A Charlie Brown Ficus

There is a Charlie Brown tree at work.

You know the kind.

Source

It's in a room neither my coworkers nor I spend much time in, but we do go in there to get coffee or tea, or use the microflave. The tree is close enough to that corner of the room that every time I pour myself hot water, I bump the tree.

Unfortunately, despite everyone's fairly close proximity to it, we often forget to water the poor thing; it's been looking a bit crispy.

One coworker stepped into the editing office this week, leaned against the door frame, and muttered, "I think I killed the ficus."

I must confess: Charlie Brown's utterance of "I killed it" was the first thing that came to mind when she uttered that phrase.

We assured her that if it was dead, we were all responsible for not watering it; it was not solely her responsibility to care for it. But it was only in relaying this story to Spousal Unit that I realized how poorly off the poor tree was.

Because every time I pour myself water for tea, I bump into it. And every time I bump into it, a few leaves fall off. And in my mind, I hear the clink of ivory keys (at 1:06).

It's not dead yet, so I've been watering it since then, trying to coax it back. 

Poor tree.