“Have you ever tried to find a like one inch wide ball of moss in an overgrown lawn?”

I have a new moss friend. Last week there was a little, um — I went out on the porch, and this perfect little moss ball had fallen off the roof. Like a little, little, like, moss island. It was dirt on the underside. It was flat — like flat dirt on the underside or — who knows if it’s dirt. It’s probably like part of our roof that’s broken down, because our roof needs to be replaced. And then it was this little rounded, like, hill of moss on the top side. And I set aside — because I was like, I don’t want to bring it in until I have like the stuff to take care of it. Like you need a, a — I wanted to get a cup with a narrow top so that the, the moisture would stay in there, and I still need to get a spritz bottle and some, um — oh, what’s the word? — distilled water. 

I have it inside now. Because what happened — I set it aside to the edge of the porch because I was like, “I don’t wanna bring it in until I have stuff to take care of it, so it doesn’t — I don’t just bring it in and kill it.” And then my son, who’s eight, he, um, he was leaving to go with his grandma, and he was like, “{Gasp} Look at that!” And you know, of course being, being eight, he just like went and picked it up and I, I didn’t want him to, to, to touch it and damage it. Like, cuz he’s, he’s a lovely child, but he’s also like an accidental force of destruction. Um, so I was like, “Put it down!” which in hindsight is not how I should have reacted, like, at all in any way. I should have been calm and been like, “Please, child, put that thing down carefully.” Instead, I freaked out and he thought that, um — cuz mommy has germ issues. And he thought that I was freaking out because there was something like dirty or germy about it. And so he didn’t wanna put it down on the porch because we don’t wanna put dirty things down on the porch. So he threw it.

And he threw it out into the lawn. Have you ever tried to find a like one inch wide ball of moss in an overgrown lawn? It’s hard. And my mom was like, “It went right there” and I went right there and I was like, “There is nothing here.” And I don’t know — in her defense, like an animal might have moved it. Like an animal might have gone and picked it up and moved it. Like, that’s conceivable. But it was nowhere near where she said it was. I looked for like maybe 10, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I went out a couple times and didn’t spend very long because it just felt hopeless. The third time I went out though, like days later, I was like, “Ah, you know, it’s Sunday now. I have nothing better to do. I might as well go out there and look for that moss ball.” Um, and I went out there and I found it! I found the moss ball and I was so excited and I brought it in and I stuck it in a cup. Now it’s my friend and its name is Wendell.