Help! My mom is turning into Martha Stewart!

I. J. Samson
St. John's, Newfoundland

By Tim R. (Grade 9)

Martha Stewart. It's frightening to see her on television six days a week showing anxious people exactly how to bake, make crafts and garden. But, hey, I can still handle that. After all, if I don't want to watch it, which is usually the case, I can turn it off. But now I'm being faced with a new problem. My own mother is turning into Martha Stewart. Before I journey any deeper into my horror story, I just realized that there might be a few aliens who have been living under rocks on Mars for the past few years who don't know who Martha Stewart is. You may not know it yet, but I'm about to ruin your whole life. Martha Stewart is an American woman who is the host of a television show called "Martha Stewart Living". The show is basically Martha teaching the scientific name for every flower under the sun, making computers out of kitchen scraps, and more or less leading a more expensive life.

Martha Stewart is brainwashing my mother. To understand the degree that this has gone, let's take a look around my house. First of all, our basement looks like a marijuana factory. There is such an awesome assortment of herbs and dried flowers that, if you dare to venture down there, you will certainly wind up stinking of mint and covered in petals and basil. Another section of the basement contains jars of salsa, jams, and bottle of home-made vinegar. I admit that I enjoy the salsa and jam. Both of these items are quite tasty. The vinegar is another story. Inside every bottles you're guaranteed to find some sort of plant floating around. This makes it look more like a specimen jar rather then a bottle of vinegar. I can see why she hides them in the basement.

Another thing that scares me is the number of potted plants in our house,- Forty-four in total! Most people have six or seven. Living in my house is like living in a forest. You need a machete just to navigate around my kitchen. My house is currently protected by Green Peace and is being considered the only true "Urban Jungle". The exterior of my house is no better. There are ten gardens in the front and back of my house. It is LUNACY! In the summer, my mother's life revolves around them. She's either planting, weeding, watering, digging or nagging my father to make her a new garden.

She also enjoys decorating pots with stencils, making wreaths out of dried flowers and cooking foods of the world. Her favorite activity of them all however, has got to be watching "Martha Stewart Living". Not only does she watch it every time it comes on, but she also tapes every episode for future use. She has over thirty tapes containing Martha. She even taped over all of my "Earth 2" (I loved that show) episodes! Now I have to hide all of my tapes so they won't become victims of the dreaded Stewart.

My mother was once an ordinary person. Well, as ordinary as a parent can be. But now that she's found Martha, an obsession is taking over. The worst thing about this is that the disease is spreading. She's not only watching Martha Stewart, she now watches Bob Villa, Lennete Jennings and Sue Warden. I think that she will soon be going for a show of her own. So I beg anyone who has a television set to destroy it or your mother, or even you, might start talking to your plants and that, my friends, is not a good thing.

This is a link for a very cool page all about the dreaded Martha Stewart Disease.

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