I am a professional. Do not try this at home.

And this is why you should hire me to garden for you.  (I did mention I'm looking for a job, right?)

Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn't Garden - Gene Twaronite (Copyright 2009)

1) Plants die.  This is an indisputable fact, verified many times by independent observers around the world.  No matter how hard you garden or how great your gardening skills, the end result will always be the same.  What is the point of this futile exercise, if your plants are all doomed?

2) Plants grow.  Growing plants require lots more water, fertilizer, deadheading, and pruning.  The bigger the plant, the more work.  Soon you will have no time for anything else.  Is your life so worthless that you would give it all up for a shrub?

3)  Plants don't stop at one.  It is the nature of all living things to make more of themselves.  Before you know it, your garden, not to mention every square inch of your living space, will be awash in baby plants demanding your attention.  You brought them into this world, now you must take care of them.  The happy-go-lucky life you once led is over.

4) Plants attract animals.  The minute a plant pops out of the ground, some animal will find it.  Some will eat your plants.  Some will use them for construction sites or materials.  And some will just trample or pee on your plants.

5) Gardens get noticed.  It starts with an innocent compliment from one of your neighbors about "how nice your pansies look this year", but don't be fooled.  The compliment is a foil to distract you from what your neighbors are really thinking:  that your garden looks like crap and you don't know flowers from a hill of beans.  Pretty soon, your local homeowners' association Gestapo will be paying a visit to inform you that your garden does not meet neighborhood code and to weed it before nightfall or face execution.

6) Plants and gardens are imperfect. and so are you.  Since no plant is perfect and the state of perfection is but an ideal, the attainment of a perfect garden is physically impossible.  You will always feel inadequate and worthless to the task.  There are plenty of other things in life that make you feel this way, so why add one more?

7) Gardens attract thieves and lowlifes.  Your garden and all the plants in it might be so close to perfection, however, that it attracts the wrong kind of people.  They will steal your plants.  They will steal your ideas.  They will steal all your free time by asking you to make a garden for them just like yours.

8) Gardening involves the use of sharp objects.  Though gardening is often described as a gentle pastime, it is quite the contrary.  More often, it is a brutal affair involving lots of cutting, clearing, thrashing, sawing, tilling, and killing.  The books never mention the ugly wounds that can be inflicted by careless use of sharp trowels, not to mention rototillers.

9) Gardening encourages profanity.  At best, gardening is mostly a losing proposition.  You spend all those hours sweating in the hot sun, breaking your back and your fingernails, then planting, weeding, cultivating, and watering your little charges in an unending cycle of toil, only to one day find them all flattened by wind or ravaged by snails.  Though gardeners often claim to be closer to God in their gardens, the words that come out of their mouths at such moments are not exactly fit for God's ears.

10) Gardening causes insanity.  Ask any gardener:  once you start gardening, you never want to stop.  Performing an activity over and over again that always brings the same result -- pain and suffering -- is an unmistakable sign of insanity