans are emotional creatures and emotion trumps logic a lot and this is a good thing but sometimes it’s a bad thing too (like when we buy a new colour TV even though we know we can’t afford it. Or when we eat donuts.)

And so I am hoping that the Venus Fly Trap does not have a change of heart. I do not want it to stop eating flies and start eating Corn Flakes instead. I will eat the Corn Flakes (sometimes with maple syrup) and the Venus Fly Trap can eat the flies so that my life can be as un-irritating as possible, which is basically the only thing we can do to keep us all happy.