A Note to Not Forget

Once there was a girl named Ruthie Anne, who was a kind and honest person, but exceptionally forgetful. Talking to her friend Ramona one day, Ruthie Anne was asked to care for her plant for the weekend while Ramona was visiting her grandmother. Ruthie Anne assured Ramona that Fuzzy (the plant) would be safe with her. Like a mother, Ramona brought the plant over to Ruthie Anne’s house and told her to make sure that the plant got plenty of water and was put in a cool shady area. She also mentioned that Fuzzy needed an hour of play time every day or he would get lonely. After Ramona left, Ruthie Anne decided that a nice cool place would be the refrigerator, so she set the plant on the top shelf among the ketchup bottle, strawberry jam, and leftover casserole and proceeded to enjoy her fun- filled weekend without giving another thought to Ramona’s poor plant, which sat in the refrigerator the rest of the weekend freezing and without a single drink of water or tenderness.

On Monday afternoon Ramona arrived to pick up Fuzzy. “Oh No!” Ruthie Anne thought when she remembered that she hadn’t even glanced at Fuzzy for the whole weekend. Grimacing slightly, Ruthie Anne led Ramona to the refrigerator and slowly opened it up. Cautiously she looked into the refrigerator and saw that Fuzzy, who was amazingly still alive, had turned bright magenta and had grown long vines with leaves that were moving creepily as if dancing. Ruthie Anne hollered, “Jumping Jaguars!” and threw her hand over her mouth in shock. She couldn’t believe it. “If only I had remembered, this never would have happened” she thought frantically. “What will I tell Ramona?”

Holding the door wide open for Ramona to see, Ruthie Anne flinched as Ramona gazed into the refrigerator, eyes as big as tennis balls, and her jaw dropped. “I’m so sorry,” Ruthie Anne moaned. “I never meant for this to happen.”


Suddenly Ramona’s face cleared and she exclaimed, “Don’t be sorry. This is fantastic! And Fuzzy’s sure never been so happy in his life!” With that, she ecstatically snatched up the peculiar looking plant, who immediately wrapped his long vines around her in a hug, and raced out the front door. Ruthie Anne sighed in relief. The next month Ramona entered Fuzzy into the “Most Exotic Plant” contest where he won the first place gold medal! Ramona loved Fuzzy even more than before! Although everything had turned out for the best, Ruthie Anne decided that she was going to work on improving her forgetfulness problem by using sticky notes.