Two weeks ago I was carrying my African violet from the living room into the kitchen for its weekly watering when gravity suddenly and inevitably betrayed me.

The plant was already a little lopsided from a couple of previous encounters with my dog and my husband (they both say “accidents”, but I’m not so sure). The lopsidedness combined with the fact that I was only using one hand to carry the pot balanced in its saucer, plus my general overall lack of coordination, was too much to account for and gravity was like “you know what? No. You need to learn a lesson. Now your favorite plant is root-ball up on the floor and there’s dirt everywhere. How’s THAT for a lesson? Don’t you feel smarter now? You should. YOU’RE WELCOME”…

…which is a long-winded way of saying that the plant fell on the floor. And also that I may have issues with anthropomorphizing natural phenomena. Among other things.

Anyway.

So the plant landed on its side and it broke a whole bunch of leaves. I ended up cutting at least a third of the leaves off because they were just going to die at that point anyway. I figured I’d probably lose the few flowers that the plant had recently set buds for, and I was fairly convinced that I might in fact lose the whole plant seeing as how African violets are supposed to be so picky and intolerant to trauma. Turns out I was wrong about the flowers, because the violet bloomed a few days later. Huzzah!

Then yesterday, I was moving the violet out of the way (MUCH MORE CAREFULLY…see, gravity? I DO learn!) on the kitchen counter when I noticed that not only was the little bastard still blooming but it had in fact grown a whole bunch of new leaves and set a crapload of new flower buds!

I can’t decide if the plant is a masochist that thrives on abuse, or if it has decided it’s sick of us weird pink two-legged monsters trying to kill it all the time so it’s beefing up to try and end us.

Either way, I feel a little bit weird around it now.

I fail at picture-taking you can’t really see the proliferation of new buds and leaves. So basically this photo is completely pointless. LIKE LIFE.

PS: I DID try to warn you yesterday that I might start writing about my houseplants. I’m just saying. No refunds.