I used to buy a lot of gardening stuff at Rite Aid and CVS (when it was Longs Drug Store). In the last few years, I have noticed that both places seem to cater to people of a certain age who don't really garden anymore (though who that could be, I do not know): lots of plastic lawn chairs, wind chimes, garden statuary, etc....but no gardening equipment, at all. Maybe some Miracle-Gro, but that's it.
I finally went to the local feed and garden store, which is, for me, the ultimate place to participate in my relatively benign addiction, gardening. I asked one of the employees and he reflected a bit.
"Watering cans," he mused, looking off into the distance. "I think there might be one around here."
Mind you, this is a HUGE place, with much more for sale than most. You can even order baby chicks here (the place posts on a chalkboard when the next hatchlings will arrive). You can get cartons of red worms to aerate your garden soil. You can get a giant worm farm, if you want to do it yourself. You can get enough canning supplies to last through the zombie apocalypse. You can get rare Mayan thousand-petal marigold starts and, with the purchase of Lemon Queen sunflower starts, sign up to participate in a bee-observation program (Lemon Queen--which btw is a beautiful, creamy-gold sunflower--was bred specifically to support honeybee populations). You can choose amongst at least ten different types of lavender---but not ONE WATERING CAN.
I did spy one tiny, ceramic, brightly glazed faux-watering-can. It would not suffice because a) it probably contained toxins in the glaze and b) Thistle would destroy it in about three seconds ("Ooops, I dropped it, Grandma"). Plus, it is probably meant to sit rustically in one's garden next to a gazing globe and one of those "Welcome to My Garden" signs with bas-relief butterflies and happily dancing faeries.
Finally, after wandering lost amongst dozens of watering wands, hoses, gardening gloves, seeds, bags of soil and compost, row after row of annuals, perennials, vegetables, and vines, dodging bees in flight and toddlers running wildly up and down the rows, I finally spied one, and only one, plastic watering can. It sat next to a rather bedraggled metal watering can that had definitely seen better days, and which cost nearly forty bucks. I grabbed the plastic one and (along with two starts of Mammoth sunflowers and two packs of pumpkin seeds) and made my way to the counter. I thought I was standing in line when I realized I was standing behind two people engrossed in their smartphones. A kind young woman reached around them and took my purchases from me (and still the two people did not stop texting or whatever they were doing. They are probably there still).
The watering can then caused a great stir. There was no price tag on it. The nice young woman took it and made a grand tour of several employees, trying to price it. Meanwhile, I heard a gentleman loudly talking to a checkout clerk, proclaiming, for some reason, that he was "a law abiding citizen"--a phrase which has the power to turn my stomach still, for personal reasons--but I digress. The negotiation over the watering can continued for some minutes between two managers (you'd think I was trying to sneak out the Hope Diamond for all the energy they put into this). Finally, they lighted on a price: $12.99.
I paid and left quickly, hoping I didn't get jumped in the parking lot by a desperate fellow gardener.
I am using the watering can now to fetch water from Thistle's wading pool each evening to give the garden a drink.
Perhaps I should lock it up at night. Go figure.
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