I Never Promised You A Chia Garden

From as far back as I can remember, I always wanted a Chia Pet. As a kid, watching the commercial of the mysterious hand molesting the orange animal and then the awesome time lapse of it turning into a genuine bush, I always thought to myself, "How can it get any better than that?" I would run to my parents after each viewing (if you watched the same stuff I did, you saw this at least once every half hour) begging for a Chia to call my own. Now, Chias weren't technically a toy so they were pretty much off my childhood radar whenever I wasn’t watching TV (my attention span has not improved since then). On top of the fact that I don’t think I've ever actually seen one of these things in a store, any Christmas list making with the Sears WishBook would exclude Chia goodness. Making these post-commercial viewing requests pretty much the full extent of my efforts. And My parents would always respond the same way, “ You’re not going to water it and we’re just going to be left with a crusty piece of pottery on the windowsill.” So it goes. Sufficed to say, I didn’t get one, but the closest I would ever came to Chia fulfillment would come many years later, during my senior year of high school.

Word had gotten out to my then girlfriend about my desire for the Chia and she searched frantically for one for me for Christmas (I know this to be fact because she made me stand outside of the stores while she went in and later told me what she was looking for) though she too came across the same problem of finding no store that carried them. I was touched that someone finally made an effort to get me my lifelong dream and much making out was had.

As time would go on, the commercials became less and less frequent and whenever I did catch it, I would be angered that they swayed from the classic animals and added licensed characters like Looney Tunes and Shrek to the Chia menagerie. The final straw was when they released the “Special Edition” Mr. T Chia, they had become a parody of themselves. What was once a marvel of my youth had become a joke on Conan. I’m sure I felt the same way about this as die hard Rolling Stones fans felt when they heard “Wild Horses” in that Ford commercial. The Chias had sunk to Mick Jagger’s level.

The Chia-P’s have now become closely associated to me with disappointment, whenever I am reminded of the beloved pottery that grows, I think back to the times of watching Woody Woodpecker after school, shootin’ some b-ball, and making out in my old Mercury Sable (sorry, I’ll stop now). The simpler times of youth. Heck, I’d probably be considerably less stressed if I took some time out of my day to water a green, bushy ram that sat on my desk.

About now is when You’re asking yourself what any of this has to do with anything, and rightfully so. My lifelong quest for a chia pet has brought me to where I am today, in hopes that I can seed the pottery of the Internet in order to blossom a pet of my own (man, was it hard to word that to not sound like a bad sexual innuendo). The reason my parents would give me for not getting me one was that I wouldn’t water it and it would just be a waste. They were probably right, I probably never would’ve watered it and there would’ve just been a crusty piece of pottery sitting on the windowsill. Well, I am gonna do my best to water this b-boy and hopefully, it will grow. So, without further ado, I present to you, “thirsty bitch, the bloggery that grows (blows).”

CUE: Growing Pains Theme.