A Pal-Tree Understanding Of Plants

(A customer walks up with a dead, five-foot-tall maple sapling at the garden center where I work. It has been cut with a handsaw and has obviously been dead for a least three or four months.)

Customer: “I want a refund! You sold me this tree last summer, but in November the leaves all turned yellow, dried out, and fell off. I want a refund!”

Me: “So, in autumn your tree lost its leaves?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Me: “Sir, broadleaf trees in Canada like this do lose their leaves in the fall and then grow back in the spring. Your tree was just dormant for the winter.”

Customer: “But after the leaves all fell off, I put it in the garage! Now it’s spring, and the leaves aren’t growing back, so it must be defective. I want a refund NOW!”

Me: “When you put your tree into your garage in the fall, how did you get it in there?”

Customer: “I cut it!”

Me: “So, you cut it down and now you want a refund because it’s dead?”

Customer: “I want to speak to the owner!”

(I call the owner, who is a hard-nosed woman in her sixties.)

Owner: “What seems to be the problem, sir?”

Customer: “Yeah, this tree you sold me last year is dead. I want a refund.”

Owner: “Was it alive before you put a saw to it?”

Customer: “Well, it was, and then in November all of the leaves turned yellow and fell off, so I cut it and put it in my garage. Now I want a refund!”

Owner: “Get out of here!”

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