# Damn you, Wal-Mart, for selling me a dead plant! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 23, 2005, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757 "2005-07-23T02:41:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/1 "2005-07-23T02:41:59Z")
So I work at Wal-Mart and a month or so ago I was working in Garden Center. They had these cute little “air ferns” in tiny little pots for 3 bucks or so. Apparently they were plants that didn’t need water or anything to survive. My kind of plant. I’m bad with plants, I actually killed a cactus once. But I digress. I took it home and my dad told me that he didn’t think it was real. I figured that it must be real because, come on, it was in garden center with all the other living plants. Therefore one naturally comes to the conclusion that the air fern is also a living plant. But this started to bug me. I mean, it looked like a real, albeit tiny, fern. It even had a kind of musty plant-like smell to it. But I noticed that it had no roots. I conducted an experiment. I pinched off a branch to see if it would turn brown. Two weeks later it’s still green. So I googled “air fern” and that’s when I realized that I’d been duped. Apparently, an “air fern” is NOT a true fern. It is the skeletal remains of a dead marine hydrozoan which has been dyed green. ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/2 "2005-07-23T02:45:07Z")
Anyway, didn’t mean to hit “post” so soon. But I’m pissed! I didn’t pay three frickin’ bucks for a dead marine hydrozoan. Wal-Mart duped me. If I wanted a tiny fake plant I could have gone to another section of the store and bought one for 29 cents! Wal-Mart, you’re so lame. Don’t ever try to pull crap like that on me again. I wasn’t mad enough to make this a pit-worthy thread. Actually, I’m not mad at all. I’m just feeling a little betrayed, thats all. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/3 "2005-07-23T02:51:16Z")
“Air ferns” have been sold in garden shops for decades. Wal-Mart didn’t invent this. I had an air fern more than fifty years ago that my grandmother purchased at the Sears garden shop. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/4 "2005-07-23T03:09:28Z")
Pssst… want some Lucky Bamboo? My old roomie (from WalMart, incidentally, but that’s not important) bought millions of these things, insisting that it was one: Lucky and two: Bamboo. It’s neither. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/5 "2005-07-23T03:24:17Z")
No, no it’s pining for the fjords. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/6 "2005-07-23T03:24:20Z")
If you’re mad at your air fern, you might want to feed it to your pet rock. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/7 "2005-07-23T03:42:20Z")
See, the Lucky Bamboo I have no problem with. I actually have some, and at least it’s a real plant. They didn’t just stick a green plastic pipe in a pot and label it “Lucky Bamboo”. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/8 "2005-07-23T03:47:31Z")
> [@Anastasaeon](#): > > Pssst… want some Lucky Bamboo? > > My old roomie (from WalMart, incidentally, but that’s not important) bought millions of these things, insisting that it was one: Lucky and two: Bamboo. > > It’s neither. Right. Everyone knows it’s something made for the Princess Pat. And enabled her to sail across the Seven Seas and the Channel Two. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/9 "2005-07-23T03:47:52Z")
Me, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![La\_Llorona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@La\_Llorona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/La_Llorona)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/10 "2005-07-23T06:26:45Z")
> [@raz](#): > > the skeletal remains of a dead marine hydrozoan which has been dyed green. Now, that’s what I call an attractive household decoration! Seriously…wow. Thanks for that bit of information. I never knew that! Used to have one of those things myself–should have known there was something fishy about it. Er. So to speak. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![La\_Llorona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@La\_Llorona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/La_Llorona)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/11 "2005-07-23T06:32:04Z")
Oooh, googled “air fern” and came up with [this](http://educate-yourself.org/zsl/meditationaifern11may04.shtml). Come on, don’t pretend you don’t secretly wish you were named Zuerrnnovahh-Starr Livingstone! ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2005, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/12 "2005-07-24T00:58:17Z")
Ok, spill. What is “lucky bamboo”? ---
**Author:** ![partlycloudy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/partlycloudy/32/3114_2.png) [@partlycloudy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partlycloudy)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2005, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-wal-mart-for-selling-me-a-dead-plant/313757/13 "2005-07-24T03:53:58Z")
> [@Anastasaeon](#): > > Pssst… want some Lucky Bamboo? I actually killed one of _those_ things once.