Magic Bean

This July when the granddaughters were visiting me, they each bought a little gift for themselves from a tourist-type shop. The youngest, Olivia, bought a metal can full of vermiculite and what looked like a pear pit. The can called it “The Magic Bean”.

Well, it wasn’t all that magic, at least at first. The bean simply sort of began to rot as Olivia dutifully watered the can each day. When they were readying to leave, her mother promised I would look after magic bean and bring it to their house when I next visited in the fall.

Eventually I got the “bean” headed in the right direction and it began to sprout. I left it in a sunny corner of the kitchen and it climbed up the leg of a small table next to it. I re-potted it into a clay pot and gave it a little fertilizer.

It climbed up the table and headed for the side door, determined it seemed to exceed my expectations in a straggly, weedy sort of manner.

When I packed to visit this week I unwound magic bean from the table and the doorway and put it in a place of prominence on the floor of the passenger seat of my truck.

Magic bean and I arrived in a cold rain. The next day we all proceeded from the cab of the truck to the house and a nice shelf in the big hallway with lots of light and re-wrapped magic bean around a metal display rack. Olivia was thrilled.

The next day magic bean was minus most of one leaf. On Saturday, we discovered the cat, Emerson, eating two other magic leaves. At this rate, magic bean would be stripped bare in a week. We moved it higher on the rack.

Daughter Jessica was the first to notice how relaxed Emerson seemed that evening. Positively blissed out. Laying around at the foot of the rack looking up with a big shit eating grin.

Now I know the Chinese have exported some amazing things to the U.S. I’ve been to WalMart. But you don’t think they would dare to put that in a can and sell it to kids as “Magic bean”, do you?