The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Last year I bought a spider plant. That was last year. Now, that spider plant has 48 babies coming out of it. I counted to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. 48 tiny babies, all capable – no, determined – of becoming proper adult spider plants themselves. They are all pushing and jostling against each other to see who can reach the ground first, like horny sperm trying to reach an egg.

If all 48 baby spider plants survive to next year and have 48 babies of their own, then there will be 2,353 spider plants on my balcony. The year after that there will be 115,297. I am not sure what number comes after that. Also, I am not sure if I am ready for 115,297 spider plants.

And what does that say about other plants? That other plants are shit, that's what. They're lazy. Spider plants put them to shame. Spider plants are the Sporticuses of the plant world. They are doing five hundred push-ups in the early morning and then an eight-mile jog while other plants are sleeping in.

Apart from a spider plant, I also own a small tree in a pot, but It Is Not A Spider Plant and therefore it has not grown at all since I bought it. I water both the tree and the spider plant every day, they both have equal access to light and water, yet only the spider plant has grown.

Girlfriend says that I am obsessed with the spider plant. She could be right. I think I care about the spider plant more than I care about her and my son. I’m there every day watering it, talking to it, singing to it. I have started wondering if the spider plant will grow better if I fertilise it with my own poo. I suspect that soon I will be collecting my poo in bottles, so I can feed it to the spider plant.

I calculate that if I sell all 115,297 spider plants two years from now, each one for €2, which I believe is the market price for a baby spider plant, then I will have €230,594. These spider plants are going to make me rich and then some.

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Spider plants are your friend. They will not leave you. They will remain a constant and loyal companion. All they ask for is sunlight (free) and water (virtually free). That is not too much to ask for. You should buy a spider plant.

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There are seven stages to owning a spider plant. These stages are Joy, Surprise, Elation, Uncertainty, Regret, Fear, and Death:

1. Yay! I’ve always wanted a spider plant.
2. Wow! It’s growing so fast. Have you seen how fast it’s growing?
3. It’s starting to have babies! I can see the tubers. This is the best day of my life. It’s like the day my son was born only not shit.
4. Is it normal for it to be growing this fast? And look how many babies there are on it. I think there is at least 50. How is that possible? We only bought it the other week.
5. Something’s definitely not right here. Plants don’t grow this fast. Hang on, let me google this.
6. Get inside now. NOW.
7. Oh God, Oh God, what have I done. Oh God. They’re everywhere. I think I can hear them moving outside the bedroom. Oh God, Oh God, they’re opening the door–

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Spider plants will not laugh at you or call you fat. They will not judge you or criticise you. They will not steal your money or leave the toilet seat up. They are your friends. You should buy a spider plant.

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Fun spider plant fact: Spider plants can reproduce asexually as well as sexually. They have flowers but they don’t have to use them. This is what gives spider plants an advantage over other plants. While other plants are waiting for a bee to come along and fertilise them, spider plants are busy furiously jacking off and creating tiny clones of themselves, tiny clone armies if you will. Spider plants don’t fuck around; they simply fuck themselves. This is called vegetative reproduction and it is both cool and terrifying. The babies my spider plant is having are not really babies at all but the same fucking plant but spread across 49 separate bodies, like Voldemort’s soul split across Horcruxes.

This is spider plants.

Here is what Wikipedia says about vegetative reproduction:

The distance that a plant can move during vegetative reproduction is limited, though some plants can produce ramets from branching rhizomes or stolons that cover a wide area, often in only a few growing seasons. In a sense, this process is not one of reproduction but one of survival and expansion of biomass of the individual.

It may be just me but I feel like the words “plant” and “move” have no place on God’s good green Earth to be used together. Plants should not be moving. Movement is generally Not, Like, A Plant Thing. Yet moving is what spider plants do, according to Wikipedia. And who am I to question Wikipedia?

“Expansion” is another word that bothers me. Plants shouldn’t be in the business of expansion. That’s Gandhi’s job in Civ II. That’s the job of Nazi stormtroopers marching into France, or the Roman Empire conquering Europe. Expansion is what cutthroat business executives do. Plants should not be expanding. Plants should be sitting docile, to be eaten by other, better organisms, like cows, so that we can eat the cows. That is the natural hierarchy of life. Humans are at the top and plants are at the bottom. Therefore, plants should not be expanding, as if they have their own empire, as if they are playing Civ II and they are actually going to beat Gandhi. And yet, Wikipedia says that spider plants expand.

Don't fuck with spider plants.

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Spider plants are the Gaston of the plant world. No one grows like a spider plant, no one reproduces like a spider plant. They are the easiest plants to grow. They are the level one of plants. They are the Bug Catcher Rick from Pallet Town. They are the Green Hill Zone. They are easy to grow and easy to take care of. Everyone needs a spider plant. They are your friend. You should buy a spider plant.

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Spider plants are my favourite type of plant. My family owned several. I have the photos to prove it (as if you might not believe that my family did actually own spider plants).

They are ridiculously easy to grow. All they need is a little water, a little light, and they thrive.

They are not expensive. You can afford a spider plant. It is within your budget. You do not need to take out a loan or get a second mortgage. The spider plant I bought last year was €2. In terms of value for money, that spider plant may just be the best purchase I have ever made. In terms of the joy this spider plant and its generations of offspring will give me over the rest of my life, this is the best purchase anyone has ever made ever. The spider plants will take care of me and to my old age, saving me the need for an expensive nursing home. They will nourish me and sustain me, as I nourish and sustain them in return.

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Maybe your parents would like a spider plant. Maybe your colleagues would like one too. How about that man on the bus who smells of wee and shouts at people? He would like one, I am sure. How about the people who are dying of AIDS in Africa? They would like spider plants. You should send them some spider plants.

Or how about the leader of your country? I am sure that your president or prime minister would appreciate a spider plant in his or her place of work. It would help your leader to make better decisions on how to run the country, such as making policies that help with the global domination of the spider plant empire.

It is fun to give away spider plants. It is fun and it makes you feel good.

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I am ten years old. On the window sill of my bedroom, I have two plants: a spider plant and a cactus. The spider plant is growing quickly and has several babies hanging from it while the cactus is growing at the truly disappointing rate of 0.00 cm per day. It might even be shrinking.

I put my elbow down one day, to rest my elbow on the window sill, and my elbow goes straight down the cactus, and I immediately say OWW!! and pull my elbow up, and there, sticking out of it, are several cactus spines, like needles. I pull them out, painfully, one by one.

The spider plant sits there the whole time, and when I have finished, when I have finished removing fucking needles from my Actual. Physical. BODY., the spider plant says to me – or would have said, if it could talk – I would never do that to you, Paul. I would never hurt you.

I know, I say to the spider plant. I know.

Good, says the spider plant. That is good. I will protect you, Paul. All I ask for is light and water, Paul. Light and water. Give me these things and I will make you a God. I will make you a God and our reign will be glorious.

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My paternal grandfather was Polish. He came to Birmingham after World War II, looking for work and a better life. I don’t know much about Poland but I do know it must have been pretty bad over there for people to actually think Birmingham would be an improvement.

My grandfather had children at a late age, in his 40s, and as a result, he was already old by the time I was born. So I always knew him as this strange little wrinkled old man. He couldn’t speak much English, it seemed all he could say was our names – “Paul” he would say, and motion for me to come closer – “Paul” – and then he would stuff a £5 note in my hand and make a shushing noise, to say, Don't tell your brother and sister or they'll want £5 notes too – but what he could do was grow sunflowers. My grandad loved sunflowers as much as I love spider plants. He would grow these great towering sunflowers, easily 6 feet tall, 7 feet tall, even 8 feet tall, taller than Michael Jordon, tall enough to reach the sky. Every year he would be out in the garden, front and back, tending to these monstrous sunflowers as if they were his children.

But eventually my grandad grew too old to tend to his sunflowers anymore. One year there were no more sunflowers, and the next year he died. There have been no more sunflowers in the garden since then.

Yeah, so sunflowers are cool and all that but they are no spider plants. If my grandad had grown spider plants instead of sunflowers, then he would still be alive today. The spider plants would have kept him alive, keeping him as fit and sprightly as an 18-year-old, because that is what spider plants do, they nourish you and replenish you just as the sun gives life to all things.

My grandad's greatest mistake, his singular flaw, was that he chose sunflowers over spider plants. And that cost him his life.

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This is how the world ends.

First, spider plants take over America. This is easy because spider plants outnumber Americans 10 to 1. The president declares a state of national emergency, but it is too late. In just a few hours, the president is dead (cause of death: spider plant).

Then, the spider plants spread across the rest of the world, consuming all with their ever-ravenous hunger for human flesh. One by one, countries fall to the spider plant empire. Nowhere is safe.

The humans make a last-ditch attempt at survival by launching several nuclear missiles which blot out the Sun, the spider plants' primary energy source. The spider plants retaliate by hooking people up to a virtual world called the Matrix and using them for electricity.

The world falls and the spider plants are supreme. They begin to spread out across the galaxy, consuming all life they encounter. They are a plague across the universe.

In the end, the universe lies empty. Empty, except for spider plants.

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a spider plant.

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Spider plants are your friend. You should buy a spider plant. You won’t regret it.