It's sooooo easy

I confided to a friend recently that I was thinking of growing some herbs indoors. That way, I figured, if they failed to grow—as they inevitably would, given my decidedly un-green thumb—no one would witness my ineptitude. Except the Hero, and he is used to there being, one day, something green and flourishing in the house, and the next day it appearing as if I'd neglected it for several months.

I admit that part of my interest in growing herbs was for the cute little pots I could pick out to grow them in. Maybe little terra-cotta pots, identical, all lined up on the windowsill. Or maybe an eclectic, colorful collection of shabby chic containers. And during the year or so that it would take me to find exactly the pots I wanted, cottage cheese containers.

But my friend was frowning. "Herbs can be tricky indoors," she said.

My courage plummeted. I had already been tasting the basil.

"Do you have a sunny window?" she asked. "They need sun."

I do have a sunny window, I told her, but it is also a cold and drafty window.

Her frown deepened, and she pursed her lips. In her mind, I could tell, the plants were already dead, and I hadn't even bought them yet. My dreams about colorful shabby chic pots slowly started to fade.

She asked about sun outdoors. I said we used to get plenty of sun in the back, until the trees around us had suddenly shot up and were now threatening to grow into the house. Except in the front, I said. Lots of sun there, and our neighbors grow things in pots.

Immediately her face cleared. "You could grow herbs in a pot. Herbs are easy."

I quaked. Herbs are easy.

Has anyone ever been comforted by someone else saying, "It's so easy"? People who say this are, of course, well-meaning. They know that you are hesitant to try whatever it is, and so they mean to prop you up by convincing you that the task is quite within your reach; after all, anyone could accomplish it.

It turns out that anyone can, except you.

Sometimes the well-meaner even attempts to explain how the task is done, or to show you, by means of expansive hand gestures or diagrams or actually doing it for you. This is supposed to give you that last little push into the Land of I Can Do It.

Scientific studies*, however, show that the more a person tries to convince you of the ease of accomplishing something—"A blowfish could do it"—the more certain you become of your inevitable ineptitude at the task. At this point your efforts are doomed, proving that you are actually less competent than a blowfish.

For all that, I might just try the herbs-in-a-pot-outside thing. Just as soon as I can find a cute container.

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*If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you are probably familiar with the type of scientific studies** we cite here.

**Nonexistent ones.