Strings and the rubber tree
My parents owned a huge rubber tree, which was my mother’s pride and joy. She nursed and cared for him with great devotion, because when she got the rubber tree, it had just two leaves and the previous owner gave it to my mother with the words: “I don’t think he will make it, but wish you good luck!”. Well, what can I say? My mother was lucky, because over the years the little tree turned into a really huge tree! My tomcat Schnurli totally ignored the rubber tree, but one fine day, this changed suddenly…
On that day Schnurli began to dig up the earth of the rubber tree and throw it out of the pot. This became a daily ritual. No matter what my mother and I did, nothing stopped my cat from digging up the earth of the rubber tree. Eventually my mother covered the pot with a net and this showed, to everyone’s great joy, an effect. But this should not last long, as we had to realize some time later!
When I came home from school one day, I saw traces of earth and boulders running right through the apartment… Immediately I looked at the rubber tree and could hardly believe my eyes: Schnurli had “worked” through the net and then dug up the earth with full Katzenelan! This time he had even removed far more soil from the pot than ever before… “Great… Mum won’t be pleased” I thought, fetched a broom and shovel to clear away the dirt. Then I fetched the roll with the net to stretch the pot again. When I took down the destroyed net of the flowerpot and I righted the earth together again, an unpleasant smell got into my nose. As a result I leaned closer and noticed that this “scent” came from the earth of the rubber tree… Therefore I started to shovel the earth out of the pot myself, which naturally aroused the interest of my cat! Schnurli sat next to me and watched my activities with interest.
Under close observation of my hangover, I now exposed the soil of the flowerpot layer by layer. It didn’t take me long to find the cause of the strange smell of the earth: In the lower part of the pot the earth had become too damp and mould had formed, which caused the bad smell… When a few hours later, my mother came home and I told her the matter, she said: “I could have come to that too, because a strange smell had gotten into my nose at the net, but I thought that maybe this had come into the apartment from outside…”. The next day we bought not only new earth, but also a new, larger pot with water bowl. The repotting observed Schnurli with some distance, however, not a second of the happening escaped him…
When we had finished the work, we saw my cat carefully approaching the rubber tree. “Oh dear, here we go again, with him digging up! I’ll get the net…” However, I meant waiting a moment and observing Schnurli’s behaviour. So we wait curiously what my cat would do next: He slowly walked towards the new pot, sniffed at it. Then he stood up to sniff at the new earth. When he had examined and sniffed everything carefully, Schnurli turned around, went into my room and went to sleep. We followed the whole scene in astonishment. “I’ll get the net to be on the safe side,” my mother said. “Wait a minute, maybe we won’t need this anymore!” I said. “All right! But when Schnurli digs up the earth, you put everything away,” she replied severely. I nodded and said, “It’s all right!”
What can I say now, except that I never had to dig up earth again, because Schnurli ignored since the implementation of the rubber tree, this again as ever… ?