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I bought a pineapple guava plant through the mail.

I was lured by promises of tropical beauty and exotic flavor.

It was around midnight, and I had fallen down an internet rabbit hole of off-the-beaten-path edible shrubs, vines, and other fantastical fruits.

My eyes locked onto pineapple guava and I was mesmerized.

Apparently, the petals of this one taste like marshmallows or cotton candy. The fruit is described as a combination of pineapple, apple, and mint. WHAT???

I barely even checked Dave’s Garden to see if the seller was legit.

I mean, I did, but I barely did.

I had to have it.

A few days later, it arrived. I was so excited, I even filmed myself unboxing it.

Aside: I only recently heard of unboxing. Apparently people watch other people take things out of its packaging on YouTube A LOT. I’m not sure what that’s about. Did you all know this?

The plant looked great. It looks great. It’s right next to me in my kitchen/office as I follow the instructions and let it get used to me, I mean, my climate, for a few days.

Meanwhile, yesterday I went out to the space in the garden where I decided it would go and started to get the spot ready.

I garden in a small, suburban space, so something else would have to depart in order to fit it in. Luckily, that thing is not an edible plant, but a nandina.

It had popped up out of nowhere and loved the spot, so it’s been getting rather large, fast. It wasn’t easy to dig it out, and I had to do a lot of hopping on the shovel and root-busting to pry it out of the ground and haul it up into the wheelbarrow.

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After I did that, I kept digging around the spot to get out some of the remaining roots from a nearby crepe myrtle that won’t give up the ghost.

In the process I did something bad.

I cut my phone line.

I don’t think it’s supposed to be as shallowly situated as it is, only about 3-4 inches below the surface, but whatever. I cut it. I even knew it was there, just momentarily forgot just how close it was. That phone line plagues me wherever I go. Granted, I do a lot more digging around than most suburbanites, but sometimes I think it moves about underground just to dog me. I’ve probably come close to cutting that thing five or six separate times in the past, and I finally really did it.

Just to be sure, I went inside and checked the landline and the computer. No line.

Not one to twiddle my thumbs, I got out my wire strippers and with some effort was able to reconnect three of the four wires, the orange wires, the blue wires and the blue/white wires. The white wire broke off and I didn’t have enough slack to get them to touch.

I went back in the house and lo and behold the phone was working again. I contacted the phone company computerized system and to their credit, I soon got a callback from an actual technician.

He was a little confused.

“You cut your phone line?”

“Yes.”

“But aren’t I talking to you on that phone line?”

“Well, yes . . . ”

Long story short, he fixed it up properly and I have renewed my pledge to dig more carefully in the future.

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Will I stop deliriously ordering plants while I’m half asleep?

Will I successfully grow a single pineapple guava?

I don’t know.

Stay tuned.