Doesn't the name Botany just scream excitement? I wish I could say I understood the excitement it stirs up in people, but I am impotent to do so. For I harbor a fear of Botany, a fear that I cannot conquer. Maybe it is the fear of the unknown, or the fear that a plant may one day eat me, but it probably has to do with the fact that I would rather pluck out my eyes with toothpicks (and plucking out my eyes with toothpicks is something I don't take too lightly) than pursue a career in a Botany related field.

I once knew a Botanist - he was a crazy, sadistic, and devious man who dreamed incessantly of ruling the world through his plants and not his cats like I do. He was an impossible man to understand, for he knew only of his plants and did not want to know of anything beyond that scope. He lived, breathed, and died for his plants.

He was affectionately known as the "Botanist from Hell." And, indeed, he was. Many a regular student passed through Dr. Spencers' class but, I'm sad to say, not a one would ever see daylight again. They had all been transformed into plant loving freaks! But not I, I'm afraid. I just couldn't begin to comprehend why and how anybody could honestly care about the stamen and cortex of a plant. I mean, where did all the baseball come in?

The atmosphere of Dr. Spencers's (?) botany class was in many ways similar to the geometry class depicted in the movie classic Better Off Dead. Everybody was eager to learn how one plant was more important than anything else in the world and that if one really wanted to make a difference in the world, it was inevitable that one would have to be a botanist. 'Not me!' I would scream as I tap danced in the aisle. 'I'm only taking your class because I was having severe psychological problems when I signed up for classes!' While everybody else studied and did their homework and assigned reading, I searched for Spencers's (?) real motive behind teaching botany. I fooled him! I fooled them all! In the end, my relentless researching revealed only one thing to me. Dr. Spencer was the most insane man on the face of the planet, if not in all the cosmos's (? - I hate apostrophes).

Anyways, it took Dr. Spencer (above and on the left) nearly the entire semester to realize he had not reeled me into his tangled web of deceit. It was then that he made me study and write a report on polyphenoloxidases! Oh, the agony I experienced from studying the intricacies of a pointless enzyme (I still have recurring nightmares of an enzyme spanking me)!

Unsatisfied with my hilarious look into my experiment dealing with a polyphenoloxidase enzyme, Dr. Spencer would soon be having me research extensively on anything related to botany. Then he made me write a paper, The Many Articles and Facets of Botany, on the horrible experience.

In the end, however, when he figured out I could not be changed he just decided to give me a less than flattering grade which soured my taste for college. We are where we are and I am where I am. Thank you Botany.

A woman on the brink of death - she needs your help
Take me down to the Paradise City (where the grass is green and the girls are pretty)!