It ain’t easy being a shrub.

The droughts in the summer, long days of baking in the sun and the constant thirst that ten minutes under the hose at night can never even touch.  The snow in the winter, heavy weight that only gets heavier as it turns to ice, dragging your branches down into a mangled mess.

It’s a rough life, but I’ve done my best.  I’ve sucked at the dry earth and held on tight to my leaves each summer.  I’ve shivered away the winters and done my best to pull my branches back into shape with the coming of spring.  I did all this and I didn’t whimper once.  I didn’t even complain when those kids moved in and started picking at my leaves.  At least it was fun to hear them laughing while they did it.

That’s all done now.  I can no longer be silent.  This creature…this, this….dog….is too much.

Five times a day the door opens, and five times a day that creature comes bounding out.  And what is the first thing he does?  He pees all over me!  Listen people, I get it.  This is a part of nature.  I’ve had bird droppings falling on me since I was a sprout.  But do you have any idea the acid level in that dog’s pee?  It’s killing me.  Literally.

It gets worse.  For some reason, the beast has decided that his back is itchy and his incompetent paws can”t reach around to scratch it.  His solution?  He sits right down, wiggles as close to me as he can, and then throws himself backwards and writhes around, breaking branches and knocking off leaves willy nilly.  I now have a dog-sized hollow in one side, and it doesn’t improve my looks.

It’s time for this to end.  Enough is enough.  I am not a violent shrub, nor do I mean to alarm anyone, but perhaps this short story will help you see the situation.

Once upon a time there was a shrub.  He lived with his mortal enemy, the dread hound.  The dread hound attacked the peaceful shrub over and over until the shrub became desperate.  Seeing that no one was going to do anything about it, the shrub decided to take matters into his own branches.  All one night, the shrub worked at pulling his roots free from the ground.  In the morning, when the dread hound came out for his daily bullying, the shrub was ready.  He whipped his root around, beating the dread hound around the ears, until the hound ran off yelping.  The shrub gave chase, pursuing the dread hound around the house to the spot where the creature hid himself in terror under the swing set.  There, the shrub stood watch over the trembling dread hound until nightfall.  Then, of course, the shrub died because shrubs can’t live for long with their roots out of the ground.  But he died happy, and his last words were, “It was worth it.”  The people were heartbroken when they found him, for, even though they were grateful for how suddenly well-behaved their hound was, they could never replace the hole in their landscaping left by that lovely shrub.

This is not a threat.  Merely a rough sketch of one possible future.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Just don’t wait too long.