You Might Be A CP Nut!

[rsivertsen]

I may have posted this before, but it's worth another look. ;)

These are actual things that I have heard from some of the spouses and girlfriends of my fellow CP enthusiasts over the years.

Signs that you might be a “Carnivorous Plant Nut”

You have more pictures of carnivorous plants than members of your own family.

You know more plants by their scientific name than by their common name.

You’ve traveled thousands of miles, and multiple time zones, to visit a bog, but haven’t seen a relative 20 miles across town in months because it’s too far to drive.

You slam on the brakes while driving 65 MPH because you thought you saw a new bog within walking distance of the road.

You rent a boat in a well known fishing lake, and don’t even have a fishing pole.

You’ve spent more on your greenhouse than on your family car.

You've slept in your car because the nearest motel was too far a drive from the bog.

You've pulled sphagnum, bog muck and decayed peat out from your navel, between your toes, and from under your fingernails (before a social event.)

You've swatted a mosquito on your arm, and carefully placed its remains in a small piece of paper, and put it in your pocket to feed to your plants later. (I must confess that I've done this myself in conducting an experiment to see if some Drosera responded differently to the iron rich hemoglobin of engorged mosquitoes. I did get some pretty strange looks, and plenty of “elbow room” while waiting in line for a theater!)

You can cite the dates of acquisition, the precise locales, within GPS accuracy, of their exact location of origin, and the scientific details of each plant that you have in your collection, but can’t remember your own anniversary, nor the birthdays of your own spouse and other family members. (Ouch!)

You can’t read the newspaper without your reading glasses, but can spot a new pitcher plant hybrid variant at 100 yards (100 M), at dusk, from the corner of your unaided eye, doing 65 MPH on a country road.

There is dried sphagnum in your car.

You have sphagnum from at least three different places, and at least two countries that you’ve never been to before.

You open an expensive $50.00+ bottle of Champaign in celebration of the germination of some seeds, but get your wife a $10.00 box of wine for her birthday, (a day late, on your way back from the bogs, at a convenient supermarket, that was on sale.)

Your car contains boots, chest waders, inflatable boats, oars, zip-lock plastic bags and containers, waterproof pens and labels, GPS gear, compasses and maps of uninhabited areas, and know exactly where every item is, but you have to look for the legal paperwork when stopped by police, or the emergency equipment required to repair a flat tire.

You bring your wife or girlfriend to bogs and swamps for a romantic encounter

Your car gets stuck in the deep swamp mud and or sand, and you ask the rescue team, who knows you on a first name basis, to bring you deeper into the bog so you can get to that special plant before pulling you out.

You bow and pray while facing Borneo.

You consider naming your children after some of your favorite plants.

You know the difference between New Zealand, Chilean, and Michigan sphagnum, by taste.

You get a small piece of a dried peat pot in your mouth, and before spitting it out, you sit down, cross your legs, caress it across your pallet, look upward, and mutter softly: "German, ... mountain, ... 1986, a very good year, low in boron ion content, … pH=5.2, not too acidic, … well balanced, … full bodied. …."

You’ve been in a heated debate over the correct pronunciation of a plant.

You have at least three CP buddies on speed dial, but have to search for the phone number of your kid's pediatrician.

You get lost in a big city mass transit system, but know every detail of a 100 sq. mile CP bog forest.

Your “dream vacation” and honeymoon includes visits to bogs and swamps.

The first order of business when arriving at a new city is to locate the nearest CP bogs.

Your idea of having a “wet dream” involves being waist deep in an exotic new bog.

You arrive in New York City for the first time in your life, and when you get to the car rental place, you study a map to chart how long it would take to get to the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

You climb out of a heavily wooded area, dehydrated, arms, hands and face swollen with bug bites and stings, bloody thorn scratches, nettles and poison ivy, legs bleeding from climbing through a dense thickets, missing one of your favorite shoes, or boots in the muck, missing your expensive sunglasses, reeking with swamp muck on your torn clothes, after hours of near and total exhaustion, but you’re happy and having a great day because you just found a new plant!

You’ve been mistaken for having a religious experience, “speaking in tongues”, or an epileptic seizure while describing your last visit to a bog , or been asked to take a sobriety test before driving home.

Tow trucks have stopped near your car and asked if you need a tow when you come out of the woods. Other drivers stop and ask if you need directions or help.

You buy a house with primary consideration to its proximity to a good CP site instead of the quality of the school district.

People claim to have snapped their fingers in your face without you even blinking when you discover a new CP site.

You have a greenhouse with every pane of glass in good condition, but have reinforced packing tape on a cracked window in your living room.

Your greenhouse is warmer in mid-winter than your living room.

You can't afford to have "that operation" but have recently returned from another trip to an exotic CP site.

You have redwood and cedar baskets for your plants, on stainless steel benches, but eat out of old plastic Cool-Whip bowls with plastic spoons and forks.

You use an old satellite dish for growing plants.

You sterilize old pots and potting mixes, but use your t-shirt to wipe off a spoon when it falls on the floor during dinner, and continue to finish your soup with it.

You look at your kid's college fund and realize that you could mount a month long expedition deep into uncharted Heliamphora territory with that kind of money, and explain to your kids that “there is no shame in honest ‘Blue-collar’ work.”

[calek]

Unfortunately, I don't have even a quarter of these things :'(. IT MUST BE AWESOME TO BE A CP NUT! XD

[alexa]

Thats' funny, I'm sure that I fit at least a couple of them.

Alex.

[Peabody]

Re before a social event. If you were a complete CP nut you would not bother removing the sphagnum moss etc from between your toes, in your navel etc before showing up at a social event.

[Sebulon]

When I quickly counted, about 12 of those fit me quite well.