Choose Your Own Adventure: Starting a Garden

Passage 1

Congratulations on your decision to become a person who has a garden! Everybody loves this sort of person. Unfortunately, now you have to start a garden. Where are you going to put it?

a) On the balcony of your third-floor apartment. Go to Passage 2.

b) In your back yard (i.e., the six-by-nine-foot plot of dead grass that is—as recently revealed by the melted snow—littered with fossilized dog turds). Go to Passage 3.

Passage 2

It’s not a balcony, you fool. It’s a fire escape. This is a serious safety violation.

a) Try again. Return to Passage 1.

b) You abide by no law. Choose to plant it on the fire escape anyway. Go to Passage 3.

Passage 3

What will you grow?

a) You can’t remember the last time your partner bought you flowers, so you may as well start growing them for yourself. Go to Passage 4.

b) You live for a garnish. Herbs, it is. Go to Passage 5.

c) You’re more afraid of pesticides than of failure. Get started on that vegetable garden. Go to Passage 6.

Passage 4

What with all the flowers, you’ve now got a bee problem. Except you can’t even call it a “problem” because they’re going extinct, or whatever. How do you handle this?

a) You read that bees can’t stand neem, mint, or cloves, so you squeeze in an herb garden. Go to Passage 5.

b) What the hell else can you do?! Extermination is not an option. You’re not a monster; you’re a gardener. You’re also a beekeeper now. Go to Passage 5.

Passage 5

Oops! You’ve accidentally planted nepeta, a.k.a. catnip. This becomes clear as cats begin to congregate on your fire escape. They’ve scratched the screen right out of your window. They’re high. They’re mating. What now?

a) You don’t want them to have too much catnip on an empty stomach, so you start leaving out milk and tuna. An odor grows. Go to Passage 6.

b) You consult the Internet for a list of things that cats hate (being surprised by cucumbers, sustained eye-contact, those who love them the most, et cetera). Ultimately, you settle on cayenne and decide to mulch with the stuff. Go to Passage 7.

Passage 6

You watch as, little by little, seeds sprout into seedlings, growing bigger and bigger with each passing day. You rise with the sun and gaze out the window, marvelling at your godlike work. And it was good! Until, that is, you awake to a barren hellscape of empty holes just one week before you’re supposed to throw a “garden party”—its sole purpose to show off how fucking nurturing and patient you are. This leaves you no choice but to buy a bunch of discounted, half-dead plants, throw them in the ground, and pray for a miracle. How do you prevent this disaster from happening again?

a) You suspect squirrels, so you place a wreath of peanuts on the fire escape in the hope that they’ll eat it and leave your plants alone. Go to Passage 7.

b) You set up a wildlife cam to keep watch. Go to Passage 8.

Passage 7

Uh-oh! You opened the window and forgot to close it. The squirrels have infiltrated your apartment and ransacked the place. What the hell?

a) Repairing the screen is futile, never mind expensive. You bring one of the stray cats inside for security and name her Oregano. Go to Passage 8.

b) You’re Mother Nature’s bitch. Surrender yourself. Go to Passage 10.

Passage 8

Driven by a sense of impending doom, you decide that now is the time to harvest. You pick some vegetables and turn this bounty into a meal for the ones you love. You’re so proud that you could cry. You do cry. You wipe away your tears and realize that you’ve forgotten all about that cayenne pepper. Your eyes are on fire. Now what?

a) In a panic, you splash the bowl of milk you put out for the stray cats all over your face, aiming for your eyeballs. Go to urgent care.

b) Eyes closed, you run for the door and smash into a beehive. Go to the E.R.

Passage 9

Exhausted and wounded, you sit in the waiting room for so long that you start seeing the humor in the situation. You remember the show “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Is that still a thing? You don’t know. Anyway, you open the wildlife-cam app on your phone to check this evening’s footage and see some strange woman in your garden. And there’s your partner, standing beside this sexy stranger, gesturing around your garden like it’s all his. Now he’s picking a flower for her. Your flower! How do you feel?

a) Hungry for revenge. You look up poisonous plants. Go to jail.

b) You haven’t eaten, so you’re just plain hungry. You stop by the grocery store on your way home and pay twelve dollars for a head of iceberg lettuce. This suddenly seems reasonable. Go to Passage 10.

Passage 10

You pluck a celery stalk from the ground, fix yourself a Bloody Mary, and sit on your fire escape, alone. Well, not alone. You’ve got the bees and the cats and the squirrels. You’re basically Snow White now. You take your gardening shears and give yourself bangs because, whatever—they’ll grow back. ♦