As anyone who has ever crossed an inanimate object will know, you can rarely win. And as for a cactus, well you can never win. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. It’s like a rule.
1. Pain. Let’s start with the basics. Cacti hurt. Get physical with one and it’ll prick you, get verbal with it and it will blank you. A cactus is indestructible. You can never win.
2. Madness. If you do decide to persist with the Steve Waugh mental disintegration tactic you will go mad. It won’t snap. It won’t wilt under the pressure. It will just stand there, Rahul Dravid-like, and make you look like a complete numb nuts. Your only option will be to out live every single person on the planet. Only that way will people never know that you lost the one-sided argument. You can never win.
3. Arnie. No, this is not a strange fact about Arnold Schwarzenger and his collection of cacti. It is simply a philosophy shared by both a cactus and the Terminator. It’ll be back. Always. You can attack it with a saw, try and drown it in molten aluminium, urinate on it, whatever. The simple truth is that it will always come back. It’ll grow again. It’ll break out of its metal shell. It’ll thrive in your urea. The cacti will never die. You can never win.
4. Terminator 2. Say you do take a junior hacksaw to it – or a pair of jeans falls down from where they are hanging, knocks the cactus off the table and causes the impact with the floor to snap it in half – not only will the cactus regrow, you’ll then have to deal with the cactus owner. And if the owner received the cactus from her grandparents some ten years ago and has been growing it without any problems since, you may just wish you were arguing with a cactus at the Chelsea Flower Show. You can never win.
5. Appearances. As anyone who has met Marc can testify, the image of him on the 7 Reasons sofa defies just how big his feet actually are. In other words, appearances can be deceptive. The small, furry looking cacti may look small and furry, but they’re not. They’re like packs of Persil. Small, but mighty. You can never win.
6. Keep Your Friends Close, But Your Enemies Closer. As demonstrated above, some cacti have friends. It is clear what has happened here. Some bright spark has thought about taking a cactus out with their car. (As in they tried to destroy it with their car, not they were taking it for a ride down to the local shops). Big mistake! Suddenly, out of no where, he’s surround by dozens of FOCers (that’s Friends Of Cacti). One sets you on fire and the other uproots said cactus and runs after you determined to turn you into a porcupine. You can never win.
7. Be Cruel To Be Kind. In my experience, arguing with the cactus did little to help me but did an immense amount of good for the cactus. All it needed was for the cactus owner to see me growling at the thing and a small watering-can was thrust into my hand. “If you’re going to stand there all day then you can water it. And when you’ve finished that you can do the others.” See, you can never win.
