Q: What kind of plant is that?
A: It’s a coffee plant.
Q: Are the leaves supposed to be half-brown like that?
A: I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to look that up.
Q: How often do you water it?
A: Sometimes.
Q: Can you be more specific?
A: Oh, sorry. I thought that was one of those “always / sometimes / never” questions.
Q: Seriously, how many days a week do you water your coffee plant?
A: Stop nagging! I’ll get to it!
Q: Why did you choose to plant it in that particular spot?
A: I took a scientific approach. First, I narrowed it down to an outdoor location based on the fact that I have indoor cats, and coffee plants are toxic to cats. Then I decided to plant it in the ground rather than, say, the roof, because I read somewhere once that plants grow better in dirt.
Q: What about sunlight?
A: I planted it during the day, when the sun was shining, because it would have been harder to see what I was doing if I’d planted it at night, in the dark.
Q: You’re not very good with plants, are you?
A: Define “good”.
Q: Let me rephrase that. Why do plants fare so much worse than cats under your care?
A: Cats are far more proactive about making their needs and desires known.
Q: Did you just say “proactive”?
A: Sorry.
Q: Is it true that there’s a betting pool on how long the plant will survive?
A: No. For one thing, a pool like that would be impossible to administer — how can you even tell whether a plant is actually dead or just near death?
Q: You’re really not very good with plants, are you?
A: I believe we covered that earlier.
Q: Why do you even have a coffee plant?
A: A friend who had some extra coffee plants gave them away to his coffee-loving friends.
Q: How did your friend come to have extra coffee plants?
A: I try not to ask too many questions.
Unlikely Explanations 
Q’s a bit pushy and judgemental isn’t it? I reckon you did your best, and surely the coffee plant has to take some responsibility for it’s pathetic performance?
That’s the problem with plants these days; they have no sense of personal responsibility.
Haha!!
I found your blog today by searching wordpress for “Gardening” & thought this was hilarious! I’m a cat lover too.. And coffee.. But I actually do love plants. Good luck with this guy. Yours is the first and only coffee plant I’ve actually seen, so it looks all right to me!
I’m still working on finding my “voice” on my blog, so I love finding people who are in their element.. Thanks for the inspiration!
Thanks! I love the idea of gardening; it’s just doing the actual work that trips me up.
When is ‘Q’ going to get the hint? Say, “Q’ is not your mother is she?
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a coffee plant… but, thinking about it, beans come from plants, so there must be coffee plants. Coffee beans do come from coffee plants, don’t they? I’m sorry, you’ve probably had enough questions from Q…
Well, actually … my friend told me it was a coffee plant. I took his word for it, but for all I know, it could be poison oak or something.
You’ve given me a great idea, though — if the plant dies, my excuse will be that coffee plants don’t exist.
I used to have a whole houseful of plants and I methodically killed them off, one by one. I am a serial plant killer. I also used to have a cat. My five year old methodically tortured it to the point of insanity. She is a serial cat-torturer. Love the pictures.